Have you all given up on me?

I have become such a slacker blogger. I hate it!

Most of it is that my job has sorta doubled down on how we spend our billable hours, so every minute I spend blogging is a minute I have to spend when the kids go to bed, working on something for a client -- or else my hours for the month might suffer. And I can't switch it up and blog at night because it's not "essential" so I'll just fall asleep.

But it's also that the kids are doing lots of wonderful, fun, adorable, maddening things -- but nothing really new or Earth-shattering, so I feel like a 10,000th blog post on where we went this weekend is probably a little boring.  I have things I think about, but nothing is very deep. Does this blog have to be deep? I'm not really sure. I guess I'm not sure what it should be -- maybe that's the problem?

Anyway, I am determined to keep it going, though, because I really do love it and I want the kids to have this when they're older. Also, it's a cheap and easy way to keep up some semblance of writing for pleasure, which any writer worth his or her salt will tell you is crucial for honing one's craft.

So even though this is more of the same all over again, here's a brief recap of what's been going on in our world over the last few weeks.

We took the kids to a Science Night at their school, and it was a huge hit. The Maryland Science Center came and set up stations around the room, with things appropriate for pre-K kids, such as making rudimentary electricity and building a Three Little Pigs house, then trying to blow it down.

Making electricity. This made Dean so happy.

Building a house our of Lincoln logs and Popsicle sticks, with a classmate (and trying to keep Clair from destroying it.)

Huff and puff and blooooow the house down.

The funniest thing about this night is that Clair actually verbalized that which we have known to be true about her for some time. When we were walking around with her, talking to other parents, she got increasingly annoyed, telling me "Mommy, GO! Mommy, walk!!" And when I asked her what her darn problem was, she put her head into my shoulder and said, "I no like PEEPLE."

She also told me she was "angry" because I kept talking to people. Sigh. How can a child have so much personality and be so anti-social? I don't get it.

We also took the kids to a conservatory and botanical gardens, with their friends Abby and Maya (and their parents). The kids somewhat enjoyed the very interesting plants and flowers, but mostly wanted to feed the ginormous goldfish they have swimming in a beautiful pool.

Biggest goldfish ever - from all the kids feeding them all day long!

Clair, Abby, Cary, Dean and Maya

My girl Jill turned 45 and I went to her birthday brunch at a deeelish restaurant in D.C. Jill is a real fashion and style maven around town, so among her brunch guests was Michelle Obama's make-up artist, and also the First Lady's hair stylist. Of course, I had my hair in a messy bun because kids and thinning hair.
Oh well. The good news is, Johnny, Mrs. O's hair stylist, told me (after I begged him to give me hair advice), "I love your little bun. If I was a woman, I'd wear my hair in a topknot like that every day." So ... ummm...WINNING.

Love this girl - and her amazing haircut. Should I go short?? Decisions, decisions.

 This post came out in the New York Times and was DEAD ON.

From the article: "The modern 40s are so busy it’s hard to assess them. Researchers describe the new “rush hour of life,” when career and child-rearing peaks collide. Today’s 40ish professionals are the DITT generation: double income, toddler twins."

(P.S. I'm a "DITT." Who knew?)

I sent the link to my girls from the NOLA trip, so it can inform our book idea -- which. by the way, is in the works! We had one conference call and have homework to do to get potential topics for our individual chapters to the group by the end of this week. I'm awake some nights thinking about what my topics might be. But it's the best kind of insomnia. I'm so excited about this project!
 
Clair has hit the terrible twos with a vengeance. She is defiant and willful; she screams EVERYTHING. She fights with her brothers constantly. She thinks she can do everything "SELF!" except that she wants to be carried everywhere and, all of a sudden, she refuses to eat her meals unless she's sitting in my or Lester's lap. Sharing is an absolute no-no. She wants her "OWN!!!" And she has reached that stage where she is gold-medaling in irrationality. One night, we had an epic battle of wills, because she insisted that all she wanted to eat was pasta when there was none made, but there was elbow macaroni in homemade veggie soup. Nothing I tried would convince her to eat that soup -- and the crying and screaming "I want pasta! Noooo not that pasta. I'm talking 'bout PASTA" went on for so long that even Dean (usually a Clair apologist) sighed heavily and said, "Mommy, this is so annoying!"

In it all, I have to remember to keep my sense of humor, or else, seriously, I would be a thousand pounds from all the stress-eating (still doing Sugar-Free though, more or less, so yay for that!)

She would not eat until I found this book. Or stop crying. I hate this book.

So on this night, for example, when she cried for over an HOUR while I tore up the house trying to locate this book that she wanted, I posted to Facebook that I had been literally "Finding Nemo" for half my night. Get it? Finding Nemo? No? I guess you had to be there. Scratch that. Be so, so glad you weren't.
 
But she is also hilarious and talkative and says the absolute cutest things. And when she wants to be, she is the world's sweetest baby girl. I can't wait to see how her little (big) personality shapes up after toddlerhood turns into little girl. I just know there will never be a dull moment with this one.

We're trying to figure out the summer camp situation (so frustrating!) and we have not yet taken away Clair's pacifier at night, even though we were supposed to do that when she turned 2. #fail

And lastly, Lester and I have decided to send Cary and Dean to a new school in the fall. 

They went to a little festival at the new school and came back as superheroes. Clair lost her ish when she saw them all painted, and we had to wash their crime-fighting disguises off with the quickness.

This is a really big deal and I have A LOT to say about it, so I'll have to save it for another blog post -- when I have time to get it all down. But the long and short of it is, we love the school where they are now and have no issues. And the new school will cost us a jillion dollars more, and be more inconvenient in terms of location and days off, etc. So why are we doing it?

You'll have to wait for the blog post to hear the whole sob story. I wish we could all talk about it over dinner and drinks. When are we getting together, friends? Call me, maybe?