eighteenth

Number 18 ...

The cuckoo clock that we have hanging in our mocha brown dining room.



My father bought this for us during Christmas in 2005.

I love this little clock, as do the children.



As for Charlie, well ... it drives him a little cuckoo.

seventeenth

Number 17 ...

Closets, before ...



And after.



Pardon the picture quality ... the cost for repairing my Nikon after it's very unfortunate drop on asphalt by a little girl who is lucky to be so adorable ... is actually more than the cost of the camera. So until such time that I have a replacement - all pictures are courtesy my iPhone which doesn't do so well in low light.

These closets are so unbelievable nice - low light pictures don't come close to capturing their niceness. When we were looking to put in an offer on this house, one of the biggest downfalls was the size of the closets (and bathrooms) which were SO MUCH SMALLER than our closets (and bathrooms) in California. But what we've since convinced ourselves of is how many clothes does a person really need, and how much time are they spending in a bathroom?

In my opinion, the builders of 50+ years ago really put the "space" emphasis in the right place. I'd take larger bedrooms and living spaces over large closets and bathrooms any day of the week. Besides now that we've got these closet organizers, the shelves are adjustable and I suddenly have more room than I know what to do with.

Alright, that's not entirely true ... but it's so much better than I ever thought possible.



Charlie says it's like living at the GAP where everything is so perfectly organized. I said, "That's right. NOW DON'T MESS IT UP."

sixteenth

Number 16...

We love trees. So it was very difficult for us to make the decision to cut down eight trees when we first moved in to this house. But, some of the trees - albeit beautiful - were so large and blocked so much of the house, that it made things feel dark and cave-ish inside. Also, when the children were out riding their bikes on the driveway, I couldn't see them through the forest that was our front yard, so it was also a bit of a safety issue for us.



My brother, Wally, has a tree removal service in Massachusetts and once he became the father of twin boys ... and then another baby boy, less than two years later... he decided to rename his business to "My Tree Sons."

If I ever had a tree removal service company, I think I'd name it, "Timber!"

As in ... Timber!!



TIM...









... BER!!!




What I thought was very unusual is that these guys didn't say TIMBER! once. I thought that was something that all tree cutters said? (Note to self, ask Wally if he yells TIMBER!) I said "TIMBER!" a lot. During the time that the crew was hard at work in our yard, I couldn't suppress one of my favorite Monty Python songs of all time.

Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK I sleep all night and I work all day!



I cut down trees.
I eat my lunch. I go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays I go shoppin'
And have buttered scones for tea!



I cut down trees. I skip and jump.
I like to press wild flowers.
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars!



Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK I sleep all night and I work all day!

I cut down trees. I wear high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra.
I wish I'd been a girlie,
Just like my dear Papa!



I never knew just how DANGEROUS tree removal work was, until I witnessed this crew at work.

I also never knew just how EXPENSIVE tree removal work was, until they charged us the equivalent of a brand new (albeit small Yugoslavian) car in service fees.

fifteenth

My goal is to post fifteen posts today, about random things we've done to the house over the past year.

Yep, that's right, I've published 14 posts thus far this month and I need to do some serious catching up if I stand any chance of meeting my goal of publishing 31 posts during the month of August. Those who know me, know that once I set my mind to something, there's absolutely NO stopping me. Unless, of course, I get really tired or there's chocolate and wine, or a good movie involved.

So brace yourself, there will be a post publishing every hour and a half for the next 24 hours.

To start things off ...

I present: The Ping Pong table.



When we were searching for a new house, we knew that one of the critical criteria was an area that was spacious enough for a ping pong table. In a land, far away, I'd bought one for Charlie years and years ago when we were living in northern California and that table was quite possibly our most valuable possession. Since we had no room in our house - and I was (only slightly) opposed to using it as a dining room table - we put it in the garage.

And oh, there was many a day, I would come home from class or work and find several of our friends (you know who you are) playing ping pong while we were away. So of course, whatever plans I might have had to do something beneficial like study or sleep, were paddled away and I'd have no choice but to spend the rest of the evening whipping my friends' behinds in PONG.

It's really a wonder I ever graduated.

Santa brought us this table, last year. And unlike our ping pong table in college, that was warped and had cup rings all over it from beer pong gone wrong, our new table is actually nice and no one holding a drink is allowed within 15 feet.

Beginning in September, we plan to begin hosting a monthly 'round robin tournament for several of the dads in the neighborhood. Charlie is in need of some "guy" time and this is a great way to make that happen. I'm sure there will be much hooping, hollering and smack talk. But that's what a ping pong table does.

It brings people together.

fourteenth

Fourteen scenes from Hurricane Irene:

The rain starts to softly fall on Saturday morning...



We take a leisurely stroll to survey the situation ...



The winds pick up...



It's a team effort to hold an umbrella down ...



We're one umbrella short ...



Luckily, we've got just enough coverage for two children and one bunny.



We return to the house just in time to see a tree fall down in our backyard. It was dead and needed to come down and since it fell away from the house ... Win! Win!



Thank you, Irene!

Our neighbors didn't fare so well ... this is the very much alive tree that fell across our creek.



And in the distance ... white water!



This has to be at least what ... Class 2?



There were leaves and branches all over the yard and driveway...





Which is great for us since we've been stockpiling wood and kindling for our backyard bonfires from fallen branches.



Hurricane Irene was my third hurricane experience, and in comparison to the first two, it wasn't much more than a heavy rain with some moderate wind. I know that this hurricane packed more of a punch to other areas, so we got off lucky.

When you consider...

My first hurricane experience was the category 5 Hurricane Hugo which hit South Carolina in 1989, during my freshman year in college. Hugo was still a category 2 when it blew across my campus, four hours inland. I'd just finished watching a Monty Python marathon with my best friend, Amy, and I remember walking back to the all-girls dorm with winds so strong that we tried to lean forward and couldn't through the force. By 2 AM, three hours past curfew, we were evacuated from our rooms and sat in the hallways - with what I noticed to be SCORES of boys (many in boxer shorts) who should have been in their own dorms. There's no question those boys had done a quick assessment and recognized that the risk of life or limb was greater if they ventured out in the storm, then if they'd stayed inside and took their chances with the House Mother.

I'll never forget when the eye of the storm passed over us and everything was deathly still. And then, another 10 minutes later, the winds picked up again and it felt like the building was going to collapse. When daylight broke, we saw that massive trees had been uprooted and moved about like toothpicks, roofs had been peeled off buildings, and windows were shattered. We were without electricity for almost a week.

My second hurricane experience was the category 2 Hurricane Bob which hit Boston in 1991. I was visiting Massachusetts enroute to California for my semester exchange when the news came that a hurricane was barreling up the eastern seaboard.

My father had a 50-foot boat at the Charles River Yacht Club at the time and he thought it would be a good idea to go down to the boat and take it out to the middle of the river and throw an anchor so it could swing around, freely. Otherwise, he was afraid that the tidal flux would knock the boat up against the dock and puncture the hull which would then cause the boat to sink and drag the whole dock down with it. My older sister Beth, convinced me to go with him because she didn't want for him to be alone on a boat, on the water, in the middle of a hurricane.

It's a shame, I always though she liked me?

The kids have had a great time this past week, what with an earthquake and a hurricane.



Who knows, maybe next week, there will be locusts!

thirteenth

Thirteen stripes ... and fifty stars.



Seeing as we live in one of the original 13 colonies and every other house has their American flag flying proudly, we were anxious to get our flag up as well. Not just because we are patriotic, but because I have a bit of a flag obsession.

Although this would have been a more appropriate flag for us to have been flying this weekend as Hurricane Irene whipped past our house.



Since hurricane season lasts through the end of November, perhaps I'll order one.

Just in case.

twelfth

Next weekend will mark the 12-month anniversary that we moved in to this house.



It still boggles my mind whenever I think of it ...

We closed on our California house on a Wednesday ...

We closed on our Virginia house on a Friday ...

The moving truck arrived Saturday ...

The triplets started Kindergarten on Tuesday.

I haven't posted lately about any of the home improvements that we've made because it doesn't really feel like we've done that much. But when I scroll through the photos of what the house looked like when we moved in, I realize that we've actually done quite a bit. We haven't done very many big ticket items, like remodeling the kitchen or bathrooms. But we've painted a lot of walls, baseboards and ceilings. We've replaced lights and outlets. We've scrubbed and cleaned.

I'll be posting a lot of photos over the next few days, capturing some of our home improvement progress. The most recent improvement has been our closets.

When we moved in, there was a single rod in every closet, with a small shelf above for stacking things so high, they'd topple on your head whenever you opened the door. For months, I've worried that the old rods were going to fall off the wall and squash small children. While our landscaping, bathrooms and kitchen are all in dire need of work, nothing and I mean NOTHING has bothered me as much as the closets. Even with my obsessive organizational skills, I could not get these closets in to a good place.



After evaluating self-install closet organizational systems, we finally decided that this was one task where it was worth it to pay for professional help. We interviewed several companies and met with multiple designers. Finally, we settled on a plan that we believed would optimize our organizational space and allow optimum accessibility for children that are under four feet tall.

In preparation for the installers, this past week, Charlie gutted and painted the interiors.



Yesterday, our new closet organizational systems were installed. Today, while Hurricane Irene storms outside, I'll be storming inside by purging and organizing. We've got plenty of batteries, non-perishable food and fresh water. We also have an abundance of matching wood hangars and low profile baskets.

All things considered, this has the potential to rank up there as one of the happiest days of my life.

eleventh

Eleven days from today ... the day after Labor Day ... our triplets will be starting first grade.



First grade.

They'll leave at 7:45 in the morning and return home at 3:30 in the afternoon. They'll eat lunch at school and make new friends and ... all the while, I pray their little hearts will stay happy.

Charlie and I had been discussing for the past several months whether we wanted the children to be in three separate classrooms or whether we wanted to keep them all together. After some deep soul searching - and conversations with our children - we decided to keep them all together. Not because they wanted to be together per se, but because they are capable of operating very independently of each other in social situations.

So, yes. OK. We kept them together largely for our convenience.

Consider, if we're going to volunteer in their class - it would be easier for us to volunteer in one class, as opposed to three. Ditto for volunteering on field trips and interfacing with the teacher. Perhaps most importantly, if - hypothetically - we were going to have a birthday party for the children, a month after school started, and if we were planning to invite their class, I'm more receptive to hosting a party for 30 children as opposed to 90.

I suspect that this will be the last year they're all together. I suspect that by next year, when they're big second graders, they'll ask to be split up. But until such time as that happens, I opt for the easiest solution which in this case: 3 children = 1 class, commonly expressed as 2 parents = 1 teacher.

Today, the whole family spent a leisurely afternoon coloring with chalk on our driveway. It was one of those times in life when I tried to remember each minute detail so that I could sear the moment in to my memory, forever.



The sun was shining brightly through the trees, turning the leaves fluorescent green. The hot and humid air seemed to amplify the sound of the cicadas which engulfed us, growing louder and louder until their symphony drowned out all other noises. Little hands that are more lean than pudgy, clutching chalk and little tanned legs that were dusted in colored powder. Mismatched clothes. Shoes on the wrong feet. Little faces, scrunched up with concentration as they created their own masterpieces.

An exceptionally long hop scotch...



And a multicolored bug within a sunburst, framed in hot pink. I could just imagine a deck of stationery, or a collective stamp, made up with this image...



The highlight of our gathering were the four little people, who would rather spend time with their father and I than anyone else in the world. Thus far, these are the best moments of my entire life. But I can see it, though. The days of dependency and cuddly babyhood are slowly giving way to distinct personalities which will continue to grow, inch by inch, further from us.

As they grow, may they always find joy in spending time with those they love.

And may we always be among their favorites.

tenth

I have been with my company for exactly ten years.

It's been a great ten years. I've learned a lot and have had the opportunity to do some amazing things. For the first nine years, I'd tell anyone that I met that I was beyond lucky because I had the absolute BEST job in the world. I loved the work that I did and more often than not, I felt like I was making some incredibly positive contributions for my company and for the environment.

It certainly helped that I had wonderful job flexibility that allowed me to have the optimum work-life balance for myself and my family. Why, on many occasions, I would take my family with me on some awesome business trips.

These days, the maximum flexibility that I have surrounds whether I want to start my eight-consecutive-hour work day at 8 or 9. To say that my transition from a home office to a work office has been challenging would be the largest understatement of the century.

At least for me.

And I knew, full well, coming in to this that the transition would be difficult. But that knowledge wasn't enough to stop me from accepting the job because we were excited to try something new and getting closer to my mother was a top priority. So to say that accepting this position and moving our family back to the east coast was a great decision, would be the second largest understatement of the century.

This move has been fantastic for us.

**************

Early this morning (too early if you ask me because I was still in bed sleeping), my doctor called to tell me that my most recent round of lab results were in. While we won't know definitively until my appointment in mid September, all signs are currently pointing to a positive diagnosis of lupus. Which, it turns out, is a disease that has plagued (at least) one of my sisters for the past several years. My reaction, upon hearing this, was mixed.

Yes, it's a major bummer.

But!!!

I haven't been imagining the aches and pains and fatigue!! And the rashes that I break out in every time I step out in the sun may be a lingering effect of Prednisone ... OR, it may be a result of a lupus flare-up!! Why, I'll bet that I've been in one huge flare-up for the past several months and if so, that might explain my often times, overwhelming feelings of anxiety and depression!!

YIPPEE, I've got an EXPLANATION!!!

And if I know what it is, I can manage it.

Right?!

During the conversation at an ungodly hour this morning, my doctor told me that she wants for me to resume Prednisone. Which I'm hesitant to do, for a number of reasons.

Namely: Rapunzelesque nose hair.

I'm not necessarily opposed to medication, but a few weeks ago, my doctor ALSO prescribed me a very mild anti-depressant that is intended to help me sleep better at night. Her theory is that if I can get a deep restful sleep, my body will have more of an opportunity to heal. I tend to agree with this theory. The problem is, the children don't understand that they aren't supposed to jolt Mommy awake at 3 AM.

Why, just once, can't they wander over to Daddy's side of the bed?

Also, our friends that got confused the other night by thinking that we were three hours BEHIND them, instead of three hours AHEAD of them, called us at 2 AM to inquire how we held up during the earthquake and that didn't really help my REM sleep, either.

Anyway, Charlie picked up my little prescription bottle and shot me a concerned look when he saw the pastel warning labels taped along the side. "Uh, Jen? This says that you might have hallucinations, panic attacks or thoughts of suicide. Love of my life, mother of my children, keeper of my secrets, critically important coordinator of my wardrobe ... please promise me that you'll let me know if ANY of those things happen, OK?"

I replied, "OH, so that explains why I saw pink elephants running down the beltway as my heart was pounding out of my chest and I thought about veering in to a bridge!"

If my work-life balance does not quickly improve, I know that my stress levels will soon return to an extremely elevated state. And if my stress levels are extremely elevated, the potential for flare-ups and general rapid health demise, is also extremely elevated. Hence the (continued) need for my ingestion of some serious medication that will make me grow outrageously long nose hair and entertain thoughts of careening my car off a cliff.

Therefore to and forth, my goal, at the moment, is to figure out how to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the stress in my life so I am not required to be on medication that may kill me faster than the condition its designed to treat.

(Newsflash: I have ONE and possibly TWO co-leaders for Girl Scouts. That's RIGHT. I'm taking ACTION over here.)

I've written about my commuting woes before, ad nauseam. I'm not going to repeat it here. Except to say that the two hours that I spend in the process of commuting each day could and should be better spent doing something else.

Good Lord, I hate sitting in traffic.

My body hates sitting in traffic. Despite books on tape and happy music, I can feel the energy literally slip out of me and my body seize up with stress when there are brake lights and angry drivers on the road. And around here there are MORE THAN ENOUGH angry drivers.

Have I ever shared the personalized license plate that we put on our car?

Since "Be Nice" and "Be Kind" were already taken, we opted for NO HONKIN.

It's received many a thumbs up from fellow motorists.

It always frustrates me to be sitting in a car, when I know that if my circumstances were slightly different, I could be working AT HOME in the comfort of my yoga pants. That I, undoubtedly, would have worn whilst doing yoga in one of the two hours that had been sucked up ON THE ROAD.

After the past few life-threatening months, it should come as no surprise that I'm seriously (Honest to God, seriously) contemplating throwing in the towel. While it is great to be back to work after 10 weeks away and my higher mind is genuinely enjoying the varied projects, my morale has taken a beating over the past 14 months and I'm not too hopeful that things will get better, any time soon. My usually happy attitude is Code Blue.

Quick! Get the paddles!!

Where is Anthony Robbins when you need him?!

It's a bit discouraging because I know that I could continue to do some great things for my company (and I feel like they need me!) but I just don't know if I have the stamina to "hang in there!" as many of my friends and co-workers have suggested.

Particularly in light of my current health situation.

That being said, I'm not sure what I'd do if I stayed home? I mean, would I pick up a little part time job on the side, or would I just go for it and be a rockstar STAY AT HOME MOM? That sounds so romantic and dreamy ... except, the other day I was scrolling through my archives and stumbled upon this post that I wrote.

AH YES. Reality.

That was another (sorry folks, this is cathartic stuff) long and rambling post I wrote when I was five months in to an almost one-year maternity leave and was a bona fide SAHM with four children under the age of four and I forced my husband to stay home from work one day, for fear of what I would do to our children, before locking myself in the broom closet and crying a river of desperate tears.

Sure, times have changed and the children are older now. But it's not like life is DRAMATICALLY simple. Heck, whenever I think for a moment that just maybe things are getting easier, one of our little minions will try and flush a hairbrush.

"Not so fast, Mommy Dear. Just you wait until you see what we're going to stick in our ears tomorrow! Here's a tip: It's a whole lot smaller than an elbow!"

Part of the reason I think I can manage things so well around here, is because Charlie is ALWAYS around to help. And if I just threw in the towel on my career ... well ... onset of panic attack ... he'd need to leave me .... heart palpitations .... so he could go bring in the bacon ... OMG OMG OMG, we're going to crash and burn ... and support our family.

Darn it all.

There really is no perfect answer, is there?

A quick check of the calendar reveals that our triplets will be seven years old in less than two months. One might think I'd have the slightest clue of how to manage motherhood at this point in the game. Alas, no. At this rate, I'll still be debating and whining, "WHAT TO DO?! WHAT TO DO?!" as the children are pulling out of the driveway on their way to college.

SOB!! I can already see the day ....

Hopefully, their ears will be clear and their hearing will still be fully intact.

ninth

My mother, who happens to be the ninth child in her family, is on a mission to buy our children a pet.



Years before I was born, my family had several dogs and a pony. But within five years of my arrival on the scene, we were completely pet-free. Not unlike my own children, when I was a child, I was often begging my mother for a dog or cat or pony or anything alive.

My mother would always tell me NO. Dogs and ponies were too much work and we didn't have the space and cats freaked her out. Quite frankly, the chances were better that my mother would sprout wings and fly than bring a pet in to our family. So I suppressed my longing until I was in my 20's at which point I quickly adopted two cats and two dogs.

(To this day, I'm still in want of a tiny equine.)

Fast forward 30 years, my mother has promised our children that she is going to buy them a pet for their birthday. Funny how that works. Mom would never buy her own child a pet, but she is incredibly excited to buy her grandchildren a pet? Surely this change of heart has nothing to do with the fact that it won't actually live with her. So in response to my mother's generosity, we told her that we'd love to come visit our new pet at HER HOUSE all the time.



Granted, Charlie and I have recently entertained rescuing a dog, but ... the memories of Monty and Molly are still so fresh in our mind and we're hesitant to bring an animal in to our family unless we are absolutely positively confident in our ability to give it the love and attention it deserves. Also? We're really not so keen on cleaning up after another being when the four beings under our care tend to make the largest disasters imaginable on a daily basis.

But the chances are, we will succumb. Because the children desperately want a pet and they're in cahoots with my mother who is very convincing and really wants to see her grandchildren enjoy her gifts, while she is able. Seeing as my roots are in Catholicism, the guilt? It is great.



In preparation for this pet that my mother is going to get for our children, she has been taking them to visit dog parks and the local animal shelter. To see the looks of excitement that dance about our children's faces ... you'd think that their beloved grandmother took them in to a room full of adorable squishy puppies and kittens and said, "TAKE YOUR PICK!"



Ultimately... it makes me genuinely happy to see that my wonderful mother brings our children as much joy as they bring to her. They have a grand relationship, indeed.

eighth

So, here's the scoop.

I had intended to update my blog every day during the month of August and while that doesn't seem like an overly daunting task, these days it is. Not because I lack things to write about but because my doctor has put me on a medication that completely knocks me out at night, so I lack the ability to sit and type without drooling all over the keyboard.

That being said, if I had stuck to my goal of updating my blog every day, today would be the eighth day. Hence the title of this post. Clever, no? My next trick will be to update my blog a total of 22 times between now and next Wednesday.

Oh wait! There are 31 days in August, aren't there?

Okay. Make it 23 times.

(Surely, I'll need a new keyboard by the time it's over.)

Sticking with the concept of EIGHT, I'm posting an eight word sentence that is most fitting for the situation today in Virginia: I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet.

As in, the earth was moving from a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that totally rocked our house and had the whole family running outside (with a partially clad poop smeared child under my arm) thinking that a gas line was about to explode.

Gas line because earthquakes that SHAKE structures and nearly cause mirrors to fall off walls ... that kind of thing doesn't happen around these parts. Right?

Having lived in California for 20 years, I've been though several earthquakes and as a geologist, I'm always fascinated by them. But today's situation was unlike any California earthquake I'd ever experienced. Today, while the house was rumbling and I was re-thinking our decision to buy an all brick home ... the ground outside seemed completely still. Had this been a California earthquake, I could just imagine that the earth would be rolling like waves on the ocean.

I might have continued to believe this was some kind of freak isolated shaking occurrence if not for the neighbors who were spilling out of their homes on to their front yards, as the windows in their homes looked like they were about to pop out. Within minutes, our telephone was ringing off the hook with friends and family calling from around the country who wanted to know if we were OK because apparently the Pentagon had been evacuated.

For the record: we're fine, our sturdy brick house is fine and although one of our children screamed out of terror, the other three squealed with joy.

Can we do that AGAIN?

No I'm sorry, kids. But just wait! Mother Nature's sending a hurricane our way NEXT!

In other earth shaking news, yesterday was my first day back to work after 10 weeks.

For the next two weeks, I'll be working part-time as I transition back in to a full-time routine. To be perfectly honest (which I probably shouldn't be, it's a major flaw I have) the thought of going back to full-time fills me with dread. As much as I enjoy the work that I do and the people that I work with ... I really don't believe that I can (or should) go back to the way things were. Years ago, I could have done it and would have thrived. But now that I'm the mother of small children, the game has changed. And despite my best efforts, very soon I know that I'll be sucked in to the crazy work hours and unbearable stress and that damn near killed me once.

And once was more than enough.

Besides, today when I walked in the front door from my four-hour stint away ... less than 10 seconds before the big EQ ... I was greeted by our sweet children. Their father was in the midst of throwing in a load of laundry downstairs and was absentee for a whole five minutes.

In that time...

William had ambushed my make-up drawer and had painted on his forehead a huge Harry Potter scar with my long-wear lipstick that is unremovable even with mineral oil. His little brother was wearing his sister's pink leotard which was wrapped around his knees as he was shuffling towards me yelling, "HI PRINCESS MOMMY! THERE'S POOP! WIPE MY BUM!" And the girls had gotten in to a scuffle over a Halloween costume catalogue that arrived in the mail and were ready to choke the life out of each other.

I'm quickly assessing who demanded my attention first when ... WHAMO ... earthquake.

Really. If I'm going to collapse from the crazy, I'd much prefer to do it at home.

seventh

Seventh...

I'm the seventh child in a family of seven children, born to a woman with seven letters in her first name and last (maiden) name and whose birthday is on the seventh day of the seventh month. It should come as no surprise that my mother's favorite number is seven.

Clearly since I was the seventh child, I often spouted off that I was my mother's favorite. It is quite possibly for that reason, my siblings would retaliate by telling me that I was left in a clothes basket on the doorstep and I wasn't biologically connected to the family.

Their trickery worked.

Until I started to look like them.

As if I required more evidence that I am indeed part of this family, I now have it in the form of medical similarities. Auto-immune issues which have long afflicted the older people in my family, are now afflicting me. Funny enough, over the past few years, I've noticed that there have been some quirky things happening with my body, but I just attributed those things to ... well, I never really thought much about it.

Too! many! other! things! going! on!

My return to work on August 1 was delayed because I could hardly move on August 1.

My second attempt at a return to work is today.

In preparation for a re-entry to the "real world" I sat outside in order to get a little Vitamin D and "color" on my face since I very much resemble a zombie. After a mere 30 minutes in the sun (with SPF 50 coating every exposed inch except my scalp), I broke out from head to toe in hives. From what I can tell (i.e., furiously researching the symptoms on Google), this allergic reaction to the sun might be an effect of the Prednisone that is still lingering in my system, four weeks after stopping those cute little devil pills.

My research has yielded that head to toe hives aren't the only Prednisone side effect I've experienced. When I was on a high dosage, I had crazy energy that found me ripping the entire garage apart and cleaning every corner in the house. At 2 AM. As I tapered off the medication, my mood swings were ... erratic and colorful. Like a tornado whispering across a plain.

Then there was the mind-numbing fatigue and over the past few weeks, I've packed on at least 10 pounds and have developed an outrageous case of hirsutism. Luckily, I haven't yet sprouted a beard, but I do have nose hairs so long you could braid them. Of course my eye sight isn't what it used to be, so it wasn't actually me that recognized my cosmetological nightmare. It was my children, with their eagle eyes that excitedly announced that it looked like Rapunzel had taken up residence and was throwing her hair out one of my nostrils.

I recently read that the life span of a human in the wild is 35 years old. Thanks to nutrition and modern medicine, I've surpassed a wild human's life expectancy by five years. But because the chassis of the modern human and ancestral human are approximately the same, you can only outwit Nature for so long. To draw an analogy with a car, once upon a time, not so long ago, I felt like a hot Mustang. Alas, these days, the deteriorating eye sight, memory lapses, dental complications, emotional instability, and intestinal malaise make me feel instead like a nice round AMC Gremlin.

With outrageously long nasal hair.

sixth

Seventeen years ago today ...



Charlie and I tied the knot.

Seems impossible to believe that it's been SEVENTEEN YEARS. Gosh, I was eighteen when I graduated from high school and I thought that I was so wise to the ways of the world. And now, we've been married nearly that same amount of time. It's really unfathomable just how fast the time goes ... especially when you're having fun.

After 17 years, I'm convinced that the recipe for a happy marriage is kindness, respect and affection. And the secret ingredient is most definitely laughter coupled with the ability to ignore a person's inability to (insert quirk here) e.g., affix a role of toilet paper to a dispenser.

MG, thank you for inspiring me and for making life so awesome.

Every day with you is truly better than the day before.

fifth

Every so often, it'll happen that someone asks how many children we have.



And whenever I proudly say "Four!" the thought always crosses my mind that we almost had five. And I'm sure it seems ridiculous to some that I still contemplate this considering my pregnancy didn't continue past the first trimester. But a year later, I do still think about it.

There's a saying that you can't lose something that you never had. But I did have a sign on a test and for several weeks, I had nausea and food aversions. I had a doctor's appointment lined up for when I was supposed to go have an ultrasound performed. But most of all, I had a dream of what that child would be like and how they would merge in to our family. And the truth is, that was lost when I lost the pregnancy.

And it hurt.

Much.

Aside from the health issues and sometimes overwhelming feelings of uncertainty, this has been a wonderfully fantastic year. We've visited with a large number of family and have made several good friendships with neighbors. We've traveled around the area and know all the best Farmer's Markets. Our children are healthy and happy and growing like weeds. Life is good and a large part of the reason I'm enjoying life so much is (undoubtedly) because our kids are at an awesome age where we can do things as a family. We've passed the "baby stage" with our children and honestly? From this vantage point, I don't know if I have the stamina to go back and do it all over, again.

Tomorrow is Charlie and my wedding anniversary.

(Mine and Charlie's?)

(Charlie's and I's?)

(I should probably learn proper grammar if I'm going to keep up with a public blog).

To celebrate the occasion, we took the children out to a restaurant for dinner. Now William, it seems, has been cursed with a TB or "tiny bladder" because whenever he consumes fluids, the child will use the restroom and within five minutes, he'll need to go again. So tonight when he asked to use the restroom for the fifth time in 60 minutes, I stood up to take him.

As we walked in to the restroom, I noticed that a positively stunning 50-something year old woman was walking in, with us. She was perfectly tanned and toned and was sporting a short white dress. William was in the midst of doing the, "I'M GOING TO SPRING A LEAK EVERYWHERE" dance when the lovely woman said with a smile to my son, "It looks like you've got to go!"

Now, I'm not sure what exactly provoked him to do this, but he replied, "I sure DO have to go! Really, really, really bad!" Then he added, "Hey! WANNA RACE?""

Maybe he thought she had said Yes! (and heck, maybe she did and I need to be fitted for a hearing aid) because he rushed in to a stall, closed the door and began the evacuation process. The woman, meanwhile, walked in to the stall next to him and within a few seconds, my son was shouting beneath the partition, "WOW, you really had to go, too! It sounds like a GARDEN HOSE over there!"

Please know that if I'd been IN the stall with my young son, I would have put both hands over his mouth and muffled all sound. But because I was OUTSIDE the stall, the rest is a little fuzzy because I might have passed out. When I came to, lovely woman in the white dress was washing her hands at the sink and William was conceding that she won, fair and square.

If things had turned out differently, our fifth child would now be eight months old. I imagine that they (he? she?) would have brown hair and blue eyes and all of us would be completely in love. I also imagine that our older children would be huge helpers and although two of the four still require help wiping their own bums, they'd excel at changing a diaper.

In my opinion, everything happens for a reason. I may not understand what the reasons are, but I'm comfortable with the knowledge that it simply wasn't meant to be for us to have a baby last December. And considering I'm 40 and Charlie is knocking on the door of 45, I have begun to develop a warm contentment with our family, JUST THE WAY IT IS. But I must admit, I also think about the infinite joy that our children bring to life and how much fun it would be to have another little one in the mix that randomly proposes peeing races to absolute strangers.

It's difficult to say whether our children keep us young, or are accelerating our free-fall in to senility.

fourth

Fourth born ...

You are the baby in our family.

And you know it.

Over the past year, I've really worried about your developmental progress and as a result, we've had you evaluated by numerous resources. Every single one of the professionals that we've spoken to have reassured us that you are developing perfectly fine. But all of the professionals have also agreed that the challenge(s) we face with you surround discipline. Your father and I work very hard to ensure that we are disciplining you as fairly and consistently as we do your siblings, but the fact is ... you're just a higher-maintenance chap.

Recently, I was watching a video clip that I had filmed of your siblings when they were your age and quite frankly, I was stunned. Because my mind is slipping and I don't exactly recall what your siblings could do when they were four-years-old and you're not often around other four-year-old children, I don't have anyone to "gauge" you against. But as I watched your brother and sister sing, "God Bless America" (from the mountains, to the fairies...) and request cake in complete sentences, I realized that with you, there is a definite gap.

Your behavior at four, is much like your siblings' behavior at two and a half.

And at this age, that's a BIG difference.

You talk. But you don't exactly carry on conversations. You are unable (or unwilling) to clearly articulate a story or tell me what was your happiest moment in a day. Whenever I query you about colors, you'll tell me that a lemon is red and an orange is blue. When I sit down to read you a book about colors or numbers - or anything remotely academic - you'll bore almost instantly. One day, I was very frustrated and made you sit down and sort blocks by color. Only when you could see that I was taking this very seriously, did you demonstrate the slightest hint of cooperation.

So it makes me wonder ... do you really struggle with these concepts, or do you like the attention that comes from being the baby? One of the psychologists that we spoke to said that because of the age difference between you and your siblings, and the fact that they are more advanced than you, you've recognized that you can't exactly keep up with them, so you revert to your own game: a behavioral strategy that draws you the most attention.

It's your survival mechanism.

A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that you've never had your own play date. All of the play dates that you've participated in have been held for your siblings, who have been routinely getting together with similarly aged children since they were four-months-old. From the time you were a tiny baby, you'd be brought along to these play dates, and as you grew - the only way that you could "participate" with the kids, would be to chase them. So you'd run after them, and they'd run away, and everyone would be laughing. Except for me.

These days, whenever we get together with other children, I will have a pep talk beforehand with your siblings. And during that pep talk, I'll ask how we can play together that will be kind and polite and make everyone feel involved. And the resounding answer is always, "Don't run away from each other!" But they inevitably forget and do exactly that which I've warned them against because no one remembers anything that I say.

You are very bright. You were potty trained before you were two and are although you only turned four a month ago, you are learning to swim very well without the use of a life jacket. Of course, that means your father and I can't take our eyes off you for a second when you're in or near the water, but we always believed blinking was overrated. Additionally, you'll be starting a new preschool in the fall and are so excited, you ask about it, daily. I'm excited that someone from Child Find will be working with you closely, to continue assessment of a potential behavioral issue and how we can best address and resolve.

You are a very finicky eater. If not for oranges, bananas, apples and strawberries - you would eat absolutely no produce. (Except for the handfuls of fresh spinach that your father stealthily adds to your fruit smoothies.) You enjoy only strawberry yogurt and sandwiches with the crust cut off. Once upon a time - a long time ago, you also loved edamame. But now, you love edamame so you can shoot it out of your mouth.

Forewarning: our entire family will soon be embracing a whole new philosophy surrounding food, so your options for dinner will soon consist of cucumbers.

Or tomatoes.

Your obsession with Buzz Lightyear has been replaced with an obsession for Superman and early every morning, when the rest of the house is still sleeping, you'll tip toe in to our room and whisper in my face, "Hi Sweetheart. Superman is here." Then, you'll climb in to bed with your father and I and curl up next to me for another hour of sleep. It's always difficult to fall back to sleep once you're in bed kicking the curds and whey out of me, so my mind wanders as I watch you doze. Sometimes I contemplate that we need to work harder to treat you like a big boy. But that contemplation is usually defeated by the acknowledgement of passing time.

All too soon, you'll be all grown up and miraculously, 99.999% of the worries that I've had will resolve on their own. So I try not to worry about anything and instead focus on the fact that you actually ARE my baby. You love to be held and cuddle and why would I want for that awesomeness to end a moment sooner than it undoubtedly will?

You are the apple of my eye.

And not a day goes by when I don't think about how blessed I am to have you.