Fun times, people. Fun times.

To keep it interesting, I captured our adventure on my phone. These are just the handful that made the Instagram cut . . .

Been stopped for 15 minutes on Hwy 15 in North Carolina.Thankfully, only one is awake! Onward, vacation!

The key to a solo road trip? Finding crazy places to stop along the way. (At an awesome lake outside of Raleigh.)

9:45 pm. Dancing on the hotel couch and waiting for the pizza man. Mother of the year, baby!

Nighty night! (fingers crossed as the girls get tossed to the pull out couch!)

Swim, everybody!! Swim so you sleep in the car!!

“When are we gonna beeee there??”

There’s a baby in there somewhere, right?

We’re HERE!!

{I solemnly swear not to be too annoying with vacation crap for the next week!}

And glorious, of course.

But, evil. All at the same time.

Ten years ago, I would have never been sizing myself up against the imaginary Jones up the virtual street. I would have never been dreaming of insane projects that someone else thought up, just to keep up with the imaginary Jones down their own virtual street. I wouldn’t have been envious of my former high school classmate’s new shoes or an old colleague’s adorable puppy. And I most certainly wouldn’t have been keeping myself awake at night wondering why someone can pin and post and browse and comment, instead of pausing to drop a card in the mail for two small birthdays that just passed.

Invisible stalking with no long hours, all handed over in one neat package.

Don’t want to talk to your family members? No problem. Keep up with little Jimmy and Suzy through their mom’s blog! Watch them grow and learn from afar, get to know their interests through wishlists on Amazon, styles through boards on Pinterest, silly anecdotes through Facebook posts, daily routines through Instagram and gaze at their faces on Flickr. You’ll know everything there is to know about them and won’t even have to say hello! And the best part? The very best perk of this sweet, family from a distance deal? They’ll never even know you cared enough to look!!

But oh, they will. Or rather, one of them will.

Sweet Suzy will wonder why you never call and little Jimmy will look through his birthday cards and ask why you never sent one. Their mom will brush it off that you must be so busy that you completely forgot, but she’ll know. She’ll know that you saw the party planning on Pinterest, the big day posts on the blog, the wrapped presents on Instagram, the quick bits of celebration on Facebook.

This life we’ve been given with the instant accessibility and constant tracking is on a very fast moving, two-way street. I see you and you see me, but we’ll both pretend it never happened. I’ll keep on, sadly knowing that all the pictures in the world won’t be as sweet as a little girl’s hug or a baby’s laugh.

I don’t know which is worse. Never knowing and assuming we’re forgotten or knowing we’ve been tossed aside for prettier pictures and strangers.

linking up with just write

Cast of Characters: A Happy Family, just completing their night of shopping

(The mother waits with three tired children, balancing shopping bags, as the husband pays for the last purchase of the night. She snaps a picture as one of the children dances in the mirror.)

(Together, the family exits the store. The mother holds the younger girl’s hand and cradles the baby on her chest, while still balancing a full purse and three shopping bags. The father scoops up the older girl and they all stroll through the mall.)

(The younger girl runs ahead, skipping happily, and the runs back to take her mother’s hand. The mother turns her head to look at the husband.)

MOTHER: “Look at that dress. Think that wooo—-”

(The younger girl lets go of her mother’s hand and darts in front of her, bending over to fix her shoe. She stops directly in front of her feet, just out of the mother’s view over the baby on her chest.)

(The mother stumbles. She attempts to catch her balance, but stumbles again as her foot lands on the younger daughter’s hand.)

(The mother sails through the air. Forward. Over the younger daughter’s head.)

(Three shopping bags and a purse fly violently in all directions.)

(The mother cradles the baby’s head and continues to sail through the air. One hand hits the ground and then she twists over the younger daughter and crashes to the ground, knees and then butt.)

(The younger daughter cries.)

(The husband stands in shock.)

(Fifty onlookers gasp in horror from inside the packed children’s soft play area.)

-end scene-

*okay, so maybe it was only twenty-five people. but still.

*and no. no babies were injured during this scene. miraculously.

There was a piece of grass on the perfectly scuffed toe of her left cowboy boot and I had the audacity to tell her to remove it herself.

Welcome, Terrifying Threes, welcome. We somehow skipped your cousin, the Terrible Twos, and I fear the wrath has been unleashed. Thankfully, I’ve been seasoned and skilled over the years thanks to the other child’s Terrible Twos, Terrifying Threes and Fearsome Fours. However, the combination of these new Terrifying Threes and the new Fresh Fives may just do me in.

*****************************

As of 7:20 tomorrow morning, our crazy little firecracker will be three.

Unbelievable.

It’s hitting me even harder with MJ just how fast time is passing. I swear it was only yesterday that I was arguing with nurses and defending the fact that she really was so impatient that she was born in the bathtub. I’ll consider that 2 hour labor and 30 seconds of pushing as her gift to me for the rest of her life. Especially so, considering how she is so impatient with life that she still can’t manage to sleep all night.

Lesson learned #1: Do not bite off more than you can chew.

Pinterest is evil and most likely led to me wanting to pull my hair out in the days before the party with all the folding and cutting and decorating. All of the mothers were terribly impressed, but then *poof* it was all over, covered in crumbs and trampled. This is my public cry that I will never dive in this deep for a party again.

Lesson learned #2: That adage for inviting the number of kids for how old the birthday is for – totally spot on.

In other words, ending up with twelve kids when five would have been perfect is really, really stupid.

Lesson learned #3: If you live in a tiny, tiny house and have invited way too many kids, the weather will turn badly.

We spent the entire week up to the party watching the weather reports. Day by day, we saw the chance for thunderstorms get higher and higher. By the night before, it was up to 80%. Thankfully, everything held off until exactly 43 minutes after the party ended. Then, the skies turned black and the downpours began.

But *whee* we had a party and it was fun!

Yay for rainbows!

We had over a dozen of those big bouncy balls in all the colors of the rainbow. We lined them all up to begin with, let the kids run crazy with them and then sent them home with them. Ultimate party favor.

Best idea ever.

About twenty minutes into the party, the husband and I looked at each other and wondered how on earth we were going to keep these insane kids busy. Eery once in a while the boys would all spontaneously start to beat each other up and the girls would take off shrieking and run circles around the yard.

Second best idea? The pinata.

Not only did that sucker take up a big chunk of time and allow them to whack out a tiny bit of their energy, but it made for the most hilarious pictures. Some of the kids were so into it, leaping off the ground.

And then, of course, there was cake.

Good cake, good fun and good friends.

Miss E thinks we should have a birthday party every weekend.

And then I find myself in the check out lane with a wailing baby, a puddle of a nearly-three year old on the floor sobbing because I won’t let her ram the cart into the people in front of us and a foot stomping 5 year old sassing off at me at the top of her voice because I’m not letting her literally toss the carton of eggs onto the conveyor.

I feel my eye start to twitch a little as the couple in front of me refuses to move up, blocking the entire loading area. They’re too busy arguing with the clerk over coupons to notice that I really, really need to work on emptying my cart. With 25 pounds of flailing fury strapped to my chest, reaching down in and grabbing all those groceries isn’t the easiest task. As we wait, E spies a balloon drifting high in the rafters and promptly proceeds to berate me for not taking them to the grocery store that hands out balloons.

They also have free cookies.

I know. I’m depriving them of so much.

I inform her that when she is bringing in enough extra income to afford to shop at that grocery store, I’ll happily go with her. That goes over like a . . . lead balloon. (Forgive me, I had to.) The sass goes on. And on and on. MJ helps distract me from the situation by slamming her shoulder into the cart, pissed as hell that I won’t let it move. If she could get to it, I’m sure she’d be stomping on the foot I’m using to stop the cart.

Tater chooses this exact moment to whip his pacifier out of his mouth and fling it two aisles over, where it skids under a display shelf. His only pacifier. Because, of course.

Finally, finally – just as I feel my armpits starting to sweat from stress – the people in front of us give up their fight over expired coupons and move out of the way. Working as quickly as I can, I swoop in and out of the cart with one hand. E hangs off the handle, having traded in telling me she hates me for attempting to flip upside down. MJ, who had been whining at my feet, decides that she must immediately get to the front of the cart. Now! This very second!

Nearly completely unloaded, I reach into the cart for a carton of strawberries. Just as I begin to lift it, E succeeds in flipping over while hanging onto the handle. Arms and legs everywhere as she hits the floor, one foot violently kicks the cart forwards. MJ had managed to shimmy past the cart and was standing on the side towards the front. As the cart lurches forward, it not only runs over her foot, but pins her against the gum display. Her candy pink tutu skirt fans out as she crashes backwards and knocks a cascade of gum onto the floor.

My reaction to drop the strawberries and reach to grab one or the other girl only results in an upended carton in the cart and strawberries everywhere.

Tater continued crying. MJ wiggled free and stood at my feet, arms lifted, scream-sobbing. And Miss E stood at the other end of the cart, having picked herself up off the floor, and attempted to drown out MJ’s scream-sobbing with her own.

Cheeks burning and tears flowing, I finish checking out amid stares from the other customers. We walk a few feet away and dry faces and mend invisible injuries. Out the door we march, past ever helpful comments of “Sure do have your hands full!” Through the automatic doors and up to the crosswalk, where the girls obediently join hands and stop to look twice. Slowly, as only children can do, they meander across the parking lot. Half way across, a silver sports car rolls up on us, never slowing down. Mere feet from MJ’s legs, he finally slows enough to let us pass before swerving and speeding by.

I continued my excellent streak of parenting at that point by shouting out a few choice insults about his driving style.

At least now the girls know when it’s appropriate to call someone an asshole. Mothering at it’s finest.

As I was getting ready for bed tonight, it dawned on me that I had done carefully planned and meticulously executed photo shoots for the girls when they were this age. Third child syndrome is alive and well here, as it had never even crossed my mind in these weeks leading up to this half birthday. I suppose I’ll remedy that before too long, arming myself against future claims from photo books that I neglected him compared to his sisters. In the meantime, we’re just tightening our seatbelts against how fast this train is rolling. I’ll swear up and down that it was just yesterday that I was arguing with the husband over having to go to the hospital or not.

Six whole months.

Six months of chubby cheeks and dimpled elbows and crazy-big-but-still-cute baby feet.

Six months of smothers and kisses and doting from big sisters.

Six months of midnight cuddles and morning smiles.

Six months of getting used to that scary boy thing and finding there wasn’t a bit to worry about.

Six months of watching him learn something new everyday and waiting for all those tiny milestones.

Here’s to the next six months and then many, many more.

One? I’m now petrified of what my future holds with a boy in the family. I thought I had rough girls, but man, two hours with a handful of preschool boys and rough has a whole new meaning. Handing them bats to beat the pinata certainly didn’t help matters.

And two? Definitely sticking with that whole “invite as many as their age” mantra for birthday parties from now on. Either that or the husband may move out for the entire birthday month.

So tired. So, so tired.

(both of us adults getting sick last night and today didn’t help matters either)

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