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This "Grant working the night shift" thing is a little bit sweet. The night shift is actually 4pm-1am. And because his job is crazy and he's on salary and he has a commute that means he is never actually home until, like, 2:30-4am. And I am a baby an insomniac taking advantage of the time to myself waiting up for him, generally speaking, so we go to bed reeeeally late after, like, watching the Office or being romantical or who knows what. Then the day goes:

Start coming to at around 10am. Jake smiles at me from Grant's armpit and dozes back off, Elise nurses for awhile after we go pee together (aww, bonding :p) and then commences an hour of all of us dreaming that ends at 11-ish, when the larger kids start to appear in the bedroom. And we have some kind of "family bed time" which can be a tickle fight, too much peekaboo, or just talking, until eventually everyone wanders out to the main area of the house and Grant starts playing Mafia Wars on Facebook checking his work email and doing winery updates while I putz around in the kitchen making brunch for us all and the kids do their chores.

We eat our big "together" meal (since he is gone at dinner time) and then it's wild card time, where things like me taking someone(s) for a bike ride, him cleaning out a car with some kids helping, wild horse play and art projects happen. Yesterday I took Jake with a carrot to feed a horse that's living in a huge fenced lot a couple of blocks away. Today Grant found this giant fat printer cable and, with Aaron, cut the casing off, and then he and all the kids spent almost an hour making bracelets out of all the colored wires, on the floor in the library.

Then he and I go in the bedroom with the door locked, which has proved pretty much freaking awesome.

Finally, it's time for him to go to work and everyone gets lots of hugs and kisses goodbye and just after he leaves we commence with some laid back housework - mostly laundry right now, homeschool lessons - focusing largely on Thanksgiving and Veterans Day this week, possibly going to kids' activities like dance. Tonight we're taking some chicken soup I made my sick sister to her and exchanging some things that came in the mail in duplicates and wrong sizes, from The Children's Place. And doing math.

Because it's evening and nobody else is in the office after about his first hour there, Grant has a webcam set up and the kids watch/talk to him throughout his shift, whenever they think about it. Because he gets off soooo late and I am not gonna have people waking us up at the crack of dawn, I have been reading to them for longer than usual as bedtime tends to be approximately midnight. We're reading an AMAZINGLY illustrated (real Lewis Carroll novel length) Alice in Wonderland Dama bought us while she was here, the 3rd Narnia book, and The BFG betwixt and between all of us.

Elise seems to be the last one to get our lingering and mutating flu. She's been eating the chicken soup too, and going from happy with everyone to clinging and nursing, and back again. Poor little hot head.

Some pictures...we did not take NEARLY enough pictures while Dama was here :/ I loved every minute and just kind of didn't bother...but we went to Anne's Beach, the zoo, Santa's Enchanted Forest, the bookstore, ArtSouth...and talked and talked and talked...and I fell in love with her kids, which is sort of taking me off guard because, honestly? I don't really like kids in general. I mean I did, before I had my own, and now I love my own, but...I'm not really big on "other peoples' kids", anymore...usually.

Make Your Own Pizza Night, which was Grant's thing and he was totally spearheading and excited about:




Another, random night, at dinner...


Elise and chickens - she is really good at catching them, and they usually seem not to complain:




Also, after we got back from getting our produce the other day, I was putting everything away and it sure does seem as though we've caught a serious case of Hippy Fridge.


I am considering doing an ongoing thing in this journal, for awhile at least, where I record things I feel good about, and things I feel bad about. There are a lot of both everyday and that makes up a lot of my life.

Right now I feel really good about:
-all the one on one time and affection I've been having with Aaron
-all the materials I have to get them where they need to be, for math...I feel like we finally have an about ideal system, between the Right Start Math curriculum, Kumon workbooks and one of those BrainQuest card sets focusing on math.
-Isaac and Ananda's crazily intimate private faith lives. They've just really taken it upon themselves to delve deeper with God. Ananda is trying to read about saints all the time to pick one for "her own", and is the one to make sure we pray before bedtime, and I'm always "catching her" reading my Prayer of St Francis plaque or teaching Aaron how to sing the Lord's Prayer the way they do in Mass. Isaac is sleeping with a St Nicholas medal and certain that St Nicholas is praying for him and that's why he's not having nightmares anymore.
-Grant and I's relationship ♥
-how I've been able to take care of Laura with emergen-C, echinacea tea, garlic, probiotics and chicken soup
-how I was able to give Gloria breastmilk for her pinkeye (she asked)
-this "Catholic Saints Prayer Book" I'm reading
-how rapidly Elise is learning from the "color", "number" and "ABC" sort of books I'm reading her
-how she idolizes Grant
-that my Dad might really be coming for Thanksgiving
-that we're most likely going to get my brother this weekend
-the potluck we're hosting this month, for my natural parenting group

Right now I feel really bad about:
-how much more I want to craft than write, even though I have to prioritize writing
-that we keep missing Mass no matter what I freaking do (this past week we were on the turnpike EARLY...and hit stopped dead traffic from a freaking air show. Sigh.)
-how impossible it seems to bridge a gap between Ananda and I, and the way we clash
-how much MORE Kindergarden I should be doing with Isaac, who is so incredibly smart and eager to learn
-the whole ongoing issue of what to do about Christmas re: Nana and Pa's house
-weird stuff my body is doing. I have a ton of jawline pimples, which is usually a hormonal thing, along with some bizarre midcycle bleeding, and my stomach is protruding worse than it was before I lost any weight - what?