family tree paper craft

Here are a few not-great images of a beautiful family tree my SIL made for me. I love it!

Walmart: a complicated relationship

The Saturday before Easter I found myself once again in The Crappiest Place on Earth determined to "make it quick" and come home with my soul intact. All three (3! still get a thrill when I say it) kids were with me so it was of course 2 hours to buy 15 items. We spent many dozens of minutes looking for the elusive Tech Deck Trick Bike and still more time looking for a salesperson. No matter, at least we had this carefully curated selection of mini license plates to cheer us (we celebrated this find with a punctuation lesson).

And who doesn't love a pair of googly eyes on a toddler?

I loathe Walmart and yet find myself there at least once a month. Target is 20 minutes away. Walmart has such good prices on diapers. Sometimes I need pillows and raspberries in the same shopping trip. These are the reasons I tell myself for shopping there. The guilt and shame remain, however. The guilt and shame remain.

submarine

Most mornings at 3 a.m. you will find me in the Tiny Woman's nursery feeding her. Some nights it's 1 am, 3 am, 5 am, etc., but we're usually down to one nighttime feeding (yes!). I try my very hardest to stay as close as possible to half-asleep in the hopes that I will fall back asleep more easily. The only light in the room comes from the weak blue glow of the power button on the white noise machine in the corner.  It's one of those multi-function bits of infant technology that my ancestors would probably mock if they were around. I'm fully aware of the fact that entire families used to share a room (or even a bed full of itchy straw or something) and somehow managed to still get up and plant turnips in the morning.

Anyway, we use this machine every night and it has become part of the bedtime routine. It features several noise settings meant to mimic the sounds of the womb. I always wonder how accurate these settings are because one of them honestly sounds like Hong Kong during rush hour. (I swear there's honking noises in there and maybe some Chinese swears.) My setting of choice has a heartbeat-like sound and a sort of waves-on-the-beach background.  Occasionally there is also a faint pinging noise, like that of a submarine in an old movie. Bathed in the blue light, navigating the dark nursery with my eyes half-closed I'm a sort of sub-marine traveler myself, with Tiny Woman as First Mate. If you're going to be up half the night you should have a companion.

my hiatus

So I have neglected this blog for many months. I had a few legitimate reasons.  Exhibit A:  nearly full-time job as an assistant high school librarian.  I really loved, REALLY loved that job, but, sadly, it didn't pay well enough for me to stay there and afford day care for Exhibit B: 

Tiny Woman!  Born on November 15, 2012. A wonderful little baby. We're having so much fun together... At all hours of the day and night. My favorite moments with her are bathtime, tummy time (love the pencil neck look of little babies as they try to hold up their enormous noggins), and the exquisitely funny look on her face when I try to feed her and she's not particularly hungry.  Something like, "Oh, really, no! I just couldn't eat another bite!"

After 13 solid years in LegoNerfMinecraftHotWheelsSkateboard Land I finally have someone to watch Downton with! She doesn't really seem to care much about the social structure of England during WWI but she'll learn, she'll learn.