Last week, I celebrated my 37th birthday. My nieces made me these super special cards: Millie and her sperm balloons I will totally accept Claire's declaration as a 9 year old that I am young. Yes. Game on. Tim and the kids made me feel incredibly special over the span of several days. And though I cherish the beautiful flowers,…

While practicing sight words this week, Yoseph struggled with the difference between "went" and "want". His Gammy, Tim's mom Dolly, suggested the following sentence as he was trying to sound out "want". "I WENT to the store because I ____ some Legos." He continued in his bewilderment and frustration for a little bit until he finally burst…

No, seriously. He does. God cares about Legos. At the beginning of July, I ordered a pack of Lego "guys" for each of the kids as a surprise. Avengers for Yoseph, Disney princesses for Ana. Yo's arrived early but Ana's weren't projected to arrive until sometime between 8/1-8/22. She handles disappointment so much better than the average 8…

I am a huge proponent of the Five Love Languages. My primary language, especially to express, is gifts. It's not uncommon for me to buy the kids something while they're gone, whether it's something they need or something I think they would just enjoy. Recently, Ana needed new undies. Not the most exciting thing to buy, but…

I don't really fancy myself an overly domestic person, though I've become more so since I got married. This year, I bought a rolling pin AND planted flowers by our sidewalk, so I figure that's about as good as it gets. Every once in a while, I'm struck by something we do or use for convenience that…

Nearly ten years ago, I had a conversation with coworkers about what it means to be laid-back. I listened for a while and then inserted myself into the conversation, commenting that I, too, am laid-back. "Oh, really," someone commented. "So if you were on a road trip and had to stop for the night, you would just stop…

The last few months I've found myself in a different stage of stepmotherhood: the stay at home part-time stepmom. I lost my job at the end of March (though disappointing, not entirely unexpected, part of the transition of Indianapolis city government under a new mayoral administration). The first month was busy, the second month was…

During a rousing discussion of "what I want to be/do when I grow up", Ana announced to the surprise of no one, "I want to be a vet!" Yoseph declared, "I want to stay at the house like your keys!" Certain I misunderstood, I asked, "What? Like my what?" But my question was drowned out by Ana shouting, "And…

I don't often take the kids clothes shopping. They wear uniforms to school, so their needs are actually pretty minimal. But recently, we were hunting elastic-waisted shorts for a skinny Ethiopian boy and so we found ourselves in the boys' section of the downtown Carson's. "Look at this!" I called to Yoseph. "It's a Tyrannosaurus rex.…

Kids say the darndest things, right? And as I've shared before, they have a knack for demonstrating what's going on in the rest of their world. For example, last week Yoseph revealed how well he learned his kindergarten lesson of telling the temperature. Out of the blue, he announced from the back seat of the car, "It's 70…