Oh yeah... I have a blog.

We started a homeschool co-op this semester.  A bit premature, you say?  Yes.  Technically Ella will not start "kindergarten" until Fall.  But she is the oldest (by far) in our church playgroup and I was hoping to get her more exposure to older kids.  And me more exposure to homeschooling parents who know what they are doing.  Two weeks in and I am pleased with the results.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.  One of the women I met at co-op (which met last on Valentine's day) mentioned my aversion to the aforementioned holiday.

"Where did you hear I don't like Valentine's day!?" I asked my friend.

"From your blog," she responded.

Oh.  Yeah.  I do have a blog.  And apparently, people actually read it.

But hopefully everyone just plugs the address into their google reader so they don't have to waste time checking to see if I posted every day, which clearly I do not.

And while I am here, would you like an update?

Ella learned how to read.  Slow and steady wins the race.  I forgot (since it has been 26 years since I learned how to read) how long it takes to get good at reading.  She tells people that she can only read 'special' books.  And she is right.  At this time we are pretty much limited to the Bob books and McGuffey's primer and a few other leveled readers.  All in good time, my friend.  Soon we will move on to Frog and Toad and I just cannot wait for that.  I have good memories of early readers.

Charlotte is almost three.  I cannot think of anything else earth-shattering about her development.  But she is still developing.  And she is turning out marvelously.  But I think that about all my kids. (Usually.)  She is at that stage where she has started coming up with unique ideas, instead of parroting the ideas she has heard from us.  "Tell me a story about Jesus when he was in a bad fight," she asked me today.  "Ummmm, Jesus was never in a bad fight, Charlotte."  She has also started calling herself Charlie and introduces herself as such, and will correct us if we introduce her as Charlotte to new people.  I still call her Char, Charlotte, and Charlie in equal amounts.  I think Paul mostly calls her Charlie.  She also knows that her hair is her identifying feature.  I tried to pull her hair into a barrette the other day and she said, "Now I'm not Charlie!"  I'm a little concerned about that, since she is so much more than a head of hair.  But it gets SO MUCH attention.  Working on it.

Max is darling.  Everyone comments on what a happy baby he is.  And he really is very engaging.  He loves 'flirting' with strangers and people around us.  But he is going through a phase where he never wants me to put him down.  Ever.  It's killing my back, since he is now a hefty 23 pounds.  He started trying to crawl several months ago, but he stopped trying and now does a roll-scoot to maneuver around.  Maybe I should get Ella and Charlotte to do some crawl coaching.  

I am tired.  That is my overriding general feeling.  But I am pretty sure that is normal.  Although my mother thinks I should get my thyroid levels checked. 

I am madly in love with my kids, and still routinely like to watch them sleep (when I manage to stay up that late).  But I'm not going to lie, this mother-of-three stuff is not easy.  I think that other people (from comments I sometimes get) think that I'm kind of rocking the whole motherhood thing, and it's probably my fault because I don't complain enough.  (It's funny to type that out.)  I probably only accomplish 20% of my goals.  But I kind of like having unrealistic endeavors, so that number isn't a great representation of what actually gets done from day to day.  Thinking on this more, I might only accomplish 5% of my goals, since I don't actually consider things like, "ensure everyone has a clean bottom after using the bathroom" and "clean up shards of glass" goals.  They are just things that must get done.  We still aren't fluent in mandarin.  And in fact, I still haven't even borrowed mandarin language learning CD's from the library, as I have intended to do for at least a year.  Truly, the house is always a mess. 98% of the time I wish it were cleaner.  I am not exaggerating.  There are so many other things that are more important to me (or that simply must be done) that it just doesn't get the attention it requires to keep up with the whirlwind of three little kids.  The list goes on and on and on.  There are so many things I am not that I wish I were.

That being said.  That is not how I define my life.  I am happy.  Madly in love with my husband.  And regularly enchanted by my children.  I spend my day chasing little girls and coercing them into giving me kisses.  We laugh and play monster games and dance in the living room.  I live a good life.  But it is so so far below perfect.  Seriously, I could write at least three thousand words on how not perfect I am.  

So, this was not even remotely what I intended to write this evening, but the loveliness of my life is really what I focus on in the blog (and really most of the time), and so I hope that you are not playing the comparison game with me.  Because seriously, you would totally win. (Smile.)

Except we would win in the tickles category.  We basically dominate in tickling.