Our life in a nutshell

Lately I have been rewarding the children with a show in my bed before it's lights out.  We all snuggle in my bed and watch some Mickey Mouse. It's a happy time when there isn't much yelling/screaming/demanding/wrestling/attacking unless someone gets more than their share of the covers/pillow/bed space.  

We were playing outside the day after Big Will got his cast on. He was standing next to me on his scooter while we talked about the plants when the front wheels of his scooter went out from under him and he slammed his face into the concrete porch steps.  It was chaos.  He was screaming uncontrollably.  I was trying to get three kids in the house while ensuring one didn't have a broken face.  I called the pediatrics office and they suggested we come in immediately since the wound was near his eye.  They examined it and said that there was nothing broke rather it just looked nasty.  Phew.

I managed to run away from home for a little while and participate in the first Naperville Women's Half Marathon. It was a good race. I had a lot of thoughts/emotions to leave on the pavement so it was good for me.  I ran sub 2 hours which was a big deal for me.  I was happy.  I don't really want to run another half marathon for a very long time.  Today I signed up to run this race again next year...the joy of the chase to get a cheap race entry fee was too much to pass up!

Miss M had a unit on recycling and reusing and cleaning up the earth. I appreciate her desire to help clean up the earth until it involves removing my recyclables from the trash can and wanting to find ways to reuse them in the middle of the living room.  It was even more fun to pick up all the stuff I had already thrown away a second time!

Playing at Monkey Island.  It makes me smile when I hear our neighbors with children who are now graduating from college say their kids used to play on Monkey Island and that's what they called it. A neighborhood tradition!

We had a rough two weeks. My mental sanity was at risk. There was a lot of this.

And this...and I didn't think I was going to make it.

But we rallied and all came out on top with everyone still alive!

Why not wear our Halloween costumes in May? Seems completely reasonable.

We have a friend who writes children's books.  Well he's written two of them and the kids absolutely love them.  They are fun to read and even more fun since we know the man behind the book.  We went over to their house for dinner one night and before we left we caught Fred Herring (pen name) reading to the kids.