Little Miss Chatterbox

Harry was quite the little talker when he was a baby.  Here is is at 2 reciting Twas the Night Before Christmas, for example.

But then Jack and Cooper had speech delays.

But now!  We are back in the land of the adorably chatty toddler.  Here she is sharing her Buddy-the Elf-like song stylings while Cooper got a haircut:

Worst blogger ever.

I have not meant to become the WORST BLOGGER EVER.  But, alas.

So, I have been doing this insane thing where I don't drink any alcohol on weeknights.  I KNOW.

As a result, when we met 20 of our closest friends for dinner and a trip on a party bus to a haunted forest, I got pass out drunk on 3 glasses of wine and LOST MY BURBERRY SCARF that was tied around my damn neck.  WHO DOES THAT?

Seriously, everyone had an awesome time on the bus on the way home, and I SLEPT in my chair.  I stumbled grumpily into a townie bar and kind of slumped there until we could leave and then counted the minutes until I would be home asleep in my own bed.  And Ben threw up twice the next morning.

But, scarf aside (and that REALLY makes me sad/mad), we had an awesome time.

I have taken about a million pictures of the kids-- some on my real camera, even.  But here's a little glimpse into why we call Dorothy "Girl Jack":

Jack, October 2011

Dorothy, October 2015

OK.  I know next month is NaBloPoMo, but I am going to start early at Harry Times.  Starting NOW, I am going to post everyday through December 1.  You know, to get the rust off.

More fall random cuteness

 HOW CUTE IS MY LITTLE CUB SCOUT???  I have serious, serious, serious issues with the horrible Boy Scouts of America national entity, BUT they are no longer bigots by decree as of July, so what the hell.  Harry kind of wants to join, too-- we didn't let him because the BSA is HORRIFYING, but now he has so many sportsball commitments that it looks unlikely.  Jack, though, is prime age and SO EXCITED to don his dorky uniform.

Dorothy and Cooper and I have been spending a lot of time at the zoo, where Dorothy is scared of the carousel which is really not at all scary, especially for someone who braved Dumbo and the teacups at Disney World.

 But she asks me to snugget (snuggle) her, so how can I resist?  Cooper is not at all scared and thinks Dorothy is kind of a weirdo.

 We even got to go to the zoo with Dorothy's friends from school, which was kind of fun.  We ditched them early to ride the rides and go to Trader Joe's, which I think was kind of scandalous, but what are you going to do? A family needs pumpkin flavored everything before nap time, you know?

 Baby Henry spent a few hours with us on Saturday, and Dorothy wnet out of her little head with jealously.

 As you can see, he was nattily dressed for the fall weather and enjoys a good park.

 Cooper was delighted when he woke up from nap and realized Dorothy was still asleep and Harry and Jack were at sportsball.  THE BABY WAS ALL HIS.

 OMG Dorothy.  She has discovered her love of Fancy Nancy and is super duper fancy pretty much everyday.  The shoes she is wearing in that picture are for her Halloween costume, but she needs to wear them all the time, even in bed.  So, now she has 2 pairs, one for outside and one for inside, and it;s been almost a week and they haven't gotten old and her feet stink 24/7.

Rando

We are addicted to October's bright blue weather, the park that's a good 15-minute walk from our house, and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  So we have decided to have all 3 of them together.

 Harry had hockey try outs last night, and Ben had to coach football, which was awkward since Harry was not there.  The other 3 kids had garbage food for dinner while I read them Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.  In retrospect, I should have just dropped Harry off because there was paper on all the walls blocking views of the rink and no parents were allowed in by the ice.  For 9 year-old hockey try outs.  SO WEIRD.

 Braids!  She wore little braids in her hair this morning!

 Some crazy shit went down at Snow White's house

 But seriously BRAIDS.  As she literally skipped off to school.  Preschoolers are adorable.

Hey, blog. Long time no see.

Have I mentioned that I have 40 students this semester?  This might not seem like much to someone like say MY HUSBAND who teaches 6 classes a semester and has 120 students.  But for me, who is used to teaching ONE CLASS with 25 students, 40 is a big jump.  See, I redesigned the upper-level criticism class I teach to be half online, half in-person.  As a result, I can accommodate more students but still achieve the chummy discussion-like setting I enjoy. It's really cool and fun except that I am ALWAYS on the discussion board or grading something, and I still don't know everyone's names.

Today, I worked from home under a huge pile of grading and with crippling PMS.  I have had PMS for days now, but today, it was so bad, I could not even make a decision about which shade of dark red nail polish to take with me to my pedicure appointment.  I felt like my life was really rough even though Ben was on kid duty, and I worked a full day in my jammies then took a long, long walk, got my nails done, and went to the movies.  I mean, seriously.

As has become our usual state of affairs, we have been busy as a one-armed paper hanger this week.  Every week.  Also, nobody uses that comparison anymore, huh?

Look who's NOT been busy.

 It should come as no surprise that Dorothy is over her high chair.  She uses the big girl potty and sleeps in a big girl bed.

 But hot DAMN does she make a big mess.

Beatrix doesn't mind.

 We discovered a new favorite park that is about 3000 steps or so away from home (round trip)

 Bossy Dorothy loves it.

 They all do, really

 Tiny Professor Baby Henry came to visit.

 Cooper modeled my favorite summer lipstick

 We went to a really fun 5K at the kids' school on Saturday and then took a screamy trip to Costco and a mildly traumatizing because everyone was screaming trip to a pizza place.

 I got up at 4:30 yesterday and worked a 10-hour day before going to a PTO meeting where I managed to take a picture of myself from inside my purse without using my hands.  Hmm.

September: What I Read

I read some good shit this month.  But I am starting to feel like I read so many books so quickly that I can't remember any of the details. But one book I do remember is Still Alice, so my memory lapses are freaky.

**Interlude**
I am trying really hard to lose weight after I reached near-pregnancy numbers thanks to all the summer booze, and I have stopped drinking except for 1 days a week, AND THIS IS THE DAY, so.  I thought you should know that.

10.  Survive the Night by Danielle Vega:  DO NOT EVEN BOTHER.

9.  Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid:  Meh.

8.  Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont:  I just.  It wasn't awesome.

7.  The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty by Amanda Filipacchi:  Funny, but I could not suspend my disbelief quite this much.

6.  So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson:  FASCINATING! The best nonfiction book I have read in awhile.

5. Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg: W.O.W.  You should probably just go ahead and read this one.

4.  Summerlong by Dean Bakopaulos:  I LOVED this book about Grinnell, Iowa-- it almost a little reminded me of my favorite favorite Richard Russo.

3.  Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll:  I loved this book!  I HATED the main character, but I couldn't stop thinking about her.

2.  Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet: SO good.  About a freshman in college and her Cuban family-- a terrific coming-of-age story.

1.  Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal:  Oh, I loved this so much.  A book you'll remember forever.

ETA:  That's 112 books so far this year.  THAT I REMEMBER.

Terrible horrible no good-- you get the idea

I am so annoyed right now. The babies and I are sitting in the car while Jack has football practice. My plan was to run around a little and get some more steps since I have been at work sitting on my  ass ALL DAY but here I am, on my ass again and destined for the treadmill. Or elliptical. Same diff. But, anyway, the reason we are in the car is because it is dusk and too cold to be comfortable playing at the park even with light Northface coats and pumpkin hats.

Boo. 

Dorothy! Has her first school-related virus. She threw up twice yesterday and has been fairly miserable all day. Poor little thing. 

Cooper had his 4 year check up today and got a boatload of vaccines. He was not brave at all, but we told him he was, like you do. 

Yesterday, I dropped my earring while I was putting it on, and it vanished! I was upset pretty quickly because I timed my morning pretty exactly and I was looking forward to being worked it, showered, made up and accessorized before breakfast so I could clean up the breakfast mess before the preschool drop off gamut. That way, the 2.5 hours a day where all the kids were gone would be MINE FOR THE TAKING. 

Instead I wasted so much time crawling around on the bathroom floor that I was getting super antsy. So I shouted not very gently for Ben. Which made Dorothy cry. I assumed I had just startled her until Ben started shouting. I dashed out of our room to see her standing in the hall next to/inside of a volcano of brown vomit. It was horrifying. And Cooper stepped in it OF COURSE. 

I took off my scarf and rolled up my jeans and put her in the tub/scrubbed the floor and walls while Ben resumed earring searching. He couldn't find it, and I was super pissy, especially because every time I clean up the puke, I get sick myself in about 3 days. 

I stayed home with pukey  and kept Cooper home too so we didn't have to leave and took the second shower of my morning to wash off the puke. 

I looked everywhere for the earring. I took apart both sinks. I worried that it was on my scarf (although I swore I heard it hit the ground in a muffled way) which I flung off onto my unmade bed, so I searched all the bedding and even removed the duvet cover. I cleaned out the vacuum canister, vacuumed everywhere and went through the canister with a flashlight. I got a voodoo doll worth of hair out of both sink drains. I looked everywhere. 

Then I called the insurance agent because the earrings are scheduled on our policy and he talked me out of filing a claim right away because he said they always turn up somewhere. 

Dorothy seemed better, so we took all the kids to an elementary school dinner fundraiser at Chipotle. All the kids' friends were there, and they had a rowdy blast. But Dorothy  and Cooper were a handful, and it took 40 minutes to get our food because of a big online order. At the exact second Ben brought the food to our table, Dorothy puked again. All over everything/everyone/Ben, etc. 

She is notthrowing up today (YET) and her night was uneventful-- even though we    tented her room with sheets just in case. 

While I was at work today, Ben thought of the one place we hadn't looked for my earring,  AND HE FOUND IT:

My hero!