7 Quick Takes - FIRST EDITION!!!

1. I don't think I can really describe how excited I am to be participating in my first. ever. QUICK TAKES!!! Actually, I don't think that's quite accurate - I've been doing my own quick takes in my head every day for months thinking "one of these days I'll start a blog..." Does that make me sound crazy? Perfect. Moving on.

2. This is actually an old blog of mine that I used to write in back in the day when I only had one child who wasn't old enough to walk or talk and therefore had time to actually keep a blog. So please excuse all the old posts that I am too tired to go back and remove and the layout and basically everything about the blog - I'll get to it someday. Now let's address the elephant in the room - why am I starting a blog when I can barely find time to get dressed? Excellent question that I will also get to answering someday.

3. After months of stalking Catholic mom blogs, I've observed there are two categories that most blogs seems to fall into - the "holy, pious, observe-every-feast-day-complete-with-relevant-crafts-and-food" type, and the "holy crap I have a lot of kids and my life is insane and/or out of control" type. Just to be clear on what type of blog this is, I'll leave you for a moment to ponder a photo taken this week in our household:

(Description: my girls eating the burnt remains of hash browns out of a pan on the floor at 7am while watching the Disney channel. One is pant-less.)

4. I'm nearing the end of my second week of postpartum life without my sisters or mom around to help. After several trips out to run errands by myself with a 3 year old, 2 year old, and a 1 month old, I think I've perfected the ideal algorithm for managing the minivan loading/unloading part and thought I'd share in case anyone else has children of the same age and hasn't nailed it yet.

What, you couldn't tell by the fact that I came up with an algorithm to load and unload my children from a minivan that I'm not an artistic person?? More proof that I fall firmly into the math/science brain category: when I was mulling over the order in which to load and unload children, I was actually thinking to myself "Should I queue them or stack them?"

Now back to the algorithm. I always wear baby E on me in the carrier, leaving 1 hand for each girl as we walk to the minivan. I let go of Ava's hand first to open the door since she can generally be trusted to not dart into the path of an oncoming vehicle in the next 3 seconds, then swiftly lift Clare, who is 2, into the van followed by Ava. They climb into their designated car seats and wait for me to lift Emeric out of the carrier and into his seat before I come to help them get strapped in. A 2 and 3 year old who voluntarily climb into their car seat and wait?? That's right, and the secret is a big fat bribe. 1 M&M or candy corn per child who gets strapped in without incident. Clare gets strapped in first before she eats a piece of dirt or an old Cheerio off of the floor, then comes Ava, and finally I finish strapping Emeric in before exiting through the side door and walking around to the driver's side. On the way out we went with the "LIFO" approach, meaning I unbuckle Ava first followed by Clare, and they wait at the side door while I put Emeric in the carrier before lifting them out. (Additional candy bribes sometimes required for this step as well.)

5. This may seem like overkill, especially to those without 3 children 3 and under, but here's a sample of some of the things that can go wrong when the algorithm is off:

• Let go of the 2 year old's hand instead of the 3 year old while opening/closing the door: 2 year old darts into traffic
• Let 2 year old sit in back instead of the 3 year old: 2 year old will choose trunk diving over candy bribe
• Unbuckle the 2 year old before the 3 year old: 2 year old climbs into the front seat and blares horn or attempts to exit the vehicle
• Entering the vehicle through the side door opposite of the baby's car seat: So many things wrong this this scenario I don't even know where to start. But all of them start with "the 2 year old..."

I think I may see the problem here.

6. The girls have a santa doll that laughs when you "tickle" his belly, laughing harder and harder the longer you tickle until he finally finishes with a giant sigh, exclaiming "Oh, by golly!". Lately we've been hearing him laugh when nobody is touching him or even near him, and once this week the girls and I were sitting and reading/playing quietly when he worked his way up through the full set of laughs at the other side of the living room. We all stared at him silently through the entire thing until he stopped - and then we looked at each other for a moment before starting to laugh nervously...I think it might be time to call a priest. Opinions??

7. Finally, I am pleased to announce that baby Emeric has been cast in his very first stage production as baby Jesus. Send me your recommendations for an agent ASAP, because this kid is going to be a star. Or he's going to scream bloody murder necessitating a kindly shepherd otherwise known as mom to step in and intervene. We'll see.


Go see Jen for the rest!!