Anyway,  on to the steps.

1. Share a room with one of your siblings for all of your memorable life.
2. Get married young (preferrably before graduating college) so you have no idea what it’s like to have your own living space.
3. Conceive a child within the first 4 weeks of being married.  Bonus points if you are still in college when this happens.
4. Give birth to child #2.
5. Hang out with your kids instead of using your degree to make money.
6. Encourage your husband to go back to school in the evenings so you can get bonus solo time with the kids during dinner and bedtimes.
7. Decide to homeschool just when the youngest one is supposed to go off to school.
8. Adopt 4 more kids in 3.5 years.

All of a sudden, ALONE has never looked so good.  I’m thinking of changing my classification to INTROVERT.

We met my cousin for a walk around Great Falls National Park. Everyone was exhausted when we were finished, but it’s amazing how a little habesha will energize 5 kids for a giggly ride home.

But if I did I might resolve to work on those thousand or so pictures I’ve yet to edit or post from the last 6 months.  Or I might resolve to get rid of a lot of stuff and simplify, to get more organized, to seek God before I say “yes” so quickly, to spend less time at my desk in front of the computer, or to yell less and budget more time for those things that turn into me yelling.

Phew.

It’s a good thing I don’t make them.

MckMama has a new blog meme that has me cracking up.  Wanna play along? You can link up here.

Here’s what’s been coming out of my mouth lately…

“What’s that? That’s your scrotum.  No, it’s not peanuts.”

“Please pull your pants down next time you go to the bathroom.”

“When we’re out of milk, chocolate milk is not an option.”

“Foxes eat rodents like bunnies.  Yes, they also like chickens.  No they don’t eat dogs.  Because most dogs are not smaller than foxes.”

“Please finish your egg roll if you want your oatmeal.”

“You will not be able to touch the bottom, even to bob, if you jump off the diving board.  Are you sure you can swim to the side?  No, I did not see you do it three times already.”

They remembered everything–balloons, presents and dessert.

We had a few close friends over for the first bushel of steamed crabs for the season.  I knew about that part.  But then, my children ushered our guests to my parents apartment and fitted them for party hats (or ‘helmets’ as Ty called them).   I had to follow last so that I could be “surprised.”

There was specially decorated brownies and make-your-own sundaes for all.

Presents were aplenty and PJ (without the help or knowledge of any adults in the house) had even used his own money to buy me my very own soprano recorder from the school store.

Here are all the party conspirators.

Thanks guys. It was a special night. I love you!

We did Annie

and “Dancing Through The Calendar.” 

It was so much fun being back this year, but a sharp reminder of how not-so-sharp my brain is after hanging out with 3 kids all day.  More than the physical exhaustion was the mental exhaustion of having to remember when to be stage and from what side and all the steps to the dances.  My brain was fried by Saturday night!

Moving on…triathlon training season officially came to end with my participation in the North East Triathlon.  I did the sprint distance (750m swim, 15.5 mi bike, and 3.1 mi run).  I was hoping to come in under 2 hours.  I came REALLY close  at 2:01:51.  Kudos to the CGI folks who organized the race…it was one of the best run I’ve been to.

My faithful training partner and me.

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In other news, I realized the other day that I have been remiss is keeping you all up-to-date with what Ty’s saying.  Actually, I really just want to be able to look back and get it in his scrapbook correctly.  The fact that you get an update is an added bonus.

It’s fascinating watching expressive language emerge in a toddler.  It’s happening so fast for Ty that we can actually see the progress even though we’re with him all the time.  His vocabulary is expanding faster than I can keep track.  He’s using phrases and addressing people by name.  (e.g., “Mommy, I want see.”)  He’s showing interest in learning colors, animals, and animal sounds.  Right now, he’s pretty consistent with cow and dog.  He also has this obessession with matching colors and cars to their owners.  (e.g., Nana’s car, Nana blue). 

Well I’m out of athletic hibernation and my triathlon competition participation season has started. Granted there is only one more planned for August and that will mark the end of the season   It’s not too late to start training either.  Technically, my training season started today, too.  If you’re in my area and want to come along for the ride (pun intended), I think that would be an excellent idea.

Just for the record, today we (one of my training buddies and myself) participated in the Cascade Lake Triathlon (500 m swim, 15 mile bike, 5k run).  My time was 2:04:55 the worst on record for me so far.  It’s ok because it was just meant to motivate us to train for this triathlon. 

You know you want to!  I’ve even started a conversation thread to help you connect with others who want to on our new Corkboard Community on the right side.  It was built using a cool widget from the BlogFrog.