Healthy Skepticism

Will: "Mommy, is it gymnastics today?"

Me: "Yes, it's Tuesday, and you have gymnastics today."

Will: "Oh, is Helen going to gymnastics today too?"

Me: "Yes, Helen is going."

Will: "Is Helen going to listen at gymnastics?"

Me: "Yes, I think Helen will listen today at gymnastics."

Will: "We'll see, Mom. We'll see."

This is what a snow day looks like in Houston

HISD closed all the schools across the district for a snow day. This is what a snow day looks like in Houston:

One of four VERY disappointed kids who woke up to find no snow

We did get a little ice and a lot of cold, for Houston. It turned out to be mostly a stay-inside-and-play-games sort of day. Cort and I stayed at home too, so it was at least fun to get an extra lazy day!

Ice on the basketball goal

Just look at those icicles!

Wordless Wednesday

More Work-Life Balance

Sunday, Cort left for a two-week trial. Come to think of it, he was pretty busy preparing for it the week before. That's a total of three weeks, at least, without Dad as we are used to him.

Wednesday, I have to file a brief in the Texas Supreme Court. I'm also a procrastinator. This used to work well for me, when I could hole up for a weekend and work into the wee hours, with no one else to worry about but myself. It does not work so well when I am responsible for four small, busy, and exhausting people.

I have put Will and Helen in gymnastics classes on Tuesdays. I leave work a little earlier than usual on Tuesdays, pick Will and Helen up at around 3:50 from school, take them to gymnastics class which starts at 4:10, then go pick up Charlie and Joseph from school at 4:30, and return to pick Will and Helen up when gymnastics class ends at 5:00. At that point, I've got all four kids and the gymnastics place is crazy busy (and huge). The first day I did this, I could not keep track of even two kids at once. They were running all over the place and I couldn't even find them, much less get clothes changed and get them all to the car to return home. We have since set some ground rules.

Which Helen did not follow last week.

That brings us to today. It's Tuesday. The brief has to be finished today in order to be filed in Austin tomorrow. And I have to leave today by 3:45 to make gymnastics.

We could easily skip gymnastics. Except: Today, the plan is to take only Will to gymnastics. The plan is for Helen not to go - as a consequence for not following the ground rules last week. I think it will make an impression. If we skip gymnastics altogether today, the consequence goes out the window. I can't expect a 3-year-old to really link a consequence to her actions two weeks earlier. It just won't have the same effect. More importantly, I've already told her that Will is going and she isn't. If I don't follow through, I will have lost all credibility. Losing credibility with Helen is something I do not wish to happen.

So, I can do this. I've gotten four hours of sleep the past two nights. I got up early this morning, had everything ready before the kids got up, and managed to get all the kids in the car and dropped off at their respective schools before 8 o'clock.

The brief will be mailed to the supreme court today.
Will will go to gymnastics.
And Helen won't.

The things we do for our kids. My guess is that she's never going to appreciate this.

Wordless Wednesday

Horses!

Did I mention that while we were at Roger and Chrissy's ranch, the kids--MY KIDS (who have always been a little on the chicken side)--rode horses?

Seventeen years

In the spring of 1993, I met a fellow Aggie while touring UT Law School. She later called me and told me she decided to go to Baylor Law School instead. I told her I had made the same decision. She asked if I wanted to room together, and I said sure.

In the fall of 1993, we moved in together and started law school. On the first day of orientation, we spied another girl. She looked pretty cool, and more importantly we had already figured out that she had gone to Baylor as an undergraduate as well. So we walked up and starting asking her questions - important things like where we should go to get our student ID.

A few weeks later, the three of us were studying together in the library. That's when a guy came up to us asking us some sort of question about our legal citation assignment. (He always tells us that he picked us because we were the three hottest chicks in our law school class. And we always go with that.)

We graduated from law school in 1996. Shortly thereafter -- and all within a year -- we each got married. The girl from Baylor undergrad married her college sweetheart, who had followed her to law school the following year. My former roommate and Aggie married the guy from the library. And lastly, in May 1998, I married Cort, who I had met in law school in the nick of time -- right before my last quarter of school.

Years passed and both our professional and personal lives intersected and diverged and intersected and diverged again.

We started to talk about how each couple was thinking about having children. And how having them wasn't as easy as we anticipated. In fact, the day that Lara announced to me that she was finally pregnant was the day that Cort and I decided to take more initiative and see a fertility doctor.

Five years later, we had ten children between us. TEN. 2004 was a particular banner year, with half of those ten children being born that year. (Official count: 1 kid in 2003, 5 in 2004, none in 2005, 1 in 2006, and 3 in 2007).

In January 2011 -- over seventeen years since I met these people in law school -- we continued our annual tradition of spending MLK weekend at Roger and Chrissy's (the library guy and my Aggie roommate) ranch. The sixteen of us - six adults and ten kids. And except for the extra people, nothing seems to have changed much between us. We are still as close and comfortable as we were back in law school, and are floored that seventeen years has gone by.

Top ten things about my 40th birthday

10. Turning 40 isn't nearly as bad as the anticipation of turning 40.

9. I didn't have to get anyone but myself ready this morning.

8. I blew my diet at lunch and didn't feel the least bit guilty - mmm, gnocchi.

7. Chocolate cupcakes at work.

6. In order to implement my evening birthday celebration, Cort picked up all four kids and I stayed at my office in the peace and quiet. No one yelled in the car on my way home.

5. When I got home, I was met at the door by four kids, all dressed up and SUPER excited, one of whom handed me a glass of champagne.

4. This:

3. A yummy four-course dinner, capped off by divine chocolate lava cake and my favorite ice cream (on a fancy plate that said "Happy Birthday Mommy"). All this was served by my older kids, who announced the food for every course, in our formal, never-before-used dining room with fancy and/or breakable dishes for everyone.

2. Handmade cards from all the kids. Joe's with some sort of code I'm supposed to decipher?

1. My wonderful, amazing husband, who not only orchestrated the evening celebration, but knew EXACTLY what sort of celebration I would really, really love.

Four decades

My first decade: I remember the least about this one, although I guess arguably it's the most important (since it includes my birth and all). What stands out to me is that I was an only child, growing up on a ranch several miles from a small town in Texas. I was pretty good at playing by myself and "pretending" all sorts of things. I liked to draw. My life wasn't anything like the life my kids lead today.

My second decade: This one was defined by my peers and, like many a teenage girl, being social and popular. Not a bad gig in a small town. I enjoyed it immensely.

My third decade: Although at the start of this decade I was still in college, what defined this decade was law school and the best thing I took from law school -- my husband. In this decade I grew up, became responsible for myself, and achieved professional success. More importantly, I met and married the man who would define the rest of my life. Despite the fact that I never would have characterized a man as defining my life.

My fourth decade: This one was the most unexpected, and the best. I became a parent. To four children in a span of three years. My priorities changed. I enjoyed parenthood more than I ever imagined I would. I worked harder at it than I ever imagined I would have to. My kids are greater than I ever imagined kids could be. That guy I married became more than just my husband, but also my partner in parenting. It has definitely been the most fulfilling decade yet.

Onto the fifth decade . . . .

What we've learned as a family of 6

The dishwasher must be run two to four times each day.

There are no longer enough leftovers for leftover night. So sad. I loved leftover night.

Four kids, once they all acquire the ability to talk, are LOOOUUUDDD. And raising your voice to be heard over the noise they make doesn't really help matters.

Requiring all the kids to hold hands when near a busy street is the responsible thing to do, but the ten families that pile up behind you as you block the sidewalk and move at the pace of a meandering three-year-old likely still get annoyed.

Five gallons of milk a week adds up.

One disgruntled kid can infect the whole bunch. To keep harmony, it is imperative to segregate the crying/screaming/whining kid away from the rest of the family.

It is really difficult to do that while driving in the car.

Four children can, indeed, fit into a normal sized bathtub.

My options for buying a new vehicle are quite limited.

When you go out to eat at a restaurant, if you take one child to the restroom and another child outside for a time out, you leave two children completely unsupervised. Oops.

It is soooo much fun!