A happy little story

Once upon a time, there was a precious substance. This substance was known as "free time". There wasn't much of it, especially not around here. Then one day, we had Wesley. He was a good baby. Neigh, a GREAT baby. He was sweet and smiley and happy. But there was one drawback. He didn't sleep during the day. Ever. He was awake 14 hours a day pretty much every day. He slept all night, and that was nice. But at night, I needed to sleep, too. He also liked to be held. A lot. And since he was sweet and smiley and happy...I held him. A lot. This made doing anything else challenging. Free time was nowhere to be found.

Days went by, and then weeks. Wesley grew...

And grew...

And grew some more!

And he was cute. And sweet and smiley and happy. But he still didn't sleep much.

The house grew filthier and filthier, and I despaired. I forgot important things, like sending the kindergarten snack and combing my hair. I looked frazzled. More than usual, even.

And then one day, Wesley started crawling. And then he was sweet and smiley and happy...and MOBILE. The house got cleaned, because it had to be. (Well, and because I threatened the rest of the family within an inch of their lives and forced them to help.) And Wesley was slightly more willing to be on the floor and not be held all the time. And he even occasionally took a nap. Tiny little bits of free time started appearing here and there. I combed my hair and remembered to send the kindergarten snack. And there was much rejoicing.

The end.

What I did over my summer vacation

There is really no fast way to catch up on months of blog neglect. Especially if you are like me and can't for the life of you figure out how to flip pictures so that blog readers don't throw out their necks turning their heads to look at the pictures. But I digress.

I decided it would be easiest just to post some random assortments of pictures. And by the way, my use of the word "vacation" might have been a little sarcastic. Moms don't get vacations. They don't get sick leave or overtime, either. I tried standing in the living room with a sign demanding fair treatment, but no one even noticed, so I gave up.

First off, I grew some things. These are peas. The best peas you'd ever hope to eat. And I grew them. If you want your kids to eat vegetables with enthusiasm, try having them help grow them. Amazing!

I also spent a lot of time cleaning bunny cages, brushing bunnies, carting bunnies outside for play time, trying to catch bunnies when they sneakily opened their cages and escaped into my kitchen, and made disgusting oooooing and aaaaahing noises over how cute they are. Knit sleeps on his back with his giant furry feet in the air, but I haven't caught it with the camera yet.

My children also spent a fair amount of time communing with Knit. They know better than to get too close to Purl. We're fairly certain she descended from the rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In other words, she's slightly evil.

Then my friend Kat, known among certain circles as "Kat the Enabler", taught me to dye yarn. It was fun. REALLY fun. Here is some sock yarn I dyed. I call it...Hubba Bubba. Am I dating myself? I loved that gum!

At some point, this creature adopted me. Her name is Maura. She weighs all of five pounds, has only three working legs, and is The Boss. When Maura meows, you listen. I find that letting her run the household saves a lot of unnecessary worry. Plus, my children obey her far better than they obey me.

As you can see, I grew some more stuff. These were my herbs somewhere mid-summer. The small tomato plant below has since made a play for domination and taken over the front yard. I should really take a picture, because I'm not kidding. One day, my house will just be the big lump covered in tomato vine. However, I'm not complaining because we've had LOTS of tomatoes.

Kat was involved in this activity as well. She taught me to spin. I've always wanted to learn, and I'd been saving for a wheel. For my birthday, Mom, Dad and Pawpaw conspired to get me my own wheel. I also need a picture of that. Because this is apparently the only part of my wheel that I photographed. Odd.

And then I grew some stuff. This is a heap of mixed greens. It was delicious. We ate pretty well this summer, considering my garden tried to kill me. (It gave me poison ivy that landed me in the ER. Twice. And no, I wasn't trying to grow poison ivy. It's a long story.)

I would like to say I grew this, but I didn't. The birds did. I have very helpful finches.

I made some pickles, using my grandma's recipe. My cucumbers didn't do very well, but my cousin donated some cucumbers to the cause. I enjoyed making them, even if the smell of the brine caused Timothy to walk around with his shirt over his face for an entire day.

So, that was my summer vacation, the highlights. Yes, I realize I turned into a hippie. I didn't mean to, if that counts for anything.

May as well dive right in...

Yes, it's me! After taking the entire month of August off, I am back! I would like to pretend that this is something I did on purpose. Many European countries take August as a holiday, from what I understand. However, like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie. It is partly laziness and partly technical difficulties. Let me 'splain! No, too much. Let me sum up.

First I was sick, then the computer was sick, then school started and the kids and I all got sick. That's about the sum of it. I am still snorting and coughing, but I have run out of excuses, so I will start the long process of catching up. Whether or not I still have readers remains to be seen!

Timothy more or less learned to swim this summer. Sure, he forgets to come up for air now and then, but we're always there to help when he needs it. He couldn't have less fear of water if he had gills. He would have gladly spent the entire summer in the pool all day, had that option been offered! This video took forever to upload, and it won't play beyond the first 14 seconds for me, so you'll have to let me know if it plays for you. Also, I apologize in advance for the the swimsuit shots. If I could, I would edit out myself (and probably Dre, as well, since she'll probably murder me for posting this!)

I think this is video of Gabe diving. I can't watch it so I can't be sure. He is very comfortable in the water these days, and diving was a new skill for him this summer. The disclaimer on all Gabe footage is that I really do feed the child. He is the skinniest kid I've ever seen, although my mom assures me that he looks just like I did at his age. But in case anyone wondered, I do feed him daily, and he even gets ice cream and cookies, but he still never gains any weight. He's getting so tall, and yet he only weighs about ten pound more than he did when he was 4!