A Smattering of Spring

 Hannah. Busy. She wakes up and sprints to the kitchen. Grabs the gallon of milk from refrigerator and thumps it to the floor. Then she grabs a sippy cup and grunts for a fill up. With milk in hand she toddles over to the cabinet and grabs a bowl. “Mo,” she says, asking for more of something in her bowl. Bowls. They are all over our house -- along with toothbrushes. We can’t ever find the bowls or the toothbrushes. She wants a bowl full of something to snack on. Of course she is hungry. She doesn’t stop moving. She finds toothpaste no matter where I stash it. The kids get it back down and she finds it. There is tooth paste in the carpet, on my pillow, on my shoes, in my hair, on the cabinets, and on the wall too.

            

If we mention the pool or swimming, she runs to the back door, rips off her diaper, tries to take off her clothes, and yells, “Pool!” With a mad dash to the pool, she jumps in without fear over and over and over and over again.

If she finds a marker, she starts drawing on the first thing she finds. Fortunately that happens to be her arms and legs and face. So far, the furniture and the walls have yet to become her canvas.

 

Marbles, balls, blocks, books. She dumps out and digs through and does it again. It’s a race to keep up with her and a race to keep things out of reach and put away. The only way to get her to slow down is to read her a pile of books. We all beg someone else in the family to read her The Wheels On The Bus.

Outside she is chasing baby chicks, riding in her cars, drawing with chalk, sitting on the tractor, or begging for a ride in the stroller.

Shoes. Clothes. Dolls. Bowls. Toothbrushes. Books.  They are everywhere all the time.

When she goes to bed, I just want to flop on a bed or a soft surface and stop moving.

And this is just Hannah. We have three more children. They are intensely working on art projects, swimming, reading, rip sticking begging to bake something, begging for another idea for another project, begging for a trip to the park. They are into jewelry making, gluing, lego projects, and their chickens.

I feel like I’m in a continual sense of shock at the intensity and fast forward motion this parenting ride takes us on. We are working on manners, on kindness, on problem solving, on following through, on putting things away, on including others, on asking to offer help, on making sure we are sensitive to others.

And this is just the parenting. It is crazy fun and really fast.  One minute I feel like a bad juggler constantly dropping balls, the next I feel like a pro juggling fire sticks. I think I’m too tired to write down stories, but they keep us in the game. These pictures are just a smattering of the spring. Summer is here. The heat is real, and hopefully some stories will find their way here too.

            

William dancing at the Irish Festival

 Hannah was fussy and we were in the middle of the country and a store with a bunch of junk had these little merry go rounds. We had a ball riding round and round.

 Amelia is always making paint with whatever will turn into paint. Mud at Lot 9 works great.

 She wakes with the sun. Sometimes we can get her to go back to sleep for a minute.