5 Favorites

A little brain candy for your Wednesday internet trolling, because I am short on sleep and long on a laundry list of domestic duties to be tackled before my! little! sister! and her family! get here on Saturday afternoon for a prolonged staycation with us. They're moving to Colorado and I could not be more excited. This is how good God is: when Dave got the call about his current job, we were sitting in my in-law's living room in South Bend, Indiana. 4 hours later we were waiting for our flight in the South Bend airport when Lizzie called to say "Guess what...?" At almost the same time, we blurted to eachother "We're moving home!" Shocked squeals abounded, and now, 2 months later, it's really happening. Between our 5 ex-utero children under the age of 4, it should be a really fun couple of weeks while they house hunt. Or so I'm telling myself as I needlessly bleach towels and fruitlessly mop floors.

Anywho, please enjoy the following random. As for me, I'll be rocking my Alpha Rev playlist and swiffering the shit out of the first floor.

1. 

The Pope is single-handedly destroying the Catholic Church. Oh yes he is, you'd better believe it. You'll have the easiest time believing it if you spend lots and lots of time trolling comboxes and kvetching over the ineloquence and foolishness of this simple man in white. Oh yes.

2.

The Church exists to evangelize. It is her deepest identity, the role of missionary. So why are we in the habit of strafing our biggest target audience with friendly fire?

3. 

I wanted this chair ruhl bad. I passed by it at Target many a morning, giving it the side eye and willing-away it's $140 price tag. Well well well, guess what I happened upon at Goodwill earlier this week, still sporting its Target tags and marked down to $30 dollars? I should probably write a how-to post on thrifting, because I'm kiiiind of obsessed with it, and I'm a little bit good at it. 

My precious

4. 

This guy.

He naps only every other day, meaning that on off days (hellooooo, today) I have this sensation of oh holy hell, how is this day going to play out until 6 pm? (He also has an alter-ego where he assumes the persona of "Charkey the dog" and will only answer to such. He also insists on calling John Paul "Gary" while he's in character, to which JP readily barks his agreement. Charkey is a character from Curious George I'm pretty sure, but I have no idea who in the hell Gary is. They both think they're hilarious.)

And so I've had to start thinking of stuff he can do on his ownsome, since mama's gotta work part of the day and my nap window is slamming shut on my typing fingers. Case in point, he was literally perched across my forearms while I typed that last sentence. He's a dainty 28 lbs at nearly 3 years old, so he is a peanut, but still. My forearms. 

Here's what I've come up for 'independent play' options: 

• Read books (he can't read, but he will stare for 20-30 minutes at a stack of library books, flipping through them at the pace of an actual reader. I don't know, maybe he is gaming the system by forcing all those read-alouds and he actually comprehends at a 6th grade level. 
• Work on my letters, mommy. This one involves foam letters from the Target dollar spot, a lot of answering questions when he fetches me various members of the alphabet, and then some halfhearted attempts to point out things around the house to match the letter in question. Rosie inspired this idea.
• Worm or rabbit hunting. Now that the floods have subsided, we're mostly back to bunnies only, but our neighborhood is teeming with rabbits. Think 3-4 on every lawn up and down both sides of the street at dusk. If you drive too fast into the driveway, you can flush an entire Disney animated short out of the shrubs. I send the boys out regularly to hunt and report on the whereabouts of our fecund neighbors. Never fails.
• Cutting. With scissors. Safety scissors + old newspaper, magazine, bulletin, whatever = 30 minutes (I am not kidding) of uninterrupted and relatively quiet concentration on his part. He is only allowed to cut at his IKEA kiddie table, and he thinks it is the coolest.thing.ever. Then he cleans it all up at the end of his special cutting time. Homeschooling: nailed it.

5. 

We hired a milk man. Hell yes suburban motherhood, I have arrived.

Coming soon to the cooler sitting on my front porch: 2 gallons of milk, a dozen eggs, and a pint of half and half every Monday morning. All organic, and all cheaper than our local organic grocery store. I'm lumping this into the category of "why not accept a little help if you can afford it/it's available?" It's actually cheaper than Costco, in terms of gas and sanity, and come on, they have seasonal eggnog. Win/win.

Be sure to check in with Hallie and her legion of favorites.