There comes a time in every parent’s life when they realize that they have sort of maybe missed teaching some crucial life lesson somewhere. Like if somebody says it might be poison ivy, don’t rub it all over yourself.

iarepilotswife — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:28:10 +0000

Scene -
The kids have walked down to the park near our house with some friends. It’s a sunny day, around 80 degrees. Birds chirping, kids laughing, yadda yadda yadda…

Gabe’s friend Matt: Hey, I think this is poison Ivy, guys.
Gabe: No.
Joe: Yeah, I’m pretty positive that’s poison Ivy.

Joe takes one for the team and touches it with his index finger tip.

Joe: No, it isn’t stinging me. I don’t think it’s poison ivy.
Gabe: IT ISN’T POISON IVY! I’LL PROVE IT.

Gabe proceeds to rub a bunch of it all over his arms to make his point.

SEE!

Kait wanders over to see what the commotion is all about: Um, guys, that’s poison Ivy. GABE, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!?! YOU’RE AN IDIOT!
Gabe: Oh. Crap.

So Kait sent him home, along with 8 year old Ben who also touched it. I had them wash well with dish soap and hopefully they both managed to remove all the poison oils from their skin.

I asked Gabe if he minded me putting this story on the blog and he said, No. It’s funny. I’m going to be famous.

I’m not even sure why I’m posting this.

iarepilotswife — Sat, 04 May 2013 12:43:24 +0000

So I’m sitting here on the couch minding my own business when suddenly my oldest child is stuck in a box in front of me because she’s turning into a cat or something apparently.

While Kait was trapped, Joe ran up and drew a face on the box and Kait hollered that she was finally Lionel Richie.

The resemblance…
Astounding.

Basically the best pose ever in the history of the world.

How to be the best mom ever. Also, I couldn’t think of anything to blog about so I put a wading pool in the kitchen.

iarepilotswife — Fri, 03 May 2013 12:58:26 +0000

The kids were getting used to warm weather and the beach and wading pools because we live in Florida and that’s how it should be. It’s all a lie though because it’s rainy and in the 60’s and it’s been depressingly dreary for days and when did we move to Seattle?

Despite the fact that it hadn’t stopped raining at all yesterday, Sam asked me if he could please play in the wading pool anyway and I said sure and then I brought one of them into the house because I’m awesome like that.

I was smart and filled it with warm water and I put soap in it too so it doubled as a bath for some multi-purpose entertainment.

Then I realized I hadn’t thought through how I was going to empty it but that’s pretty much how I roll most of the time lately.

So, I spent a couple minutes emptying it out with pitchers until it was no longer heavy. Then, Joe, Kait, and I lifted it up to dump the rest in the sink and that was a tiny huge mistake and so then it tripled as a floor cleaner.

I know. I’m a freaking genius, people.

It took about 10 minutes of my time, cost me a total of approximately zero dollars, and apparently I’m the best mom ever now.
Well done, me. Well done.

Our stale bread brings the ducks to the yard.

iarepilotswife — Thu, 02 May 2013 22:26:43 +0000

Who knows what it is, but the ducks seem to like our backyard.

Lucy wanted to pet them with vigor. Even though the ducks didn’t seem too frightened by us I kept Lucy behind the screen because I am pretty sure the ducks have not seen the likes of her friendliness before. She tends to be disturbingly loveable when it comes to fur and feather. It can come across to some as a bit aggressive. Just ask Joe’s water dragon. He’s more than a little leery when in the same room as Lucy.

Sadly, the ducks have not come back to visit in many days because a few somewhat disagreeable children that do not belong to me decided to chase them around with palm fronds and loud squawking.

Kait suggested I teach them a lesson by dressing up as a giant duck and chasing them back. And have lasers for eyes. It told her I thought that was maybe going to far. She rolled her eyes.

Anybody know where I can get a giant duck costume with lasers for eyes?

And here we have Kait being a tree. Specifically a fruit bearing tree because she thinks all other trees are pointless and useless.

iarepilotswife — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:04:22 +0000

I had to buy a new planter for Joe’s tree. He was given the tree by a neighbor years ago when it was just a seedling. It had started growing in the neighbor’s grass and he yanked it out and asked if Joe wanted it. I never thought it would live but it did and now we’re trying to avoid planting it in the ground until we live in a more permanent location so we’ve been increasing the size of the planter yearly to keep it portable.

We usually just keep it hidden away in the backyard because I’ve never counted it as a pretty tree, but when the leaves started coming back a couple months ago it was so bushy and big that I decided not to dislike it anymore and moved it to the front porch and planted it in a nice big red vase style planter and created a pretty little porch-scape.

But before I could complete the transfer Kait hijacked the pot and pretended to be a tree for a moment.

This is my grown, adult, 18 year old child, people.
This is what I have accomplished with my life.

We’re so proud.

“Now we’re being Minecraft guys, Lucy!”

iarepilotswife — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:22:09 +0000

Hey, Lucy, you wanna wear these boxes on our heads?

Yes, Lucy did, quite enthusiastically even.

Lucy didn’t say anything about her square head at all. She just walked around with it on her head in a very serious manner because wearing a box on your head leaves no room for silliness apparently.

When to go to the E.R. and when not to go to the E.R. That is the question.

iarepilotswife — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:21:02 +0000

You know how your kid gets sick or hurt on the weekend and you’re not sure if you should wait it out or have them seen so you take them to the E.R. just to make sure they don’t have Ebola or a broken leg or something and while you’re in the exam room your child takes a sudden turn for the better and is just fine?

Yeah. That’s what Lucy did to us Saturday morning. She had twisted her leg funny when she tripped on the front porch on Friday night and by Saturday morning she wouldn’t walk on her leg at all, crying hard and visibly shaking when she tried. Then, as right on schedule, she magically got better while we waited at the E.R.

She ended up with an ace bandage, a sticker, and absolutely nothing of concern on her x-ray. I am definitely glad she’s fine but good grief – I really don’t like taking my kids to the doctor.

When Matthew was 4 he broke his tib/fib bones right above the ankle. There was no doubt it was broken as I could see the bones protruding, trying to break through the skin. The decision to rush Matthew to the E.R. was a no brainer.

But since then we’ve had a possible wrist break, a possible foot break, a possible concussion, etc… All of which took us to the E.R. for no reason at all because they were all fine.

And I’m sure this isn’t the last time something like this will happen. Glad we have good health coverage.

It’s 86 degrees outside today, and cloudy, and my kids are all like “IT’S SO HOT OUTSIDE!” and I say, “You don’t even know what hot is.” because apparently they don’t remember 110 from last year.

iarepilotswife — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 19:54:19 +0000

Spring is here (FINALLY!) and that means gardening, and washing the cars just to have a reason to stay outside, and figuring out what I want to do with my front porch because right now my kids think it’s the perfect place for them to keep all of their broken shells and Nerf guns and odd, sharp, rusty, metal trinkets they find at the beach or in the dirt. I don’t know how they haven’t gotten Tetanus yet. Seriously.

My dad gave me the rope hammock we had hanging up in our backyard when I was a kid. I didn’t much appreciate hammocks back then but we had a good place to put one here in our side garden so I searched out a cheap hammock stand on eBay and Matthew helped me put it together and I’m quite pleased with it.

Although there are moments where all the kids are arguing over whose turn it is to sit in the hammock, it’s Lucy who has really taken to it. She wants to sit in it all the time, lay in it, try to sleep in it…

She’ll even go find a pillow and a blanket and demand one of her brothers help her go night-night in the hammock.

I’m so happy the weather has turned nice and we’re finally seeing the Florida I know and love. I’m still a bit sore about the chilly weather we had been having up until this week though. I love a good 90 degree day. Warmer even. I’m meant to live in the south.

I’m really glad winter is over.

Whenever my kids go to the beach I say, “Stay away from sharks and don’t die.” Kait is an adult now and no longer feels need to obey everything I say apparently.

iarepilotswife — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:37:10 +0000

As many of you are aware, we’re about two blocks from the ocean and most of the year it’s warm enough to spend a lot of time there so we do and quite often that leads to interesting discoveries like pretty shells and beached jelly fish and giant horseshoe crabs.

And sharks.

Kait found this bonnet head shark just lounging around on the the beach catching some rays during one of her beach walks. Okay, so he wasn’t laying there for the warm sun, he was sort of dead. And he wasn’t really carrying around a watermelon because that would make no sense because sharks aren’t that skilled at holding stuff. Also, they don’t eat fruit. Especially dead sharks. I just placed it there because that part of the picture was a little bit disgusting and I wasn’t sure if you would care to see a little shark gore or if you would be completely grossed out by the sight. I erred on the side of caution. You’re welcome. Or I’m sorry. Whichever fits best for you.

We also found one of these:

Unlike the shark, we brought this adorable creature home.

He’s really cute.

I have this kind of writer’s block that is commonly referred to as pregnancy. I’m not giving up though.

iarepilotswife — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:35:13 +0000

Okay people, here’s the deal.

So I’m really, really trying to keep up the blog posting. I love blogging but for some reason I just can’t seem to get my mind in gear to write anything worthy of this blog. First it was computer issues which annoyed me for the second half of 2012 and I pretty much just gave up trying to do anything on the computer at all, writing blog posts, reading friends’ blog posts… Then I got a fancy shmancy new laptop and a new router in February and was excited to be able to blog regularly again but then the baby in my oven started leaching every post idea from my head so that seemed to be a bust.

I feel like I’m complaining a lot. Am I complaining a lot? Because I don’t feel bad at all. The morning sickness has mostly subsided and my energy has started to come back and I feel much less dead than I did a week ago. I’m just frustrated that I can’t just type out a blog post like I used to. I’m sure it’ll all come back eventually. At least I can hope.

What I’m saying is that I have no idea what to write about so I’m just writing about whatever because I’m determined to continue updating this blog no matter how blocked the bloggy portion of my brain is. You’ll have to forgive any current boringness around here and if you keep reading I’ll eventually write something interesting because I have 8 kids and not much time goes by without an event of some sort.