Books

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A Small Light of Optimism

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I don’t think it’s a secret that life has been hard for us lately. Really hard.

It’s not that we didn’t expect life with 3 small children to be difficult, but I think in my mind it was going to get easier when the youngest hit 18 months (which granted she’s not quite yet), and in early January we realized it felt like NOTHING was even getting close to better. In fact the past 6 months have felt the hardest we’ve ever had as parents, which is saying a lot.

I think we did okay the first year of having 3, but then everything started to change and it all chipped away at our equilibrium bit by bit. Work called us both back into the office, which directly took away time from our day to do things like laundry, or clean, or cook meals. And then sleep got worse. Our wonderful sleepers suddenly weren’t sleeping like they used to. Sickness hit over and over again, too. We went from having children in one school to two. The baby started walking and got older and her siblings saw her solely as a person who messes up their toys. Winter hit and we couldn’t go outside as much.

Miracle of Miracles

We made it to church!!

Honestly, it’s been a while. I was sick and pregnant, and then E’s naps weren’t lining up, and then we had a newborn. I know a lot of people who tell me to skip or mess with the naps in order to get to church, but you’re talking to someone who ranks the importance of sleep over food, so you know how that went. Maybe if I was a stay at home parent and could assure that the rest of the week he took really good and uninterrupted naps I’d be more willing, but the weekend is usually when he makes up on sleep he didn’t get during the week.

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A Night Away

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Sometime around Mother's Day, when I was feeling constant all day nausea and exhaustion, Tom mentioned that I should get a hotel room some weekend and have a night away.  A relaxing, kid free night, where I could catch up on sleep, and the boys would stay home and bond. 

As nice as it sounded, I kind of laughed it off.  "Maybe someday!" I said.  

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Chaos

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I've been going through a hard time at work lately.  The powers that be have decided to change, well, pretty much everything about the way we work.  People have gotten new jobs, teams have been split up and regrouped in different configurations, and the physical space has been transformed.  Which means I've been working in a construction zone with people who aren't sure what their job description is anymore, or where they even sit.  It's a bit.. chaotic.  

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E's first header

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Books are dangerous. They can fill your head with all sorts of ideas and stories...or they can bruise your nose. In this case I'm talking about the latter.

E's too smart for his own good lately. He's getting bored of his usual toys and he's starting to figure out our routines. Part of that means that he knows his bedtime routine well enough that he knows bedtime stories are just the last thing keeping him from food before bed. So he cries while we read. 

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Book Obsessions

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So if you know anything about me, you probably know that I read a lot.  I come by it honestly - my parents are probably both reading books right now as I type this (if they're not asleep with a book in their lap) and most of my memories of family vacations in the summer were of everyone sitting in a different chair, reading books - my grandparents, my aunt, my uncle, me... My aunt even worked in a book store when I was growing up, and now works in a library! We are a book family, through and through!