Warning:

Polyurethane and soot creates an interesting Dalmatian effect removed only by something stronger than soap and water.

Sweet friends watched my kids today while I put a coat of polyurethane on eight stools. Then tonight I cleaned the chimney. And then I searched for paint thinner.

Insensibilities.

My kids are sleeping underneath the kitchen table tonight. Their beds lie cold and empty while four children, sensible often, choose to very insensibly sleep on a cold ceramic tile floor.

Why? I haven’t figured that out yet. They think it’s fun and it didn’t hurt anything – besides, perhaps, their backs. And shoulders. And hips.

Oh wait, that would be me. Wouldn’t it be nice to do such things without paying for it? You know, in case you get the urge to sleep under the kitchen table?

I lose. Again.

Pierce cried and cried and cried unless I held him. Fed up and trying to make supper, I put him in his bed. Never made him nap in there before. (I don’t even make him sleep in there at night most of the time, who am I kidding?)

He went to sleep immediately.

Pierce: 1.

Momma: 0.

Huh, what?

Just in case my statement of my kids lack of sports knowledge seemed a bit exaggerated…

Pierce has a sweatshirt on with a giant orange basketball on it. Liberty saw it and said, “Baseball!”. I said “No…” straightening out his shirt to show the bright orange basketball. “Oh! Soccer!”

Really now. Next up: a lesson in sports with a brief intro to the rules. Brief, since I’m not so knowledgeable about them either… but I do know the difference in which ball goes with each game!

Football is not this boy’s game.

We borrowed Facing the Giants from the library and the kids and I watched it a few nights ago.

We don’t watch any sports around here. Blaine has no interest, neither do I. So when my kids say football or basketball, I check to see. It could very well be soccer or baseball they are looking at. They don’t have a clue.

So we’re watching the movie, it’s all about football, when Sterling had a question.

“Why do they do that?”

I said because it is a fun game. The look on his face required a disclaimer.

“I think you have to like being tackled.”

Sterling replied, “Yeah, I think so. I would not like to play football.”

“Nope, I’m pretty certain you' wouldn’t.”

“Not al all, Momma. That does not look like fun.”

Maybe he’ll play baseball. Or run track…

Just laugh…

You know that moment that you are headed for bed, walk past a mirror and the image makes you stop and gawk, it’s so bad? And then you relive your day, realizing all the people that saw you like that?

It’s grand. I showered, threw my hair up, and got busy. Yikes. Add chasing the goats and fixing fence and you’ve got a regular disaster going on with clothes, hair, everything. Perfect.

I had company over last night. Not one of those known-you-for-years friends. A just-getting-to-know-you friend. Again, perfect.

Boys vs. Girls

Today, we made slingshots. Sterling was using a hairband as a slingshot and I decided we could do better. We wandered our woods, found sticks (4… we couldn’t not make one for all the bigger kids) and patched together rubber bands, dental floss and fabric. Sterling was thrilled.

Liberty used hers to swing a small doll figurine in.

Therein lies the difference between boys and girls. Sterling will use a hairband as a slingshot. Liberty will use a slingshot for a doll bed.