Keeping Me Humble

My kids are very good at keeping me humble. They're the first to tell me how great I am, but they're also the first to point out my weaknesses. And they somehow manage to do it in a completely innocent, non-judging sort of way, leaving me unable to feel resentment toward them like I might with other people pointing out my inadequacies.

For example, I've been feeling pretty good about myself physically lately. Brent and I have been exercising regularly, we've been trying to eat healthier, and our bodies are starting to show us the results. It feels good. So to bring me back to reality, here are a couple of conversations I've had lately with the littles.

Tink (while watching me do my make-up): Mom, what's that?

Me: A zit.

Tink (with a look of disgust-mixed-with-curiosity-mixed-with-horror on her face as her finger slowly makes its way up to my face. She almost touches it, but then pulls her hand back as if it might be contagious): Why is it so big and red?

Me: Because it was a big zit under the skin that hurt really bad so I tried to pop it too early and instead created a crater on my face.

Tink: Oh. Why do you have so many zits?

Me: Because I don't have a baby in my tummy. (One of my favorite things about being pregnant is the way my skin clears up. Post-partem, it all goes down the tubes again.)

I'm sure I completely confused the poor girl as to how a baby in my tummy could have anything to do with red dots on my face.

After this part of the conversation, I was feeling very paranoid about my crater-zit, so I tried to cover it up with a little cover-up concealer stick, which I NEVER use since putting anything on my skin usually just causes the break-outs to get worse.

Tink: What's that stuff?

Me: Stuff to try to cover up the zit and make it look less red.

Tink (after watching my pathetic attempts): It's not working, Mommy.

Me: I know. :(

------------ A few minutes later --------------

Tink (while watching me pluck my eyebrows): What are all those black dots on your face? (Around my eyebrows.)

Me: Hairs.

Tink: Why are they all around your eyebrows? That's not where they're supposed to grow.

Me: I know. Because life's unfair.


See? Keeping me humble. And to be fair to Tink, when I was all done with my make-up, she stood back to take a good look at me and said, "Mommy, you wook bootiful." Thanks, Tink. That almost makes up for the plummet in my self-esteem.

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Another day, the girls were all playing with my hair. Roo decided to join in. (I LOVE it when they brush and play with my hair. It's one of my favorite things. I get into a zen-like trance and can't think straight.)

Roo: Mom, your hair is getting long!

Me: I know! Isn't it exciting?

Roo: Yeah, but I can see some hairs in here that aren't the same.

Me: I know, Roo.

Roo: They're white, Mom.

Me (losing my zen): I know, Roo.

Roo: There's a lot of them, Mom.

Me (zen flies out the window) : I know, Roo. Let's all play the Quiet-Game while we brush Mommy's hair now!



I have now decided that when I create my own worlds, there will be a law-of-nature that says that a person can't have zits and white hairs at the same time. And if she's 30 years old, she can't have either of them. Yeah, that's a good law.

All About June

Oh how I love babies. Especially MY babies! :)

June is growing like a weed. She gets cuter by the minute. Here are some fun facts about June at 10 months old.

1. She loves food. Pretty much any food. She has 8 teeth now and is putting them to good use. Sometimes I wonder if she loves the experience of eating even more than the different tastes and textures. This was after giving her some avacado. The rest of the day, AJ referred to her as the Avacado Alien.
2. She's fat. Seriously fat. My mom thinks she's the fattest of my babies so far. She might be right. :)

Do you see the boobs? Beautiful.
(Also, for those of you wondering, her necklace is made of amber. It's a teething necklace, but not for chewing on. Amber has natural analgesic qualities which are released into her skin and help soothe her when she's teething. You can read more about them here. That's where I got June's. :) )

3. She can't crawl yet. She scoots backward on her tummy and on her back, but has yet to figure out getting up on her hands and knees and moving forward....which is alright with Brent and me. We blame it on her fat. After all, that is a big load to hold up.

4. She's one of the happiest babies I've ever encountered. Unless there's something really wrong, she can usually be found smiling.

5. She has recently discovered her voice. And since she has 4 other siblings to compete with, she has quickly figured out the need for volume. High-pitched volume. Dinner time seems to be a favorite time of hers to tell us all what she thinks, resulting in a headache for Brent and (loud) laughter from the kids. (Apparently I'm fairly used to the volume in this house, being in it all day, and occasionally contributing to it, so I have developed a headache immunity.)

6. She's starting to sign back to us now and so far her favorite is "more."

7. She's hasn't been naked for long periods of time over the winter since it was so cold, so I just recently discovered a new depth to her chub. I give you....... the roll above the knee (you can also see her cankle well in this pic):

8. With her new-found love of being naked, she's started taking pleasure in her own chub. She may love playing with her rolls as much as her mama does. :)
9. When she gets excited, she rolls and twists her ankles and her wrists, shakes her arms up and down, and makes this face:
10. She loves all of her fans....I mean siblings. All of them. Her biggest fan is her 2yo sister, Lady. Remember that doll from the 80's.....Kid Sister? Well, that song is quite appropriate for the way Lady feels about June.

(June was starting to get upset in this pic, so Lady brought her a blanket. That's her solution for everything since Lady loves her blanket (the one on the left) so much.)

(This is the face you get when you tell Lady to "say cheese." I love it.)

And one more for good measure:

11. She has 2 conflicting cowlicks at the back of her head, so she often looks like Alfalfa, although I couldn't find a good picture showing off her turkey-tail, so you'll just have to imagine the cuteness.

I'm NOT Brave

And once again, somebody else says it better than I can.


I know I'm not the most gifted writer. I sometimes border on worrying more about my punctuation, spelling, and grammar than about what I'm actually saying. My homebirth post was healing and therapeutic for me to write, but obviously charged with many emotions and didn't really come across the way I intended. So someone else (once again) wrote out my thoughts better than I did. This woman gives all the reasons, without the emotional charge behind them, of why homebirth has nothing to do with bravery and everything to do with safety.

I'm sure this won't be the last time I write about homebirth, but hopefully it'll be the last time for a while. I have many other topics I want to write about, including one very cute baby, in a post to come soon. :)

Because I needed a laugh today

And my all-time favorite: