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!

New Year's Resolution #1

Keep up with blogging.

I'm not doing too well so far. It's January 4 and I haven't posted from the holidays yet.

I know that our little family blog can't be considered great literature, or even a great blog like some of those out there that I read (yes, I spend time reading the blogs of absolute strangers).

But for those of us living this little life of ours, we feel like our life is a continual source of entertainment. Truly, it is. The blog is my attempt to chronicle and remember all these things, so I can relive them when I'm old and gray(er). I'm just not the baby book or scrapbooking type, so this blog serves those purposes. I hope that when the kids are older, they will be able to read back and enjoy learning about their childhood. Or at least, not hate me because I wrote on the internet about the things they did.

So, there is some importance to this. I resolve to do better in 2011. But in the meantime, I'll probably just have to, once again, make use of Blogger's backdating feature. There is so much I haven't yet said about Christmas, the holiday season, New Year's, and 2010 in general. If I can just manage to do it before I forget everything, years from now we'll be none the wiser. But if anyone is reading in the present, be on the lookout for back posts. I was home with the kids for over two weeks. There's a lot of fodder there!

Wordless Wednesday

The holiday effect of having older siblings

On the way to take Helen and Will to school the other morning, I was in the holiday spirit. I decided to sing a little "Jingle Bells." Immediately I was met with odd, and adamant, resistance.

"Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all the way!"

"NO, NO, NO, NO. That not how it goes!"

"Oh what fun it is to ride . . . ."

At this point, they are beside themselves, insisting that I stop and that I'm not singing it right. Although I undoubtedly was off-key, that didn't seem to be the problem. "No! Sing it like Charlie and Joe sing it," they demanded.

What?

So they demonstrated. "Jingle bells! Batman smells! Robin layed an egg!"

The other bunny

As previously noted, Will asked Santa for "a green rabbit" for Christmas. An oddly specific and -- well -- just plain odd request. It's not like he's particularly into rabbits. Or animals even.

This peculiar request caused me to spend an hour on amazon.com at work, making sure that such a thing as a green rabbit did, indeed, exist. You know, so Santa wouldn't have too much trouble procuring one.

But since he does have the attention span of, fittingly, a 3-year-old, I wasn't sure Santa should run out and fulfill his request just yet. It's not even mid-December, after all. I figured I should feel this one out for awhile, just to confirm that the green rabbit thing is a true desire, and not just a whim.

So the last few days, right before I put Will and Helen to bed, I've been asking Will what he wants Santa to bring for Christmas. Each time, he says a green rabbit. I ask him what he's going to do with a green rabbit. He says he will squeeze it and make it talk and asks what rabbits say. (Uh-oh, can Santa find a talking green rabbit? That's a tall request!) I tell him that rabbits are pretty quiet, which he thankfully accepts. Helen offers that rabbits hop. So Will says that's what he'll do - "I'm going to hop my rabbit!" Lots of hopping ensues. Rabbits are the topic of the evening.

So with all my questioning, it's become clear that Will does, indeed, want a green rabbit for Christmas. And guess what else? Now Helen wants a yellow one.