Life right now

Sometimes it’s fun to kick it old school and just blog a little snapshot of a day in the life, you know?

Or maybe it’s just me. I like reading those kinds of posts, seeing a little glimpse of the life of the blogger whose words I so enjoy.

I’ve shared less about my kids in this space lately, and it’s mostly intentional but partly just a product of the busy season we’re in. Right now I’m sitting in my favorite local coffee shop enjoying a couple of precious and uninterrupted hours, and sipping a really good cappuccino. Like Roman good. I asked the girl if the advertised “traditional cappuccino” was a new drink for them, and she told me it had just been hiding on the menu all this time. I enthusiastically ordered one up, becoming, she told me, the third person to ever do so. So it sounds like they’re gonna be big sellers. But it’s small and perfectly proportioned and actually tastes like a cappuccino, not like a foamy latte in a 500 calorie bath of whole milk.

Mmmm.

This morning I scattered fruit snacks around a Shining Light St. Patrick doll (thanks, Chantal!) the last of the stash that our kids were given when I hosted a giveaway for them back in the Fall. I was proud of myself for remembering that I’d tucked the good bishop away in a box until 11pm last night when I dug him up, along with the aforementioned “snacks fruit,” as Evie calls them, and made the least impressive centerpiece for the breakfast table ever. They were thrilled though. Because kids don’t know what Pinterest is.

I have all kinds of crazy projects and ideas swirling around in my brain, but I don’t seem to have the same amount of time available to execute on much beyond my regular blogging and keeping diapers on people’s butts. I think I’m approaching that phase of motherhood where your days are blurred by the pace of constant activity and pivoting and refocusing and then it’s 9:14 pm and you’re dropping into a puddle of exhaustion on the couch and trying to decide between dishes, laundry, or “just a quick episode of House Hunters and some mindless internet scrolling.”

10:46 pm: oops…

It’s good though. Life with 4 kids is surprisingly good. Yesterday I took them to chicfila because I can’t remember, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and everyone was pretty well behaved and I didn’t have to pull Genevieve out of the play structure (another mom was already up there, score) and then Luke projectile vomited the entire contents of a baby food pouch into my hands and all over his carseat. And after I threw a pile of useless non absorbent papery napkins on top of him I just started laughing and snapping pictures, because why not?

He’s almost 19 fat pounds at 7 months old, so I’ve been meaning to swap him to a convertible carseat soon anyway. He just forced (and soaked) my hand.

Joey, 5.5 years old, surprised me and the nurses’ assistant at our doctor’s office yesterday by proceeding to do mental math as he was having his vitals recorded during our visit. She and I exchanged shocked expressions over his platinum head as he started reciting “5+4 is 9, 3+3 is 6, 1+7 is 8…” it was crazy. Because I had no idea he even knew what addition was. And, when pressed, neither did he. 

Montessori for the win.

John Paul has decided that he’s going to be a priest when he grows up, and it’s completely adorable because about 40% of the time he clarifies that statement with “or an astronaut.” At bedtime he prays for the following people, in this order: “everybody in the world, everybody in Purgatory, everyone in Heaven (<—and he won’t be dissuaded from that), everybody I know, everybody in a rocket ship, and everybody on the International Space Station.”

Yes, son, that about covers it.

Joey also has a vocation, which makes me a proud mother indeed. It’s to football. He tells me “God is calling me to tackle people down. I have a vocation to tackling.”

Evie, now 27 months old, is my first true taste of the terrible twos. It’s more like terribly funny, but other times it’s actually terrible. Last night I texted daddy some smoke signals about bedtime antics and how she was writhing like a speared eel in distress. I stand by that observation. Yesterday afternoon I caught her nearly naked, sitting on the counter with her guilty paws in the coffee grinder (super safe), licking espresso grounds off her fingers.

I cannot imagine, for the life of me, where she comes by her expensive and exotic tastes.

She’s also ready to potty train, and I won’t tell you exactly how she’s demonstrated that to me, but rest assured that it has been repeatedly and publicly demonstrated, and I think that God used her the other night to confirm a friend’s religious vocation when we were relaxing after a nice dinner with their community and she raised a single finger to show him something she found incredibly interesting.

I, however, am not yet sufficiently psyched up to cross that damp and filthy bridge. Maybe in the spring thaw.

I whipped up this little graphic this morning after reading the whole of St. Patrick’s famous breastplate poem, and realizing that I’d mostly ever only read pieces of it. I thought this section was powerful.

I hope the luck of the Irish steers every one of you away from green beer tonight and towards a well poured Guinness or a fine pint of Murphy’s.

Slainte!