Excuses and Explanations (Blog Slacking)

Too much is happening too fast around here these days. The utter overwhelming nature of my/our life right now has led to a severe lack-of-blogging. Sorry to all those regular readers who miss us when we’re gone (thank you for all of your emails of concern about our MIA status). The truth is, I just haven’t been devoting the time to the blog. The truth is, it has been nice to blow it off. The truth is, I miss blogging when I get out of the habit. The truth is, it is sometimes hard to justify blogging when life is so fast paced (and so many things are falling through the cracks). The truth is, I’m back to the blog tonight. The truth is, we have a CRAZY week ahead of us so I’m not sure if I’ll drop off again.

Here are my Top Ten Excuses and Explanations (for the fact that I’ve been a Seriously Slacking Blogger these past two weeks):

1. These Three. They keep me busy. If that is not a statement of The Obvious, then nothing is. {thank you MorMor for the red-themed V-day outfits. I have had to wash the red UnderArmor hoodies every.single.night.since.you.gave.them.to.them… because the boys have strongly desired to wear them every single day.} The fact is, although these three provide ample blogging material, they just don’t leave me much time to blog.

2. This Project. Braydon and I are in the process of purging much of our earthly possessions. We’ve been at this since January 1. Over the course of the next few months we plan to radically downsize our life. The de-cluttering/de-stuff-owning/de-knickknacking/purging/giving-away has been (so far) one of the most interesting and awesome experiences I/we have ever had. I estimate it is about 2/3 of our “stuff” that we are ridding ourselves of. Braydon says it is more like 40%. Regardless, it is a lot. And it is occupying a lot of our time. It is a big project.

3. Basketball Games. In addition to the crazy (brutal) basketball schedule that Kyle and Owen maintain (and love) playing for their school team, we’ve gone to three Lehigh basketball games in the past three weeks (that is one game per Saturday). It has been so fun. Lehigh beat Holy Cross, then Colgate, then Lafayette. We invited Kyle and Owen’s school basketball team to the Colgate game. We hosted a group of 30 kids and their families, and I think it was probably a Top 10 high of K & O’s year.

We got to sit with Zahir for the Lafayette game. That was also a Top 10 high of K & O’s year.

4. Meera’s Latest Obsession. She is not obsessed with basketball. She tolerates basketball (very well, I think, all things considered). Her current obsession is coloring an entire sheet of paper with one color so that the entire sheet is entirely covered. This must be some sort of developmental stage (?)… but it is time consuming… and she wants me to sit with her while she does it… over and over and over and over (with various colors on various sheets of paper). It is such hard work for her; the creation of these masterpieces is a sort of sweet-but-painful experience to witness (over and over and over and over).

5. Kyle’s Latest Obsession. Kyle is obsessed (and I mean, absolutely obsessed) with space and all things space/solar-system/universe related. He is thinking and talking about space from the minute he wakes up until the minute he goes to bed. More uniquely, he has become “a prolific writer” (direct quote from his teacher). His teacher has him (and only him) now using composition books to try to contain his sheer-volume-of-pages-of-writing. He writes “mostly non-fiction, but some reality-based-fiction” (direct quote from Kyle). His latest was a 4 chapter volume (which he wrote in two sittings: a Friday night, and then the next [Saturday] morning) focused on his idea to create a company that will use rockets to shoot trash from earth into space where it will combust upon making impact with Jupiter and Venus. His plan is to base the rocket-launchers in Haiti, which will provide a substantial boost to the Haitian economy while at the same time fixing the “landfill problem for planet earth.” He backs up his “stories” with data that he finds in books from our bookshelves. If we were willing/able, Kyle would occupy all of our time with his obsessive-compuslive-writing.

6. Owen’s Latest Obsession. Basketball. Pure and simple. He is absolutely obsessed (he claims, “addicted”) with/to basketball. He literally wakes up, immediately gets dressed into something “basketball cool and sporty” (his words), and runs either outside (until his hands get hypothermia-like cold), or downstairs (to our little over-the-door-hoop) to play play play basketball basketball basketball. Every spare second he has it is basketball basketball basketball. It is driving Braydon and me absolutely crazy. He cannot get enough of it and it is jumping, shooting, dribbling, lay-upping, talking-basketball morning-till-night. He very often gets his brother and sister right into the action too. It is enough to drive their parents nuts. The non-stop-action finally, after about five years of pounding, took its toll on our little over-the-door-indoor-bball-hoop. And because we are truly out of our minds, we bought a new one. We can only blame ourselves for fueling the fire. But we could not handle the make-shift “hoops” that Owen was constantly creating to try to replace the real one.

7. MorMor & MorFar’s Visit. They came last week for five days. We had been really looking forward to it. Sadly, the photo below (MorFar and Owen play chess) is the only photo we have of their visit. Why?–you ask– well… let me tell you: They arrived Sunday afternoon, and it started out as a great visit. We had lots of plans for the week, and high hopes for all we’d do and bond over. Instead… we ended up bonding in one of the most horrifying/gross ways imaginable: over the course of the week SIX OF THE SEVEN OF US were struck with a HORRENDOUS STOMACH FLU. Imagine the worst. It started with Meera on Monday (picked her up early because she was throwing up at daycare… then on the drive home… then at home… then raging fever and the whole nine yards), and proceeded to move like a tidal wave through the rest of us over the next few days. Only Owen was spared (MIRACULOUSLY. I swear, the boy has an immune system of steel). It was awful. My poor mother did more loads of vomit-laundry than any grandmother should ever have to do (and then she got IT). Not one of the best visits with MorMor and MorFar (but definitely one of the most memorable). This ordeal (the SICKNESS), alone, would warrant at least a 10-day-blog-break.

8. Valentines Day. V-Day was in there somewhere too. Luckily I had pre-planned for it. I’d learned my lesson the hard way for the prior several years, and finally, this year, made sure we spent substantial time devoted to V-Day during the couple of weekends leading up to it. Still though, around here (thanks to a school that insists on multiple days of handmade gifts — which I truly appreciate and respect, but which is GOD-AWFUL WHEN YOU HAVE TWIN BOYS WHO HATE CRAFTS), V-Day is a huge project. (This year, I just want to say this: THANK YOU PINTEREST FOR SAVING MY LIFE THIS V-DAY SEASON. (And thanks to MorMor, too, who helped in a panicky pinch in the 11th hour). Note, for the record (to accommodate for 3 kids’ worth of classroom valentines): we made *47* of the button-candy hearts pictured below.

9. Trifle Et Cetera. I’ve been cooking and baking with Owen and Meera lately. Kyle has relatively little interest in the kitchen. But Owen and Meera are into it. Amongst other things, we made a Valentine’s Trifle for dessert for MorMor and MorFar’s arrival. I had forgotten what a great idea trifle is for a fun and “fancy” kid-friendly dessert. Try it sometime! Recipe can be found here.

10. Speaking of love… Slice of life: This morning, 9:15am — Meera and Kyle share a spacial brother-sister-breakfast together in Meera’s bedroom (mini pancakes and milk; Kyle’s idea) while Owen and Braydon share piano time downstairs in the playroom (Owen has long been figuring out songs on the piano, but his latest quest is to learn how to write out the music with actual musical notation; Braydon is trying to teach him). This (this tiny slice), for example, is why I am so in love with my life (and is why I want to blog, but also why I want to devote very limited time to it).

Postscript. Most of all, the truth is, who would want to be blogging when there is this to be a part of?—

There’s lots and lots of other stuff going on too. So, for the past couple weeks I’ve blown off the blog. Tonight, though, I finally forced myself to catch up on this old blog. We fed the kids an early “Kids Only” dinner (I’m sure someday I’ll miss making these little-kids’-meals), got them to bed, Braydon made martinis, and we turned on The Bachelor (the one and only show we watch, pathetically enough). And somehow, it is so cathartic to pound out a blog post. It makes it seem — somehow — like it will all be harder to forget if I write it down. And as much as these days are nutty-crazy-busy-over-the-top-overhwhelming-at-times… they are good days — truly good days — that I don’t ever want to forget. And these days are passing much too quickly.

Cheers!– to another crazy upcoming week in Never-A-Dull-Moment-Land. And cheers!– to you for following along with this old blog, despite my severe slacking. Thanks for reading y’all. ~H