I love to tease my husband about this, especially when he is sitting right behind me as I type BECAUSE HE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT, but he does not want me to take the kids out of school.  He says that because I skipped a few classes the second semester of my senior year in high school there is a possibility I do not believe in the necessity of our children daily attending school, that I might willy-nilly pull them out of school just for the fun of it.

So you can imagine my hesitation in telling him about that morning in December.  But they were to school by 8:35!  The teachers barely noticed the kids’ absences.

Yesterday, though, we mutually decided to take the kids out of school so that we as a family could attend the free admission day at the zoo.  Third year in a row of attending, and it’s awesome every time.

I have to say, in all my years of going to the Sedgwick County Zoo, this was the best trip ever.  Those animals were so active.  The grizzly bears strolled right in front of us; a gorilla ate, then laid down, then puked, then ate his green puke right in front of us; a hippo bellowed right up at my husband and kids; the tigers playfully wrestled with each other and then nuzzled right below my kids; the male lion climbed up on a rock and roared, ROARED YOU GUYS, right in front of us.  It was amazing.  I mean, I’ve seen the gorillas in their exhibit, but the bears and the lions are always hard to find.  For the former to just meander in front of us and the latter to ROAR WHILE WE WERE WATCHING… amazing.  Oh!  And some very naughty attendees tore branches from a tree in the rhinoceros habitat to feed to the giraffes, so we got to see the giraffes climb down an embankment and eat leaves until the zookeeper chased away those rule-breakers.

Here are some pictures:

Pretty girl.

G, always ready to protect his family.

Yes, that's my finger in the corner, but it was the only picture of all three kids.

Post-roar. You just know he's thinking, "I've said my piece, now I'm going to lie in the sun."

This is the baby and the daddy giraffe. The daddy had just walked back up the embankment to share a large branch with the mommy giraffe.

Then we came home and were all very tired, but Little Missy had dance and G had Boy Scouts.  But it was fun.  Perfect weather, no sunburns, active animals.  I dare say we should take them out of school again next year!

Little Baby Chickadee is sleeping, which gives me time to post pics from Spring Break and Easter.  I’m working on posting more pictures to this here blog.  Here goes.

And, we did more on Spring Break than just go to Botanica.  But sweet Baby Chickadee deleted most of those pictures when I wasn’t looking.  I think she liked the slurping sound my phone made each time she clicked “delete.”  But I do have these:

Painting at Botanica.

Making friends with the instructor at Botanica.

Gathering clues at Botanica.

Though surrounded by nature, G did not let that affect his choice of subject; no, he drew Transformers.

The last one at Botanica. I promise.

Our unsuccessful geocaching attempt.

My family makes me happy.

Things I really love about my baby, who is not really a baby but since she’s the youngest I get to call her a baby for a while still:

1. She smiles at me when I pick her up out of her crib in the morning, then lays her head on my shoulder for as long as I’ll let her, sometimes for up to an hour.
2. She walks with a puffed chest and huge grin anytime we’re in public.  At the grocery store, at church, around the block, when we walk to the door of G and Little Missy’s school to pick them up.  She thinks she’s big stuff when I’m not carrying her.
3. She places a fat baby hand on each of my cheeks and then gives me a big kiss on the mouth.  This happens multiple times a day, sometimes even when I haven’t asked for a kiss.
4. She loves her babies.  She cuddles them and changes their diapers and places them in the highchair to eat and has me wrap them in her favorite blankets.
5. She fake laughs when G and Little Missy are in the truck.  She may not know what they’re giggling at, but she sure is going to be a part of the fun.

These are all things I need to remember when she won’t leave me alone.  I am her playmate, and she wants someone to play with nearly all the time.  This means I have to entertain her while folding laundry and while cooking our lunch and she helps me make my smoothies in the morning.  This means that we’re down on the floor playing or reading or coloring TOGETHER.  Always together.

I’m slowly realizing this is not a phase.  I thought it was, but it so is not.  Now I’m looking forward to the time she’ll understand, “Sweet pea, this is Mommy’s time to read a magazine while you play with your babies by yourself.”  Right now, at 21 months, is not that time.  But maybe (hopefully) soon.

I have to say, this year we owned spring break.  We rocked that week.

My friend Abbie posted on her Facebook wall that she was excited to not have any plans, to just spend time with her kids and craft with them and let them play baseball outside for hours whenever the mood struck.  But I am not such a disciplined mommy.  If I don’t have something planned for us then pretty soon it’s the end of the day and we’ve watched TV all morning before I finally shoved them outside in the afternoon, with the bonus of bickering all day.  Plus with the forecast for rain all week, I knew we had to plan something.

So Saturday afternoon I sat down with them and we made a list of what we were going to do that week.  Monday: Exploration Place.  Tuesday: home.  Wednesday: Geo-caching.  Thursday: home.  Friday: Nana was in town.

Monday we went to EP and it was so much more a pleasant experience than it has been in years past.  Now Gideon and Mia aren’t running in two different directions.  They’re big enough to play by themselves as I corral Daphne.  They played at the water table with friends from school who happened to be there at the same time, they all played in the vet clinic, we watched model trains over and over and over again, then the big kids played in the Castle while I watched Daphne in the toddler area.

Tuesday was a little rough.  With the rain and all there was some bickering.  But Daddy took them and cousin Gabe for ice cream that night, then they all came back to our house and watched Hugo.

Wednesday we planned on geo-caching but it was too muddy from the rain.  We went to lunch with Nana, Auntie Leelee, Uncle Todd and his co-worker Kenton, then hung out at Uncle Todd’s office for a while, then went on a scavenger hunt.  Daddy sent us a list of things to find and we drove around town and took pictures in front of them.

Thursday was another home day, so Daddy sent them another scavenger hunt of stuff to find on our street.  Gideon and Mia took the camera outside and found everything on the list.  At first they were hesitant about going in people’s yards to take pictures, something about respecting people’s property, but they eventually made it far enough into their yards to hurriedly take the pictures before scurrying off.

Friday Nana was at our house and stayed with the kids while Hubby and I watched The Hunger Games.  Woot.

Saturday morning the kids and I went to Botanica.  They painted, made thumbprint artwork (courtesy of Paint the Towne), and completed a tulip scavenger hunt.  It was so much fun.  The day was sunny and gorgeous and I took beautiful pictures of my kids.  Then we went to lunch, met up with Daddy and tried our hand at geo-caching.  You guys, it was a big dud for us.  I think we need tips on how to locate the items.  Plus it didn’t help that at the first place we were looking next to a busy Wichita street and at the next place we looked very suspicious inspecting the bottom of a foot bridge.  My friend Mrs. Y said her husband and two of their boys found stuff in Augusta the first time they tried.  Maybe we’ll try something around here next.

And now my kids are back in school.  Boo.  Monday I really mourned the loss of spring break.  But Mia will be home with me the next two days because of kindergarten round-up, then the next week they’re off for Good Friday, then the next week they’re off for a teacher development day, and I really love that Augusta schools have a RIDICULOUS amount of days off.

I’ll try to post pictures soon, because blogs with pictures are always better than the ones without.

Yesterday three of us got showered before school and the other child took a long bath immediately after returning from dropping her big brother and big sister at school.  I unloaded the dishwasher, made breakfast for four of us, lunches for two, wrote checks for school pictures, played on the floor with Daphne, wrote a blog post and completed one load of laundry.

I did not load the dishwasher, make the beds or put away any clothes.  Not making the beds is one of my triggers to a bad day.  But the biggest trigger, I’ve realized, is stressing about getting a certain amount done around the house and then trying to work around my kids to get that stuff done.

This is in my head a lot–A LOT a lot–trying to find the balance between taking care of my children and my husband and myself and my house, and because it is in my head a lot I also blog about it and a lot and I’ve columned about it at least once before.  But I wrote about it last week and the week before because I sort of feel like I’m just now getting a good handle on maintaining a clean home while being sweet to my kids.

So: Shifting my focus and then taking my own advice.

Last night my husband took the kids to the farm.  All three of them.  When I told my friend Mrs. Y what Hubby was doing she said “He definitely deserves some Daddy Points for that!”  I hadn’t thought of how impressive it is.  But seriously, he does deserve Daddy Points for that one.  Taking two self-sustaining grade-schoolers is sweet, but taking an 18-month-old toddler along, too, is gutsy.  Hubby doesn’t flinch at the thought.  His being outside in the sunshine on his family’s land with his offspring giggling and running around him invigorates his soul.  I’m happy for him that his happy place is so close.

While they were gone I spent my birthday money, even though my birthday is a week away.  Usually with birthday money I over think it and spend some then over think the purchase and return it and a month later I have no idea how much money I actually have left to spend and my husband is tired of hearing about it.  But last night I hit a great window at TJ Maxx and bought new pillows and a new throw for my couch.  My mom says that she measures time periods in pictures by the pillows I have on my couch, haha, but finding the perfect combination of colorful throw pillows that are cheap is elusive to me.  The long bland couch in our living room needs some life in it.  And I think I found it. Happy and not too many and we can lay our heads on them.  So the money’s gone before my birthday arrives.  Happy  birthday to me, sort of.

I also got my hair cut last night.  It’s… short.  Not my style.  When I see pictures of myself with shoulder-length curled hair I recognize me.  That is my style.  But double-processing my hair and flat-ironing and curling has taken a toll.  So right now it’s short so that I can have healthy hair, and from now on I’ll be more gentle and hopefully grow my hair a few inches by spring.  Then I’ll recognize myself again.

Happy new year!  I’m going to watch another episode of Everest or Felicity before my family gets home.

“Holiday gatherings are stressful because you’re forced to face the short genetic distance between you and a completely insane person.”

-Jeannie Gaffigan, with a big hat tip to my sister who found this and let me in on the hilarity.

In Saturday’s column I mentioned that somewhere an easy solution exists to our morning troubles but right now the answer continues to allude [edit: elude me.  why did nobody yell at me over this?  sometimes you're allowed to call me out.] me.  For the past two school mornings I’ve let them watch the clock; they know what time breakfast needs to be over and what time we need to walk out the door.  Friday we were early to school but today they were late.  My husband is worried that they’ll get used to being late and it will no longer be an issue, but right now I don’t care.  I’m tackling one obstacle at a time and the current obstacle is trying not to gripe at my children while they’re griping at each other.  I just want everyone to be serene on the way out the door.  Shiny and happy would be extra nice.

Here’s Saturday’s column, where I tell you about my solution–that really can only happen once in a very rare while–to the morning frustrations: playing hooky.

Lately Miss Daphne has been a bit unpleasant.  She gets up and whines, walks around the house and whines, gets mad at me when the door only opens so far because THE WALL IS RIGHT THERE, and how dare it be in her way when she wants to push the door in a full circle.

I feel like I’m constantly on edge, my body always full of adrenaline in preparation for a fight with her, a fight where she yells and I calmly try to distract her or I walk away.  This stage is hard.

Yesterday after we picked up Gideon and Mia from school we were headed into the house when Daphne ran into the yard.  She didn’t have on a coat or anything covering her legs, but I let her run around anyway.  AND SHE WAS SO STINKIN’ HAPPY.  Giggling and playing with her sister, then her brother and sister, and just running around and being the happy baby I know she is.

She saw me and ran up to me to give me a hug.  She might not have done that for weeks.  I snuggled her and kissed her baby neck and told her how much I love her.  Then I set her down as soon as the wiggles set in and she was off, playing with brother and sister again.

The mailman came up, who we always chat with when we’re outside at the same time.  As he said goodbye Mia gave him a hug, because she is a hugger and loves everyone who is kind to her, and then Daphne gave him a hug.  I have never seen her hug a semi-stranger like that.  But the fresh air and the sunshine poured love into her little body and she couldn’t contain it.  It was just bursting out of her little self.

Then Daddy got home and it was a happy love fest.

I don’t know if it’s my residual high from seeing my baby and my kids loving each other and giggling and just generally being sweet or if she really is different, but I feel like Daphne is a changed baby.  This morning she only threw one tantrum, but she got up happy, she giggled with her brother and sister and didn’t gripe at them when they talked to her.  Even her facial expressions are different.  The scowl has been limited today.

That sunshine is an interesting thing.  And it tells me that this winter I’ll be bundling each of us up in five layers a piece so that we can go outside in the sunshine, even when it’s 20 degrees outside.  I’ll do anything to keep this baby happy.

Sunday evening I’ll be at the ICT Winter Bazaar, hawking goods my incredibly talented sister Hayley made.  Beautiful stuff like this that you can’t find anywhere else.  Come see us and say Hello and listen to the music of Virginia Williams and eat yummy snacks from local restaurants.  I guarantee you’ll find better stuff than you can find at Target, and YOU KNOW how much I love Target.