Happy birthday, Ben!

 If you see this guy today, wish him a HAPPY 44th! Finally, the two months of the year when we are the same age.

IHO his bday, here are my favorite Ben pics from the last year

And if those weren’t enough for you, enjoy this flashback to our undergrad days:

5 on a Friday: MOTY Edition

 Oh so many things I have done poorly as a mom lately. HOW CAN I JUST PICK 5?

A short list of bad parenting this week, or my current MOTHER OF THE YEAR application packet:

1. Encouraging Harry and Jack to develop a caffeine addiction. Listen, you would push coffee on these guys, too, if you lived with them. Their unpleasantness in the morning is… a lot. Sometimes one of them will say something that sounds (to me) totally benign to the other one and they’ll just be, like all of the sudden punching each other in the face. I told them that no one over the age of 7 wakes up happy to be conscious early in the morning and have started buying mocha flavored Coffee Mate and making sure to brew a pot of coffee to be ready before they wake up. Today, Jack had his with milk, Nestle Quick powder (JUST HAVING THIS STUFF IN MY CABINET SHOULD GET ITS OWN LISTICLE MENTION AS A TERRIBLE MOM MOVE), and sugar. LOL/shrug

2. Being totally over my melty (autocorrect changed this to meaty, which also works) toddler on the big red mat by the end of a very 2-year-old Little Gym class. (She was having a great time playing on some mats set up to be a climbing/jumping station. But then! Those mats were a featured activity— the instructor stops the playtime music 3 times per class and introduces a new activity, and Minnie would prefer to just do her own thing— and other kids started using them, and Minnie was a thunder cloud). My friend Tessa sent me some pics of my ennui, and this is my favorite:

Q

She also had fun at class though

VERY EMO BABY:

3. Letting Dorothy watch Minnie after dinner so I can clean the kitchen, even though I know that “watching” her entails letter her watch tween TV on Dorothy’s bed surrounded by choking hazards.

Wait, Actually. I have Nestle Quick powder and also my 9 year-old has a TV in her room. WE ARE ALL DONE HERE. THAT’S FIVE.

4. Not packing my junior a lunch for ACT day. He packed his own:

5. Zoning out on my phone while Minnie did bathtub paint.