Day 2990

 This year has certainly provided some examples of the benefits of having multiple children. If they’re all quarantined, they can entertain each other. If only older ones are quarantined, you can just give them open access to craft supplies that they can’t use around the little one. Magic!

Day 2989

 Probably you’re going to be in trouble when the sixteen month old has already started trying to dole out hugs to convince her big sister to do things for her.

Day 2988

 Now that Banana has been successfully walking for several months, she’s decided it’s time to start regularly falling over and bashing her face on things. She hasn’t had the same conditioning her siblings got, so she does not at all approve of icing her wounds.

She’s also remarkably loud about voicing her disapproval.

Day 2987

 Per Chinchilla, none of our kids are toddlers anymore; all three of them are twins!

Day 2986

 Banana’s approach to animal noises is delightful. Apparently everything roars (including bunnies) except giraffes, which make raspberry sounds.

Day 2985

 Sometimes dinner conversations take an odd turn and suddenly you’re discussing where to send The Box of Bad Noises.

Day 2984

 When you make a bunch of fart jokes and then remember you should probably remind your kid that ‘bathroom words’ aren’t appropriate at school so she probably shouldn’t tell her friends about fart medicine.

Day 2983

 NO COUGHING ALLOWED!!

And while I’m being unreasonable, cool it with the ear wax too.

Day 2982

 One of the hardest parts of parenting is the problems you can’t fix for them.

Day 2981

 Today I learned that if I let my daughter outside for the first time in two weeks and there’s snow on the ground, she will immediately lose her damn mind.

Day 2980

 What a delight to have some of the kids at daycare while I’m working. I could hear my own thoughts for whole minutes at a time!

Day 2979

 Baby, you can chatter at me any time you like.

Day 2978

MAHP!

MAHP!

MAHP!

= Do my bidding at once, big person!

Day 2977

 In less than two weeks our sweet doggie might have a metal plate in his leg and then we will be forced to call him Borgie Wooster.

Day 2976

This is why you encourage kids to be helpful, even when they are very bad at actually being helpful: because some day you end up with a five year old who decides to re-fold all the shirts and undies and socks in her drawer to save you the trouble of doing it.

Day 2975

 Apparently all I have to do to convince my kids to be astronauts when they’re older is show them a rocket launch every now and again.

Day 2974

 Our troublesome baby continues to think she should do everything herself: climb on chairs, climb on beds, wean herself. Who needs parents anyway, when you’re so old and capable?

Day 2973

It’s such a relief to get evenings back again.

Day 2972

 If your Husband missed the pageantry of you putting your extremely silly frog socks, he might be very surprised when you exclaim out of nowhere “STOP GRABBING ME IN THE FROGS!”

Day 2971

 We did some Remembrance Day crafts, and our Chinchilla decided to make a bunch of red worms and a “poppy tree” with bare branches. He doesn’t get at all what the day is about but I feel like he nailed it.

Day 2970

 It’s a special kind of magic when they all play nicely together.

Day 2969

 Silver linings; if Lizard hadn’t developed a cough so that the kids all had to stay home on one of the worst possible days:

-we would have missed Banana learning to take all of her clothes off all of a sudden

-I would have missed Lizard exclaiming ‘Meat Balls of Fire!’

-I wouldn’t have seen Banana spontaneously hug and comfort her big sister when Lizard hurt herself.

-Chinchilla couldn’t have corrected me that skeletons aren’t PART of your body, they’re IN your body. Along with blood and white. You know, the white stuff. 

-Chinchilla wouldn’t have stopped eating “snack” because his body told him he shouldn’t eat any more... only to return shortly after to eat the rest of the same food for “lunch”.

Three year old pedants are no joke. But I would strongly encourage you to find it silently hilarious if you happen to have one. 

Day 2968

 The snuggliness of my hot water bottle has increased dramatically in the last few days. His running and jumping hasn’t cooled down much, so I suspect we have some interesting times ahead...

Day 2967

 You get a democracy! And you get a democracy! And we get a democracy! And also flu shots. 

Day 2966

 I don’t have enough arms to hold all my babies who need holding...

Day 2965

 Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

Day 2964

 How very 2020.

Day 2963

 Every once in a while I am glad that my capacity for patience has been stretched out waiting and waiting while my kids to “do it myself”. 

Day 2962

 Can you still do a countdown if you don’t know when you’re counting down to?

Day 2961

 Sometimes you just can’t help provoking/sharing a giggle fit at bedtime...