Lately...

Last week I asked Ryan to describe his day to me, step by step. Ever since, I have been so GRATEFUL to stay home with the boys! I have looked at my job with new eyes. Sure, it is full to the brim of cleaning sessions and battles of will. It is physically exhausting, but when my eyes are open to it, emotionally fulfilling. For my own record, here are some recent highlights:

The boys' play has blossomed lately, for which I am thanking my lucky stars. I swear Chase has taught Trenton how to play with toys. (T has always preferred me over toys, whereas Chase tends to be more of an independent player.) They spend their days stacking canned food from our food storage closet, pushing the couches together so they can get "stuck" in between them until I attack them with tickles, running circles around the green sofa in the lobby... They are becoming more and more creative and imaginative, and I love it.

After dinner every night, I have started giving them the choice of getting in pajamas and watching a kids' show or playing in their room until they're ready for pajamas. Ever desperate to avoid jammies, Trenton usually happily opts to go in their room and play with the baby gate closed. I tidy up the house (or escape onto pinterest for a few minutes, haha) until he finally gets bored of playing and tells me he's ready for jammies. (Getting pajamas on is much less of a fight when he thinks it is his idea!) Being boys, them playing in their room usually involves a lot of jumping off the bed, cheerfully whooping, occasional complaints or cries from Chase, and random "projects" like throwing every toy we own into the crib (after which T tells me, "We were working hard!" And I tell him now he's going to work hard helping me clean it all up.)

The two old ladies who live up from us are moving out, so where it has usually been almost silent up there, we suddenly are hearing a lot of furniture moving and heavy footsteps. The novelty of these sounds scares Chase, which I secretly LOVE, because he runs to me and collapses in the my arms every time it happens. Today he ducked inside my arms, with his head against my chest, for a good ten minutes, while we sat beside Trenton, who was chattering away on the toilet. :) Every now and then, the most mundane moments are my favorites.

Today a FIRE TRUCK parked outside of the grocery store we live next to. We had just finished sharing some food on "our bench" outside the store when the fire truck pulled up. We walked beside it and sat on the sidewalk, staring up at it, for fifteen minutes. I answered (or made up answers t0) Trenton's million questions ("What are those headphones for?" "What do those letters say?" "Where is the horn?"), thinking all the while about how much I love having boys! They are so fun, straightforward, and honestly, hilarious. Finally, the firemen came back out from the store and gave the boys little plastic firemen hats and we scooter-ed happily on our way.

For a change of pace, I paused our gym membership, and the boys and I have been having several at-home workout sessions a week. I give them plastic peanut butter jars to use as weights, and blast some music. We dance around, do jumping jacks, high needs, air kicks, etc. We do squats and bicep curls and crunches. When I go down, Chase exclaims, "DOWN!" and they hit the floor too. The other day, they actually ran circles around a peanut butter jar on the floor for almost twenty straight minutes! These workouts have been such a fun—and surprisingly effective—way for us to bond. I can't say they won't lose interest eventually (they usually do!), but no matter what, I'll have some great memories from this time.

Thanks for reading (or even skimming!) my novel! I love being a mom!