In Which

Aidan has decided sleeping through the night for six months was enough, and shall no longer do it ever again;

Eric accidentally bought 86 rolls of toilet paper;

The St. Patrick's Day crowd, at least near us, didn't cheer on hizzoner Da Mayor in what was his last St. Patty's Day parade - boo;

In which Liam remarked that the St. Patrick's Day parade "was fun, but wasn't as fun as (he) thought it would be";

The St. Patrick's Day party at my parents church had a lot of bumping, grinding and head shaving, but not a lot of Irish music or Irish dancing. The boys were happy but the adults were not;

Liam wrote a kick ass song tonight containing the lyrics "too many monkeys / too many monkeys/ we're lost in the middle of MONKEYS!";

One of The Kings is missing - again!;

Brendan thinks Luke Skywalker is one of the U. S. presidents;

There weren't enough hours in my day to begin with and now one of them has been taken from me.

Are You Kidding Me?

I can't Facebook this (because of my self-imposed Facebook Lent ban), but it must be noted. On the front page of the Chicago Tribune right now there is an article entitled "Newt Gingrich: Passion for Country Contributed to Infidelity." As if that was not ridiculous enough in and of itself, the article directly below this one is entitled "House Republicans Vow to Uphold Defense of Marriage." Wha? What? By the way, Newt Gingrich's "infidelity" occurred during his THIRD marriage!!! I'm not criticizing his decisions, but I'll be damned if he (who is considering a run for the Republican Presidential ticket) is going to say marriage can only be between one man and one woman. Because if he hasn't yet, I betcha he will. I just betcha.

On a funnier note, at Liam's preschool today another student told the teacher, "I don't have a cold, I just have some flu trapped in my voice mailbox." I hope that kid runs for president.

Little Birdhouses in Our Souls

Random pictures from the past few weeks. I have a lot of wise, thoughtful things to say, of course, but since a cold has been circulating throughout the family for the past few weeks and now Aidan has a respiratory virus that prohibits him/me for sleeping for more than an hour at a time, this should suffice...

The Brendan show, feat. Aidan...





Snow pants are snow cool...



Liam and Aidan, aka Liam and Little Liam, aka Little Eric, Littler Eric...


Our first snowman...


Fun in the basement, aka the Former Dungeon, which used to be soooo awful and now is sooo awesome. Also, Liam doesn't have a flat head like the 3rd picture suggests...

Cutest. Thing. Ever.

Liam and Brendan have a couple baskets where they keep their cars and their Cars cars. Anyway, Aidan loved to crawl (army crawl still) over to them and take the cars out. But we kept telling him no, he can't eat them, and he now understands that. So recently he has developed a new technique. He takes this little toddler spoon over there with him, throws it in the basket, madly thrashes his hand around in the basket til he finds it, and takes it out and chews on it. It is soooo cute I can't really properly convey it. I should take a movie of it. Sometimes, he accidentally grabs a car, and then he looks at it, whips it back in the basket and continues to thrash his hand around until he finds the spoon. Other times the spoon gets out of his reach and then he gets pretty pissed. I think there should be a t.v. show about this. I'd watch it. Seriously.

We're Having a Heatwave, a Tropical Heatwave

The temperature's rising, it isn't surprising, she certainly can, can-can.

Anyway, it's actually supposed to be snowstorming, blizzarding, and other exciting things. I am most excited that work may close tomorrow night and then I could stay home and play in the snow with the boys!! We shall see. I have a meeting from 1 to 3, might that be cancelled too? Ok, and what is it with spell checker saying cancelled is spelled canceled? Apparently two "l"s is British? Whatevers. Who here can tell I'm just procrastinating on cataloging homework? Eric made an unbelievable stirfry tonight while I was in a different class. The stirfry had a lot of superfoods, and I feel my superpowers really revving up. Unfortunately I'm still too tired to get off the couch and go brush my teeth. But don't tell Eric, since he's slaving away getting gas for the snowblower and food and water supplies before the massive or not so massive snowstorm. I wasn't alive for the '67 one, but my family has a lot of great stories about it. And some reel to reel. My dad ended up walking to work that day since there were very few buses running, and when he finally got there around noon the only other person there was his boss, so they went to the cafeteria, made lunch and his boss drove him as far home as he could. My parents' work ethic is pretty incredible. Obviously I did not inherit all of their amazing genes (see lazy points above.) I can't watch Mad Men without thinking of their life (which entailed far less booze and adultery, but similar amounts of cool clothes and historical context.) Oops, Eric's back with the groceries. I'll have to go back, ahem, to cataloging.

And the Days Go By

Wow, it's 3:06 on a Wednesday, and here I am, sipping coffee and casually catching up on my computer stuff. How can it be so? This morning Liam had his first ever Before School Playdate. This amazing luxury included his friend's mom picking him up from our house, taking him and said friend to play, then taking them back to her house for lunch, bringing them to school AND bringing Liam home after school. WOW!! I actually felt a little sick to my stomach about Liam not being here with us this morning, but mostly incredibly happy for him to be able to play with his friend all day. I was also happy Brendan handled NOT going as well as he did (which is to say perfectly!)

Then my parents came over and I was able to get a few things done around the house too. Brendan almost didn't take a nap, but finally did, and it definitely has been awesome. Next year Liam will probably be going to am kindergarten at his grade school, and then pm at the Montessori, so it will be a very long day for him (especially since it starts around 8, and he doesn't even wake up til 9!) And I already miss him and all the years I've had with him before school really started. But time marches forward. One consolation for me is that Brendan will be with Liam in the afternoon school (and I won't even begin to complain how monumentally expensive next year's tuition bills will be, which is sort of crazy considering it's preschool/kindergarten, but that's a rambling for a different day.)

The strangest part of all my sentimentality is that for the last couple weeks, we have had no daytime routine to speak of and we're totally full of cabin fever and there hasn't been a zen moment during our days much at all, and my work schedule's been a bit insane, and I don't like the mood in our house many times throughout the course of our days. Yet still, when I have a moment to myself I find my thoughts focused on wanting to spend as much time with these little guys as I can, before they're not so little anymore. This morning Liam got into his friend's car and shut the door without so much as a kiss or wave goodbye to Mom (though he did wave, probably with some prompting, as they pulled out of the driveway.) He's so ready to dive into the next chapter of his adorable little life, and I just hope I am too!

(Two Posts in Two Days!) Da-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah

Two buds...


The hawk that flew over my head in the backyard a few months ago. Liam and Brendan spotted it across the street a couple weeks ago.


Tired Jedis


Youngest Jedi


I kept wondering why Zoey loved the Gingerbread House so much, and then I remembered there were a couple peppermint kisses on it - her fav


Cousins and uncle rocking out Christmas Eve


I see a garage band in my future (good thing we have a detached garage


The two newest babies in our family


Me and my bro and our new sons


Christmas Eve


LTs bday