I laughed so hard I snorted.

So yeah, maybe if I read my own blog I'd know that I did Oak twice and did NOT do Winnie or Finn. What can I say, I'm busy and frazzled! Anyway, you get a twofer. Winnie and Finn will share the post spotlight.

Winnie is an amazing soul. She's an absolute necessity in my life. She is kind, helpful, and caring. She does an amazing job of helping me keep track of Oak, is almost always patient with Zella, and is an absolute doll to have a conversation with. She likes playing with dolls still (love that!) and is incredibly creative and artistic. She likes to draw and her imagination is unlimited. She makes me things like "gift cards" for coffee or back rubs. She's going to be an amazing mother some day.

Finn is a "boys will be boys" boy. I have no doubt that our first childhood broken bone will be Finn. Everything he does is 110% or more. There is no off button, nor is there a slow down button. He goes from the moment his feet touch the floor in the morning until he can't keep his eyes open at night. He reads avidly and loves to learn stuff. He prefers to be independant and is surprisingly sensitive. He's a wonderful, loving, and often trying child.

So, there we go. We'll pretend I didn't do Oak twice ;).

I forgot to feature Oak.

Whoops! Last but not least, as they say. Oak Oak. Well, Oak is 2. He's a brilliant, funny, witty, smiley, active, evolving 2. He's making leaping strides in language every day. One day he says 75 words, the next it's 100 it seems like. He's starting to spit out baby babble sentences that only Winnie and I can translate (thank the god and goddess for my Winnie) and he normally means what he says very passionately. He's at that beautiful age where he repeats every word you say. Cuss words are typically yelled in the clearest most beautiful voice, of course, lol. He's fun and funny and we love him.

Inspiration in the grayness. Just another one of the many facets of me.

I find music inspiring me today. Bands I was unaware of mere days ago have caught and held my attention and my emotion. Joy and pain, the nameless emotion one feels for their life partner, sorrow and excitement. Song to song my moods alter and shift, allowing my awareness to shift with them. So many things going on in my life. So many I can't even blog about them. Some I don't want to jinx with premature gushing about them. Others I hint at but don't feel ready to go into detail. Others seem so insignificant as words that I don't want to dishonor their place in my head by writing them down. I feel a sense of urgency, like I should hurry to feel and explore it all before life catches up and emotion can barely be acknowledged let alone explored. I feel a sense of urgency to get on with things. These changes that are coming are exciting!

A shout out to Sugarland, Adam Mertz, John Mayer, The Indigo Girls (God I want to see them in concert SO BAD), Matt Nathanson, whoever invented live accoustic versions of amazing songs, The Beastie Boys, Broadway, Adam Lambert, Daughtry...

This is, quite possible, the funniest thing I've ever seen.

http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/Sean+Paul/track/Temperature?video_id=nfXke_z6t3I

Whoops!

Did I say Zella was being featured "tomorrow". You all (by that I mean all 4 people who read my blog) should know better by now. So, Zella Zella Zella. What can I say? Girlie is a handfull. She's a diva in the truest sense of the word. It's also very apparent that she is a 4yo in the middle. She's not a baby, oh no. However, she's not a big girl either. Whats a girl in that situation to do? Why, you run the show, that's what. Nobody toots or burps without Zella's approval. Disapproval is immediately apparent and shrieking is her favorite form of getting attention.

But underneath this child who thinks the world is hers, is a sweet girl, kind and loving, helpful and full of passion. Aside from the screeching (which she'll presumable grow out of), these are important qualities in strong, independent women.

Oak.

It's been awhile since I've featured each of my lovely children. I'll start with Oak. Oak just drank half of my coffee. He also snatched my cookie. For those doing the math in their head that's about a bazillion times too much sugar for this early in the day, and a hefty dose of caffeine. I think maybe Grandma wants him for the day. Yeah, that's a good plan. Give him to grandma. Oh, wait. Grandma will give him more cookies and ice cream. Ok, it's settled. He stays.

Last night we were on the front porch (around midnight) and Oak says "Where Moo (moon)?" and starts pointing at the sky. Now, this is a question he's been able to ask for a few months already, some of his first words actually. Tonight was more exciting when the question was followed by several statements like "see stars" and "oh airplane" and "what are we doing". He didn't stop when we came inside. Can you say language explosion? In addition to adorable language-ness, he's also quite adept at using a variety of amusing expressions to drive home his babbling point. The kid is a riot. I'm glad he's here.

He was falling asleep in his carseat downstairs with us for a long time. When he's good and asleep we unbuckle him and take him to his bed. For some reason this has not been happening (busy couple of weeks has us all off our routines) so he's in bed with us. Tonight this ends. This morning when I woke to dog whining at 6:30 (good thing this isn't a dog post or I'd have to censor) I found Oak splayed out between dh and I, upside down and feet and elbows digging into every uncomfortable spot they could find on dh and I. I didn't dare move him for fear of him waking up, but I managed to sneak away. That rendered going back to bed impossible because my space was swallowed by flailing 25lb 2yo so I was up for the day.

So, that's my baby boy and his recent adventures with language and personal space. Tomorrow: Zella

In which life slowly returns to a more normal version of chaos.

So school is over until August. I have no solid obligations (barring the occasional doctors appointment and such) from now until school starts. Today was detox day one. the kids, as expected, were a mix of dreamy and horrid all day today. I can't, in good conscience at least, continue to enforce a 7pm bedtime. I tried 9 tonight and it was horrid. Everyone exhaustedly screaming for no discernible reason. I think maybe we'll do 8 tomorrow and try that for a week, then slowly advance to 8:30 if they seem to be able to handle it.

I need to sit and reflect on this last year, but can't bring myself to do it yet. The out-of-home-school experiment was a 50/50 toss up as far as success goes. On the bright side I have a good idea of where the kids are in terms of educational levels. This will make life easier next year. On the bad side we're still making payments (yeah, we're slackers) after some miscommunication on the part of the school and some laziness in getting clarification myself we owed more than we could really accommodate. They'll get the money eventually, slowly. I feel awful about that, but what can I do?

On tap for "sometime this summer" is a trip to visit my dad. He's built a large treehouse in his back yard for the kids. They know about it and can't wait to go play in it. Dad is working on his roof at the moment so we'll wait until he's not involved in that to go visit. I think he has plans in early July so we're probably looking at mid-late July. Am I crazy? Mid to late July in Ohio? Egad. I guess it's probably not a whole lot worse than here though.

Other adventures on tap include the new Magic House, the wading pool and farmers market (a favorite of mine), perhaps another camping trip (shorter this time, just the family I think), water fun in the back yard (should say mud fun), movie nights, slumber parties, cleaning and organizing and decluttering, exploring a new career path for dh (not ready to announce just yet, stay tuned), time with family and friends, and yard work. Yee-haw.

So one kind of chaos comes to an end, while another slowly begins to take over. As long as I don't have to be up at 6:45, I'm good.