It's Monday, which means my thoughts are usually a hodgepodge, reflective of the state of our house after the weekend. It's not that everything comes completely undone- we make a huge effort to keep things flowing on both Saturday and Sunday, so that Monday doesn't smack us all upside the head ...
but still, it's Monday.
The kids are (for the most part) done with school today, which means Abigail still has to do her spelling, Tyler has to get on the computer (because he worked all morning), and Jackson probably still needs to do his math. They're all on recess right now -playing ping pong, baking cupcakes and shooting hoops - which is what I love about homeschooling. When mom needs a break, she just yells "RECESS" and kids go flying in eight different directions. No questions asked.
By the way, the pictures above were taken a few weeks ago. They just fit in with my mention of cupcake baking, so I inserted them in. The real cup cake baking going down right now is filling my home with such an amazing aroma, pictures wouldn't do it justice.
Sam is hosting a Corvallis Chamber of Commerce breakfast tomorrow - as a businessman he attends these fairly regularly. He comes home telling me about the yummy goodies that he devoured while pretending to listen to speeches about products and services and the like. Yeah, I'm onto those people - Chamber of Commerce meetings are all about the food.
SO, as tomorrow's host, he is providing 65 cupcakes and beverages to all of Corvallis's commerce people (or whatever they're called) and guess who is doing all that baking ??
You would be correct if you said Caleb and Abigail ... our resident bakers. As I type, they are whipping up 65 of these glorious beings:
* Maple Bacon Cupcakes with Maple Syrup Frosting
* Espresso Cupcakes - half with Whipped Cream Frosting and the other half with Creamy Nutella Frosting
* Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
They came up with the menu themselves, and I am the lucky taste tester. Drool. It's a tough job but someone has to do it. We wouldn't want any Chamber People turning down Sam's business because of a less-than-scrumptious cupcake, now would we ? So here I sit, with Creamy Nutella frosting on my fingers and some carrot cake batter dripping down my chin... just savoring the fact that I have several more recipes to "test."
Life is rough.
In other news... I turned 46 yesterday.
From here on out I will be counting backwards each year, so if you send me a card for future birthdays, please remember that fact, okay ? Can't wait to be the big Four Five next year ... and when I enter my thirties again, look out- because I never did the whole midlife crisis thing when I was there the first time. I think it's worth a shot the second time around, don't you ?
No birthday pics of me, because I was having a bad hair day yesterday, but here's a cute one from a few Saturdays ago...
... oh wait, I was behind the camera on that one. My bad. But LOOK at that little cutie pictured above !
Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure this isn't a dream- I had not one but TWO babies in my forties. Talk about happiness.
When I was in my twenties I always dreamed about having a baby in my forties- I saw friends who had babies later in life, and they just looked so relaxed as parents. It seemed they were so much more laid back than I was in my twenties as a new mom... if their child didn't sleep through the night or start eating solids at "the right time", who cared ? They were just enjoying their baby, and they didn't really enter into the whole parenting competition thing.
And now that I'm here, I get it. Hayden is nine and a half months old and just now wanting to sort-of-maybe-possibly try baby food. That might have freaked me out a bit with Jason and Josiah. After all, so-and-so's baby was eating three different kinds of pureed vegetables at six and a half months, and what was wrong with my child ?!?
Because these were the kinds of things that kept me up at night in the early days of my parenting.
Was I wrong to trust my instincts on letting my babies nurse when they wanted to, or was Sister Schedule right to make sure her baby ate precisely every three hours on the dot ? Would my baby turn into a co-dependent adult because I let him stay sleeping soundly in my bed with me at eleven months, rather than wearily trudging back and forth between the nursery and my bedroom ... or was Sister Sleep Through The Night going to produce the next president of the United States thanks to her diligence to be Baby Wise and more.
You want to watch a brawl break out, just ask a group of moms about their opinions on breastfeeding vs. bottle, co-sleeping vs. crying-it-out, circumcision vs.... not... Forget Republican vs. Democrat, the real cultural divide in America is whether or not to immunize, or when.
And don't even get me started on potty training - I lost count of how many mommy wars were waged amongst my circle of 20something friends over precisely what age was too old to still be in diapers.
Today I have a whole different philosophy ... because they all eventually get potty trained, and I don't know any 17 year olds who are still slipping into bed with their parents ... so what's the rush ? I just want to enjoy this time in my baby's life when he is completely dependent on me for everything.
There will come a day when he does all those things on his own, and I'll be wondering to myself - so what was the big deal about co-sleeping, anyway ? If my toddler still wanted to crawl in bed with me at three in the morning, was it that crucial that he learned to sleep solo at age two ? And so what if a few of my kids were three and-a-gasp-half before they made it out of diapers ? Before you know it, they are living life on their own, without even a thought to what age they started solids... just blink, and the baby days are gone.
Well, recess is over, and that little charmer with the bald head and twinkle in his eye- the one who kept me up late last night and woke me up early this morning and is wanting to nurse for the 26th time today.... he's calling my name again.
I'l end with this poem, and although it's titled Song For A Fifth Child, I think it works for the eleventh as well.
Mother, oh mother, come shake out your cloth!
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking!
Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby, loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo.)
Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
But children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby. And babies don't keep.
