Insanity-avoidance read-a-thon

"Do you remember the books I read you, the words falling around us both like a blanket?"
~ Patricia Maclachlan in Your Moon, My Moon

Once again, a cosmic tide has shifted. All is atilt in the FiveCrows household.

We all have colds. Lucy, you are strangely moody and emotional at the drop of a hat. Henry, you are happy and full of contagious laughter one minute and then !DING! - suddenly a wild animal, who only says "I hate you" and "poop." the next.

You only hear half of what I say. Every transition is a struggle. Every task is a battle.

I manage not to yell for only so long, then lose it and have to run to the bathroom to hide until I can collect myself for another go.

Psst, the wild things are at our house.

I am tired of taking your toys. I am tired of locking you in your rooms. And I am REALLY tired of repeating everything 5 times before losing my cool only to see fear in your eyes when my voice volume goes up.

WHAT is going on?! Seriously. You guys rode the train to KUH-razy town. And I'm right there along with you (minus all the hair I've pulled out on the trip over).

GAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The best I can do is fall back on our almost-always-consistently-calm-happy-together activity: reading.

We have read a good 2 hours today. Bed time is coming, which will be another 30 minutes or so.

My voice is almost gone and my throat is sore (a little worse now since I choked up while reading this, so lovely).

On the bright side, we definitely have a great start on our summer desperation reading program. At this rate, we should have the grand prize by next week. Oh goodie - we'll look so great in our matching t-shirts when we check in to the psych ward together!

Oh come on guys, get your shit act together! Or you mom is totally going to lose hers.

xo,
Mama

ps - Here is a video of Henry (almost 1) saying "Trucks" while looking at a book. We only realized that you were talking after we watched the video. This is, perhaps, your second word. "Danks" for thanks was the first of your words that we understood.  Daddy is reading to Lucy in the background.

pps - My new dream is to have that quote painted on a wall or shelving near all of our books. Ah - I just love it!

French dress, pockets full of rocks

Kindergarten is looming on the horizon. Watch out world, here she comes.

“She's a girl who is on the cusp of becoming someone. A girl who may not know what she wants right now, and she may not know who she is right now, but who deserves the chance to find out.” ~ Jodi Picoult in My Sister's Keeper

Summer months, please go slowly. The letting go needs time to begin.

“Growing [up] doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that.” ~ Ally Condie in Matched

Beware of Grandma Chickenlegs

You have been mentioning Grandma Chickenlegs for a while and I had no idea what you meant until we found the book at the library. We checked it out and have read it countless times. You both love it.

Lucy even made her own Drooga doll.

A little voodoo cousin magic

What's better than cousins?

Cousins and donuts, that's what.

Uncle's day

After the recent Father's Day and Mother's Day, you both wanted to have an Uncle's Day for Jayson. I agree, he deserves some special thanks for all that he has done with our family - especially in the last months while he has been living with us. We are going to miss him a lot when he moves out next month!

Here's a joke he taught you recently:

Jokester: "Know what's funny"
Other person: "What?"
Jokester: "Your face."

Father's day, some assembly required

Henry wanted to give you this:

Lucy wanted to give you this:

(She also thought you might like a swimsuit. Ah, she knows your hoarding habits well!)

But I gave you this:

Plus a few other sets and some date nights (!) coming up.

And Lucy made you a few treasures:

You deserve all of the above and a whole lot more for the amazing job you do at this...

...every stinking day.

I love you.

More all the time.

xo
M

So much for...

So much for nap time...

So much for clean...

So much for clothes...

All necessary sacrifices for a wonderful day at Cathedral Park.

Soil away

Our neighbors are enjoying squeak-free peace. As predicted, we finally had to succumb and replace our duo.

The culprits behind this purchase are off to the Rose Festival parade.

Between the new appliances and the two boxes of Oxi-Clean I have in the house, we should be able to keep up with your mud-rolling, paint-spilling, syrup-magnetism style for a while yet.

Let's go make a mess!