This Morning

You know when you're in the house early in the morning and suddenly there is a quiet stillness that sneaks up and takes you by surprise? And you have to put down whatever it is that you are preoccupied with to simply take a look around and bask in the glow of the moment because it is calm and easy.

Maybe you'll find your 2 year old reading to herself in the sun room, totally engrossed and content. Maybe you'll find your 3 year old twins in the midst of a semi-organized game on the top bunk, one that you of course can't quite seem to figure out but they understand the rules and are giggling peacefully as they play.

Maybe you'll just have one of those mornings where the world is yours for the taking. Maybe.

One of those mornings when you sprawl out and enjoy yourself fully, living in the moment and not worrying about what comes next.

One of THOSE mornings. Maybe.

After all our yawning and stretching we set out for the pool. As I was unloading the supplies and setting up the stroller Nuala started telling me all about the cool something or other she saw on a tree.

"Mom, mom, mom, I see something. I found something. What is it? I don't know what it is mom. Look. Look. LOOK. Mom......Mom.......MAAAHHHM!!!".

I of course was having one of those auto pilot mom moments, you know what I'm talking about. One of those moments when you're multi tasking, juggling too many things at once, and so you wind up sounding like this....."Mmmmm hmmmmm. That's nice. Ok honey. Hmmmmmm. Wow. Neat. Mmmmm hmmmmmm", when you have not in fact even looked up from whatever it is that you're doing. Kids usually always know when you're faking it and after a while Nuala nearly gave up on me, but once I had all our gear in order I decided to go look at her big discovery so that she would know that even auto pilot mom has a shining moment every once in a while.

I'm really glad I did too because she had found the biggest hairiest moth ever. Nuala is one for bugs, she is always asking the big kids to overturn rocks in the back yard and digging up worms. Not a day goes by when she doesn't come running over to me with something wriggly cupped in her hand just to give me a peek, but she was not willing to get to close to this guy and kept a very safe distance. Although at one point she did reach out with one finger and contemplated touching a wing. I mean, it did look very soft.

We wound up going to the pool twice yesterday and had to check on our friend a few more times before the day was out.

This one cracks me up with her absolute disdain for sand. She paced around the edge of the playground but just couldn't bring herself to cross the divide.

By the time I finally convinced her to dip her toes in it was time to leave again.

Permanent marker. Kids love those things. Enough said.

Brendan was out of town yesterday and so it was just me and the three littles. We made the most of it.

Despite the fact that I said we were going to have ice cream for dinner, I did actually follow up with some pizza. Yep, pool pizza, see there's nothing to this single mom thing.

I actually was a single mom once upon a time and so I know exactly how lucky we are to have found the life that we have together. I'd like to think that I could do anything on my own and I probably could, but I certainly wouldn't want to. Life is a whole lot of wonderful when you are sharing it with a partner and I can't wait for the Mr. to get home tonight.

*Oscar was impossible to shoot last night so Kermit is standing in for him*

Yes it was a very full day, one that at the very end even included some rare reading time for yours truly.

And now here we are, it's morning once again and we are stretching our way into another day of adventure. Morning cartoons anyone?

I think it goes without saying, but I love this life, these kids, the path that we are on together.

I wouldn't change anything, not a single thing because every moment before this was leading here.

Every moment was leading me to this morning.

Reminders

Reminders.

They are everywhere. A few weeks ago I had a brilliant idea to create a little makeshift vanity table so that I'd no longer have to apply mascara in the land of rubber duckies and frog potties. Luckily I happened to have a beautiful sewing table gathering dust in the craft room that seemed to be dying for some love and attention. One mirror from Target later and voila, I had created a bit of space just for me.

Well, me and Dora and Swiper and some other random lady I've not been properly introduced to.

Plus Nuala seems to be fairly smitten with the new arrangement and I keep finding her little finger prints all over the mirror and pretty much everything else the table has to offer. Nail polish bottles, eye lash curlers, tubes of lip stick and mascara.....she is fascinated by all of it. In the beginning I assumed that it was just because of the novelty, but I still find her at the mirror at least once a day.

We have a quiet house for the next few weeks as the older kids are all away on various adventures with various grandparents. It's always strange to have the household whittled down to only 3 children.

Reminders, yes they are everywhere and what could be a bigger reminder of childhood than a melting popsicle? We've taken the whole popsicle thing to a whole new level around here this year and I can't buy them fast enough. Plus, no body likes the purple ones (I can occasionally persuade Saoirse) and so there are at this very moment about 3 half empty boxes in the back freezer that have been raided of all their orange and red treasures and about 50 purple popsicles laying around loose and lonely.

***See this face? Happens when her Dada gets home from work each afternoon.***

I can't blame her. He is pretty wonderful.

Have I mentioned that I'm training for a little thing called a marathon? Did you know that training for such an event will eat up pretty much any and all free time you have? I'm not sure about you, but over here in the land of 100 Fingers 100 Toes, we're not exactly swimming in oodles of free time to begin with. Brendan is being an absolute gentleman about the whole thing and holding down the fort each time I go to lace up my running shoes and hit the road. I would never be able to do any of this without his support.

And I'm not even going to make a fuss about how at less than 5 weeks out from the marathon I am now nursing an IT band injury that made it impossible for me to finish 4 lousy miles yesterday. Nope. I'm just going to remind myself how amazing this whole experience has been so far and stay focused on the positive.

Of course the only way to up the popsicle ante is to choose a flavor and select a cone.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?", Nuala all but bellowed at the nice little ice cream scooping teenager behind the counter when asked which type of cone she'd prefer, making it rather obvious that we have not in fact sampled many of the 31 flavors recently. I think it was maybe our second time there in her entire life. She's getting the hang of it though.

I stood there watching them, ready to interrupt at any moment, ready to swoop in and "help" the situation along because how on earth would a 3 year old be able to communicate with a teenager after all? Nuala just gave me a look that said, "back off lady I'm handling my business" and then pointed to the regular cone with one very casual wave of her hand. Oh of course. How silly of me.

And you know the little sister wants to be just like her.

Played around with my ISO and White Balance, holy yellow skin batman! Oh well, it's fun to play and it's usually the best way to learn something new and by now we all know how lazy I am about editing, so yellow skin it is. Life is a work in progress, yes?

Had another play date yesterday. Reminders of how important family is and just how lucky we are.

***Every time I see Ethan he is grinning from ear to ear!***

Meanwhile Saoirse was having conflicting emotions, poor bunny.

Reminders. They are in fact everywhere, you just have to decide what it is that you are looking for.