Happy Birthday, Michael!

Wow! My second child, also my second son, is 7 years old today! Lord, this boy is smart. And he goes with the flow so well. He can stay at home for days and never be bored. He can go out and do activities days in a row and be content. He loves Legos and puzzles. He recently spent the night alone at Poppy and Nana’s, without his big brother. It was a milestone, and he had a great time.

He was ready to move into his own bedroom at our house before his older brother was! And he says the funniest crap, some of which I’ve put on this blog. He used to be pretty quiet but in the last year has really come out of his shell and now alternates between periods of Lego or art concentration and periods of nonstop talking! I'm telling you, this boy will make one hell of an engineer or artist or anything he wants to be.

I love you so much, Michael! I can't wait for the next year with you, my sweet boy!

How to Welcome New Neighbors

The “For Rent” sign came down the other day, and I immediately had my oldest kid (Joel) on the case to find out who our new neighbors were going to be. I told him the next time he saw the owners of the house to ask them who would be living next door to/behind us (we’re on a corner).

Soon after, Joel came in and told me the renters were a couple with a 5-year-old son. Immediately I’m like, “Oh, crap! People with only one kid usually think someone like me is a nutcase and they like to point out things like how stained my kids’ clothes are and how their hair needs brushing.” Wait! My own MOTHER is a person with only one kid and SHE does those things!!!!

Once they are all moved in, I plan to put on my best sweatpants, put in my best dentures, take over a muffin basket (yeah, right) and give them my mommy/business card. I’ll say, “If you want to read about yourselves, check my blog periodically. By the way, can I borrow your Internet connection? And when can you babysit?”

On Being the Mom of 5 Little Kids

Tresa says I have a high tolerance for being touched. Most moms can’t handle so much touching all day long, I suppose. But while I’m okay with the touching, the noise AND the mess, my downfall is the mental energy it takes to decide, all day long, who most needs my attention at any one moment. When I go to bed, I feel like I’ve worked triage at an ER for 14 hours.

And it also drives me nuts when I’m in the middle of a thought and it is constantly cut off by someone wanting me to watch them or listen to them or help them or feed them or the thoughts that creep in about how I should be doing dishes or laundry or making a meal or making a dental appointment or working on the budget or worrying about something or preparing for SOMETHING.

And don’t you dare suggest I shouldn’t have had so many kids because I can handle them all quite well, thank you. I think I’m a great mom for growing up as an only child who had all kinds of peace and quiet and never had to share bites of her food. Every now and then I’ll snap at one of the kids for taking my food, but that’s only when I’m eating a costly Weight Watchers meal and every bite counts and they are skinny little things who could eat sticks of butter and not gain weight!

99% of the time I just can’t believe how [I don’t even have a word that explains the wonderfulness of it all] lucky/blessed/fortunate I am to have this life. When I was in an abusive marriage at the age of 19 I never thought I would have ANY of this. I wished and hoped and prayed for it, but I’m not sure I quite believed it would all happen.

So no, I don’t have all these kids because the Pope tells me I can’t use artificial birth control. And I don’t have them because I don’t know what causes pregnancy. And I don’t have them for the attention, because I can tell you it gets old being looked at like a breeder cow sometimes when I bring 5 or more kids into a play area or to a park.

I have all these kids because I am in love with each and every one of them. They were each planned and wanted. I’m just saying I still have the right to gripe, just like any mom of 2 kids, about the hard emotional and physical and mental work of raising kids.

Stupid Effing Show or Blog

My poor thoughts are so used to be interrupted that lately they just go away on their own BEFORE they can be interrupted, like they are protecting themselves. Then they come back in the middle of the night as things like “I’m such a jerk … I just remembered I was supposed to email that friend of mine from high school like 2 weekends ago” and “Wouldn’t it be cool is there was a TV show called ‘Stupid Effing Show’?”

And you’d say to your mom, “I have to go watch my stupid effing show.” Or “Mom, go watch your stupid effing show”

Instead of “The Kerrie Show” I should’ve named this blog “Stupid Effing Blog.”

Silence of My Lambs

Don’t you love that time of night when your family is all settled in?

Maybe you’re single and your favorite time of the day is when work is over, dinner is over, the dishes are done (or not!) and you snuggle up with a good book, a movie, a TV show, a friend.

Maybe it’s just you and your spouse and you like sitting in your matching recliners while one of you watches TV and one of you sews a quilt.

For me, it’s around 9 p.m. when Sam is asleep on my shoulder and I’ve either put Eva to sleep in bed or she’s crashed out on the couch. The 3 older kids are watching a movie that just came from NetFlix (something like Astro Boy or something Dora-ish). Aron is either watching the movie with them or he’s working on something in his woodshop.

And I can relax in the silence. I write, read, watch TV with them, bug Aron. All winter I basically went to bed at 9, though, because we had a hard winter and I’d just had a baby. Soon it will still be light at 9 p.m., I’ll be more active during the day and I’ll be wired til 11 and will pray myself to sleep.