Hello… goodbye.

Interrupting this blogging silence to inform my throngs of readers that we have family visiting this week. Cousins, dominoes, and late night chats over root beer floats abound.

I’ll resurface soon. But for now… we’re having a blast.

Gross on a Farm Road in Missouri.

Tonight’s bath time was out of a horror movie, Momma-style.

I had most of the kids in the tub, lined up. I walked out for a minute to check on supper (backwards, I know, bath then supper, but it’s the way tonight was going) and when I came back in, I set to work. Grabbing a cup off the edge of the tub, I stuck my finger in it to be certain it wasn’t cold and, finding it quite warm, poured it over one dear child’s head.

Minutes later, smelling pee in a bathroom I’d just scrubbed, I asked if someone had peed in the tub. Since Pierce was already out, all remaining parties were old enough to know better. Silence. And then the truth came out. Two small children, too lazy to get out of the tub, peed in a cup. Then, so kind to keep it out of the water, they set it on the side of the tub.

Have you filled in the blanks yet? Oh yes. I just wet one dear child’s hair with that cup.

The jury’s still out on whether I can raise up these hooligans up to be productive citizens.

HELP!

I need a new blog name. It’s grown enough I’d like to get my own blog address, without the blogspot account… but I need a really good name before I venture into worlds unknown.

Suggestions? Discussions? Admonitions to leave well enough alone?

I want…

- a name that will work for a long time. A Big (Little) family has a limited shelf life… they won’t be little forever.

- something easy to remember. balesf5 has meaning to me, but who else knows what it stands for? And how entirely outdated it is?

- I’d considered something with falcon or birds or nests to write a blog about kids. No desire to write about birds, but our last name has leanings toward Falcons. I can’t find a straight answer if that’s really what it means, but there’s a good possibility.

- I’m so not creative like that. Anyone?

If anyone cares to chip in, I’d gladly make a child’s bracelet, a tube sling, or a pair of baby shoes for the naming winner who comes up with something that suits me. For the blog, you know. I really could keep my own name, thanks.

You’d be credited and have my undying appreciation. :)

Makes a good teether, I guess.

He was being awfully quiet.

He found the potato and onion bin. Good choice on the potato instead of the onion, little dude.

Mmm, breakfast.

Friendly fire, ridiculousness, and midnight hairdos.

Night times are interesting around here lately. Temps are dropping in the night, Charlotte wakes up cold, climbs in bed with us, tosses, turns, kicks, kisses and giggles until I finally wake up enough to realize what’s going on. Put Charlotte back in bed. Might as well wake Sterling up, tell him to use the bathroom while I’m up. Back to bed. Lay there, trying to get back to sleep.

Pierce wakes up to eat. While he’s eating, Charlotte comes back into bed with us. She’s back to pushing and pulling and stealing my pillow and laying on my face and “fixing” my hair and beeping my nose, and it occurs to me.

This, my friends, is ridiculous.

It’s like a war zone. Friendly fire. Really cute, energetic, demanding, friendly fire, outfitted in blonde hair and blue eyes.

Ridiculous. It’s just ridiculous. One of these days, I’m going to get up and go sleep in their beds.

Just as soon as they graduate from the crib mattresses.

How’s that for taste?

Ruby asked me for more sun tea tonight. I poured it for her, and a bit later she came to find me. With a complete straight face, she informed me,

“My sun tea didn’t taste that good. It was kind of sour, because you left a wipe in it.”

Oh dear. Charlotte had put the baby wipe she used to wash up in Ruby’s cup. I poured the tea in near darkness and missed it. Yum.

Ruby drank it all anyway.

Double yum.

Startling moment.

In giving Sterling a haircut today, I cut my knuckle.

When did my hands get wrinkly enough to be able to hit them with scissors and actually catch skin?

Is this what getting older feels like?