15 years of motherhood

Dear me; 15 years ago; the new mom, 

hi. it's you, from the future with six kids (!) The biggest one is turning 15 and I know that seems impossible as you look at him in your arms and he smiles at you like you raise the sun each morning.

It feels impossible to me and I am out here living it! 

I wish we could sit together and chat about all the things. I know you'd have stories that I forgot all about in the chaos of life. Would you tell me about staying up all night and diaper rash and introducing the baby to rain drops on his tiny palms for the first time? 

I would love to tell you about how awesome these kids are, how much they make me laugh and feel proud, how raising babies was so physically exhausting and now bigger kids is emotionally exhausting. How the current stretch of motherhood between 15 years old and 4 years old feels like the Grand Canyon but also the very best of both extremes in raising kids.

I could tell you so many things - but I also know that it's hard to know until you actually know. 

And, truthfully, I don't want to ruin the reveal of it all.
Just know it is going to be a wild and beautiful ride. 

What I will tell you is that after 15 years, I have learned that

what works today probably won't work tomorrow
and definitely won't work for the next kid

Everyday is figuring it out like it's a fresh new challenge
Everyday is being worried (some real worries and some imaginary because moms be like that at 11p)
Everyday is joyful surprises and aching heartbreak and laughter so deep it shakes your insides

There is so much talking and so much touching and so many questions
There are so many things that are broken or sticky or colored on with marker or have slime on them
There is never not laundry. Girl, the laundry - you have no idea.

no one knows where anything is but you
no one knows the right snack
or which jacket has the itchy tag
or which book is for bedtime
but you

there is a lot to be said about motherhood
mostly that it goes by so fast
don't blink!
I'm sorry to report - that part is actually true

One day you try to teach your son which velcro shoe goes on which foot and
the next day you will slide your son's shoes on to run outside and they will be too big for you
One day your daughter will wear clippity clappity plastic high heels through the house and
the next day she will ask to borrow your clothes and they will fit her
One day you will be flipping tiny clothes right side out from the dryer and
the next day you won't be able to tell your son's sweatpants from your husband's

The truest thing I can tell you after 15 years of motherhood is
there is no manual
there are no failproof tricks
there are no shortcuts

there is only you
and the connection you have with them

so in a way I have come to see that
the connection IS the manual

look them in the face
laugh with them
play with them
give them grace

they want a witness to their life
mumma, look!
mom, watch this! 
mom, can you do my hair?
mom, did you see the score on my test?
mum, will you be at the game? 
be a witness to all of it
the honor of your life to sit front row
while they keep looking down from the stage
mom, did you see that?
most of it is beautiful and wonderful and funny and exciting
don't look away when it is scary or awkward or uncomfortable
see them and connect

make sure they know deep deep to the deepest part of them
there is nothing they could ever do that would damage that connection
there is nothing they ever have to do to maintain that connection

there is no secret
no manual
no trick. 

there is just you and them.
in all the chaos and mess and 
LIFE
you get to be the one who raises the sun
you get to be theirs
honor of my life

good luck out there,
I hope it goes a little slower for you than it did for me,
xxo
me

Around Here Week 12: 03/16-22

 A glimpse into what it is like to be in our family just this moment. 

dressing room selfie cred: Gemma, Peyton, and Colbi

photo cred: Kelly D

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 24+ hours (of 1000)
The wind this year has been relentless and our house has taken a beating. On Sunday before the big storm hit, Brandon was out on the roof trying to figure out a solution to the siding flapping and hitting all of our windows (only 2 year old windows!) Every night this week, Violet has asked why the wind sounds like that (both because it is actually very loud but doubly so as it slowly tears away the siding piece by piece). We lost a big pine tree from the Sunday winds (fully uprooted!)

Reading Cuckoo Clock Land by Anthony Doerr

Listening to Know My Name by Chanel Miller. Just absolutely incredible.

SCF Challenge - brunch at Uch's house. So much gabbing and coffee sipping and all the good soul-filling things that happen when sisters have time with each other. gah, thank goodness for them. I am so lucky to be their big sister. 

No luck catching the leprechaun again this year! Violet, Rusty, and Reddy worked so hard on the trap this year. The hot glue gun working overtime to make the tiny pipe cleaner ladder, the gold-yellow paint to make faux gold pieces out of stones. Inside of the box, they set up a tiny drop fall trap. A trap within a trap! But alas, that sneaky leprechaun escaped again!

Smiling at the selfies that Gemma and her friends sent from the dressing room as they shopped for the upcoming spring semi-formal. They went on Monday which was a day off from school and they got Pappy to drop them off at the mall and then chauffeur them to Ulta and Main Moon for Chinese buffet afterwards! I know Gigi was smiling away thinking of Pappy taking Gemma and her friends to the mall for semiformal dress shopping. Grateful for you, Pap! 

In-person meeting with my mentee and she is doing incredible and I am so proud to work alongside her. We worked through some plans for her first novel teach and talked about end of year mapping so that she can breathe easy through the last quarter for planning. I loved hanging out at Starbucks with her talking all things curriculum and lesson planning. Thankful for that grown up teacher hang! 

Wishing a Happy Fels-Naptha Season to all who celebrate!

March madness! Everyone got their brackets filled out for our friendly family competition that is worth nothing but pride (hah). 

Pulling out the Easter decor and putting away the St Patrick's stuff. All of our favorite Easter decoration is this hilarious chicken that "lays" eggs and sings "Momma Hen, back again. Squackin' Walkin' Let's begin. I'm about to show you how it's done. Baaawk, Lay an egg it's so much fun!" It's stuck in our head from now until Easter but we kind of love it. 

Speaking of eggs, the chickens are fully back to laying again and we are loving all the eggs. I started fulfilling my weekly egg request from a fellow teacher at school and our parents have been snagging dozens every week or so. Yay for henny girls! 

Sleepover for Violet with one of her besties Lillian. Lillian plays on Violet's Sparks soccer team and it is extra sweet because Lillian and Violet played soccer together on their very first 5u AYSO team with Coach Momma/Coach Tab. Lill and her parents still call me Coach Tab (adorable - love you guys!) Even though she is Violet's friend - you would have thought it was Olive's special playday. She followed them around and Lill was so patient and sweet with her. #LittleSisPerks! 

Individual kid photos because I haven't updated them in at least a year. I have them sit in front of the white batten board in the dining room facing the sliding glass door (good natural light). The big kids are pros and come plop down and get ready to laugh (or fake laugh- hah! I'm telling you, PROS) until I get the one we both can agree on. Reddy and Loopy are still learning and ask a million questions about why we are doing it and move around all over the place so everything is blurry. We pulled it together and got it done! 

Fangirl season with local high school's musicals in full swing. I attended my students' musical at Somerset on Friday night. They put on Shrek: The Musical and it was incredible. So proud of my kids and I was laughing for real and smiling so much to see all their hard work come to life. On Saturday night, the whole family headed out to the CT show which was High School Musical. So many of the kids' classmates, teammates, and friends were in the show. They did a great job and Olive has not stopped singing "Get your head in the game" and saying Red can be Troy and she'll be Gabriella since then! 

Teaching a "watch" week at the elementary school (Gr4&5 watch Legend Quest episode) and Grade 3 watched a Wild Kratts episode about sea turtles..as everyone finishes their sea turtles - hah! Spanish Expo worked on their infographs for geography week and took the big map test. Spanish 1 read chapters 5-8 in Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro including making fortalezas in class, a dictation quiz, and a perspective flip activity. Spanish 2 continued Somos 15 and working on quehaceres vocab. We had a 4-day week with an Act 80 professional development day on Monday too!

Sporting with two Sparks soccer practices for Violet and two Gators soccer practices for Gemma. Grey had three baseball practices and two baseball games (hooray for baseball weather holding up in mid-March!) Gemma and Colbi were the yearbook photographers at Grey's home baseball game and Gem got some awesome action shots - she is really getting good! (proud of you, Roie!)

Making steaks on the Blackstone, spaghetti with meat sauce, church picnic chicken on the Blackstone with airfried zucchini and parm buttered noodles, General Tso's popcorn chicken over rice,  egg sandwiches and bacon for dinner, For St Patrick's dessert we had Marshmallow Lucky Charms krispies and then another batch later in the week because the kids were asking for more (hah!) I also made Paula Dean's monster cookies because these kids are starving and peanut butter & oats help keep bellies full between meals.

Sourdoughin with discard chocolate chip cookies, discard blueberry muffins, and preparing a loaf (fold and stretch all the live long day, hah)

Around Here 11: 03/09-15

 A glimpse into what it is like to be in our home just this moment. 

selfie cred: Kitty

photo cred: Kitty

selfie cred: B

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 18+ hours (of 1000)
First fire in the firepit of the season and even though it was actually a little too cold - the kids were happy to make and enjoy a couple smores to kick off the season (we are hopeful around here!) 

Reading Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr for one of my book clubs and I like it so far - just trying to get my feet under me as it switches from characters to timeframes. I probably need to be reading in longer chunks then I have been, I need to keep going back and rereading a little. 

Listening to Know My Name by Chanel Miller and wow, wow, wow. So powerful and inspiring. 

Smiling as the kids participated in Youth mass at St Davids. Gemma helped sing and was in the student-led sermon which included her chanting "chug chug chug" at a hypothetical party scenario (hilarious). Violet was an acolyte, Rusty read, and Redland and Rust helped sing the children's hymn. Thank you to the St David's Youth ministry for all the work you put in for our kids! 

Late night bathtub surgery when one of the pipes finally busted (granted, it has been leaking) and there was water spraying all over our bathroom at 9:30p. B had to hammer out all the ceramic tiles on the front of the tub to get to the water pipes so that we could turn the water valve back on for the rest of the house. The banging! Hahhaha, Grey was like, "are we supposed to fall asleep to this?" Luckily, B was broken through by 10:15p and the kids went to sleep as he and I mopped and swept up the floor. Nothing like late night home fixing on a school night!?

Missing B who was away from three days and three nights at the PASBO conference in Hershey. Thankfully we had the village squeeze in to help with mornings and afternoons. Abba, Kitty, and Pappy all took an AM school drop off duty and Chum did a PM pick up duty so that I didn't have to rush home on Thursday afternoon and was able to get some grading and planning done. (thank you all!) 

Enjoying the Annual CTES Reading Night! Grey volunteered in the Varsity basketball games room (good job boys!) while the rest of the kids and I walked around discovering the rooms and themes. Aunt Uch, Kevin, and our Moore boy cousins made it out and all the little kids got to make clay insects and watch chemical reactions on rocks and meet a real life children's book author. It was a fun night as always - thank you CT PTA! 

Baby chickies! We were able to get only six baby chicks to start our spring additions. Chicks are in short supply these days - I told B to bring home a minimum of 12 - hahhaa, but no more than 20. LOL, he could only get six - so we'll start with this crew. Reddy called his chick "Ham Baloney"

Excited for Gem who got a special apprenticeship for a day at Aunt Kitty's coffee shop. She had a sleepover with Kitty and then the two of them spent the morning brewing coffees and making breakfast sandwiches at The Write Cup so Gem could see how being a barista feels. She absolutely loved it and now wants to be a barista for her first job. (thank you Kitty!) 

Volunteering at the 2nd annual St Paddy's day crawl with You in Flood City. Brandon and I were stationed at The Haven again this year with our friends Russell and Mo. We got bar crawl participants registered and face-painted for the big event. B and I had a little date afterwards for dinner at Fetz's Sports Pub (one of the other spots on the bar crawl). So proud of of Uch for inspiring locals to get out and explore our city! 

Teaching with a sea turtle craft in the elementary school and expo finished up week 2 and started their geography week. Spanish 1 read chapters 1-4 in Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro and played the T/F marker game which is always everyone's favorite but gets rowdy real quick! Spanish 2 got Chores vocab and started Somos 15, learning about Argentina and the Tango! 

Sporting with two Sparks soccer practices for Violet and Gem had Gators soccer practice Grey had four baseball practices and a baseball scrimmage at Somerset.  Also, Grey, B, the babies, and I attended the Varsity basketball banquet at Crow's Nest - officially the end of basketball season! B went golfing with the football coaches on Saturday morning (offseason chats begin now!)

Making meatloaf with cheddar, bacon, ranch roasted potatoes, sloppy joes with homemade mac&cheese and baked beans, chicken cobbler (yourbarefootneighbor), sheet pan chicken fajitas, frozen waffles and sausage, Pioneer Woman skillet lasagna, 

Sourdoughing a proper loaf and discard cinnamon rolls (with my grandma's boiled icing).