Mostly miserable

My mom is letting me borrow these little reader books for Nora.  I learned how to read from these things and I remember them very fondly.  My mom was, at first, very hesitant to let me have them because they are out of print and IRREPLACEABLE, but I pulled out the sucker-punch "it's for your grandkids!" line and she relented.

Nora loves them as well, which warms my heart.  The books have an adult page and a child page, and sometimes Lillian will sit with her and read "little words" (as in small type) and Nora will read the "big words."  It's super cute... for like 10 seconds until they start arguing because Nora isn't reading the words exactly right or Lillian isn't singing the songs or doing the voices the way I do.

Other than that, I mostly just sit around, being in labor but not actual labor which makes me very cranky.  I try to tell myself that every contraction (which I have all day long every day) brings me closer to delivery; like every pregnancy has a finite number of contractions needed to push the baby out, and instead of being in labor for 3 days like I was with Lillian (which was the only kid of mine where I didn't have this 4-month long labor thing), I can just be in regular labor for 8 or so hours.

At least that's what I tell myself to keep me from going insane.  Oh, did I mention that I am still nauseated?  Yeah, so there's that, too.

 Also, I'm bigger now than I was with any of the other kids, as evidenced by the fact that I have grown out of all but ONE pair of shorts and most of my shirts.  Also, it's a million degrees here.  Unless I have to leave the house, I can be found wearing one of Tyler's t-shirts and just underwear.  I went to book club last night and Lillian advised me that I better put pants on before leaving, "because THAT would be embarrassing" if I went in my standard pants-less uniform.

Suzy's Drop Cookies

I've tasted several versions of these cookies but they are never as good as our family recipe.  Instead of flaky or crumbly or not chocolaty enough, this recipe makes cookies that are moist and chewy with just the right balance of chocolate and peanut butter.

The only catch is that these have a excellence half life of about 24 hours and their quality seriously begins to deteriorate off after 48.

Because I'm all about safety, I let my kids sit on the counter and stir.  Nora thinks it's awesome that I'm taking her picture.

You have to have the peanut butter and oats all measured out before you start or else the chocolate and butter will overcook.

After you dollop them onto your tin foil or parchment paper or whatever, you have to poke them every time you walk past and then eat 4 as soon as they are firm enough to pick up.

Or maybe that's just how I do it.

Suzy's Drop Cookies

Ingredients

 1/2 C milk

1/2 C butter

2 C sugar

1/4 C cocoa

3/4 C peanut butter

1 t vanilla

3 C oats

Combine milk, butter, sugar, and cocoa in a sauce pot.  Bring to a boil.  BOIL FOR EXACTLY 1 MINUTE (this is the key to great cookies).

Remove the pot from the heat and add in the rest of the ingredients.  Stir to combine then drop by spoonfuls  onto tin foil or parchment paper.

Depending on the size of your spoonfuls, you get between 1-2 dozen.

Aggression

Lillian likes the idea of playing soccer- she likes running around on the field while the other kids move the ball around.  We kept yelling at her, "LILLIAN! GET THE BALL!" and "LILLIAN KICK IT!"  It was never much help.  Finally, Tyler took her aside and asked her if she knew what "be aggressive" meant.  She said no.

"Being aggressive in soccer means that you get to ignore every rule that you learned in school: you don't have to wait your turn, you don't have to ask permission, you don't have to share, you can steal the ball from other players, you can be in someone else's space, and you can cut in front of people."

With each new instruction, her eyes got bigger and bigger, but she was pumped to get back in the game and try it out.  And she did! She stole the ball and dribbled it for a little bit until she lost it.  In two seasons of soccer, that was a first.

The whole ride home, she gushed about how impolite she was and how she ran up to that kid and STOLE the ball.  But, it seems like she can't completely turn her back on her old ways because she quietly admitted to me that when she took it, she said thank you in her head.

Never Trust Them

For today's installment in our Summer Fun series, we made cloud dough.  Eight cups of flour and 1 cup of oil.  I keep my flour in that bucket.  The instructions said you could use any kind of oil and I probably would have used canola if I didn't have this thing of baby oil under my cabinet. I've had this since Lillian was a baby and haven't used it until today because, frankly, I have no idea what baby oil is supposed to be for.  Are you supposed to rub it into their skin? Because I feel like that would just make them oily.  Baby oil, Q-tips, and cotton balls, when it comes to baby hygiene, are all mysteries to me.

The consistency of the dough is like fluffy wet sand, except not wet.  The kids had fun playing bakery and making cakes, and then pretending like they had kids of their own who needed cakes.  It got pretty involved: naming their kids, what age they are, what kind of cakes they like, etc.

Ethan liked it, but he wasn't that good at pushing the dough into the cups to make shapes.

We played for 20-ish minutes and then I decided I could slip away and fold a load of laundry.  The kids were playing really appropriately and not throwing it or eating it.  I told them to try to keep it on their pans.

I'm going to go ahead and blame the pregnancy for the not nice words that came out of my mouth when I came downstairs like 15 minutes later.  These shots don't really capture the carnage... but they managed to get it everywhere.  Also, it appeared that Ethan took a break from playing at the table and wiped his floury hands over every surface of the house.  I was mostly mad at myself.  "ROOKIE MISTAKE," I shouted at myself over and over again.

Why did I trust them? Never trust them.

Ethan looks at things

Bunk Beds

The girls have shared a room since Ethan was born, but these beds were just two twins.

As part of our Summer To-Do List, Lillian wanted to make them into bunk beds.

Pro tip: do not try to assemble bunk beds by yourself while 7 months pregnant.

We also painted our loft which has been half-painted for... a while.  The tape and sheeting were left up for a day or two while we were putting up a few coats and I found this little guy is a bark scorpion which the bug guy said that he sprayed for.  Blech, I hate scorpions.