Us in a nutshell

It sometimes happens that I have all these great ideas for things to write about swirling around in my head all week, and then when I sit down to actually write, I can’t remember a single thing I wanted to say. That’s where I’m at currently. I had quite a few good topics floating around in my noggin just a day or two ago. And now, I got nothing. Here is a sampling of what is left in my head at this moment, in no particular order:

– I thought Baby No. 4 was going to be an early walker, like Kid No. 3 was (Kid No. 3 walked at 9 months). But here we are, just two days away from the 11-month mark, and she’s still happily crawling about. I’m not complaining. I’m in no hurry to have her running wild with the rest of the crew. She gets around just fine as a crawler. She stands confidently and will cruise if she has something to hold on to. I know she’ll be walking before we know it. And then there’s no turning back. So for now, I’m glad she proved me wrong and didn’t start walking early.

– The 5-year-old got some Nerf guns for Christmas and now spends all his free time playing “sidewalk cop.” He has a police uniform that he dresses in, including a face mask that, according to him, will prevent him from getting a broken nose when the criminals attack. The other night he was supposed to be putting his pajamas on and instead came out decked from head to toe in his police get-up, wielding three guns and telling us that his chief needed him to arrest someone at night. He was disappointed that we wouldn’t let him go roam the streets in the dark “looking for someone to arrest.”

– The 7-year-old got an Academic All Star ribbon on her most recent report card. We’re very proud of her. She also spent a good 20 minutes last night screaming at my husband and me that we “ARE THE ABSOLUTE WORST,” which is probably true so we didn’t take it too hard. 

– The 2-year-old is the enforcer around here. You wouldn’t think that was the case because her big brother and sister aren’t exactly shrinking violets, but Big Moo (that’s what she calls herself) is who everyone answers to. The other day I was feeding the baby her bottle and the 7-year-old and the 5-year-old were engaged in some kind of battle royale (my guess is the 5-year-old was trying to arrest the 7-year-old and my guess is also that the 7-year-old totally deserved it). I was trying to ignore their wails and screams as best I could while the 2-year-old played happily on the floor near the chair where I was feeding the baby. Then, suddenly and completely out of nowhere, the 2-year-old had had enough. She stood up and stormed into the hallway where the older two were trying to throttle one another and announced, “If you two don’t knock it off right now, I’m calling Dad!” Big Moo = Enforcer.

That’s what we’ve got going on, in a nutshell.