I have been dreading this year for some time. And it has been looming on the horizon the last couple of weeks. This year we will be packing 2 school lunches. Our school does not have the option of hot lunch so 5 days a week, we need to make lunch and for those with less than adequate math skills, that's 10 lunches a week. My kids are fairly picky--neither eats sandwiches. Liam will eat PB&J but we are a peanut free school so that's not terribly helpful. Rori eats lunch meat, but hold the bread--nothing like sending her to school with a baggie full of salami. I decided to google lunches and try to find some new creative ideas. What I discovered was I need to be fired as a mom, or at least as domestic lunch lady.

One of the first pictures I came across was this one

Now, God bless this woman, and I am probably just jealous, but it made me want to stab my eyes out. This was her description of the lunch.

• Main compartment - Bus shaped sandwich which I free hand cut with Smoked Gouda and Colby Longhorn cheese. Large olive slices for wheels. Some cute food picks as little people.
• Lower left - Baby carrots and ranch in little dipper.
• Upper left - Seedless green grapes and strawberry halves.
• Center - Blueberries
• Upper right - Pencil shaped cheddar string cheese with mozzarella tip,raisin for pencil lead and ham for eraser, pencil tip and eraser are secured with a thin spaghetti. Wheat thins below the pencil. Packed in our PlanetBox Rover and I included a LunchBox Love note with his lunch.

What the what???? Free hand shapes? Olive wheels? Gouda AND Colby? Edible, crafted pencil? 2 things stood out to me. One, her kid is going to be constipated with all that cheese. And two, clearly I have some time management issues in that I don't have time to hand craft a cut out sandwich and pencil. Not to mention that my kids would eat exactly 4 ingredients from that lunch--not 4 items or compartments, 4 ingredients. So, my friends, if any of you have any wonderful ideas that will take me exactly 2.5 minutes per lunch, has some nutritional value, and is enticing to my little ones, I am forever indebted to you.

Words for Nicki and Nicholas

Bill's brother, Nicholas, and his wife, Nicki, are having a set of twins. I have been thinking about my own babies and I have wanted to share some thoughts to help prepare them for the arrival of their bundles of joy.

First of all, babies are HARD! When you come home from the hospital, your hormones will be completely out of wack. You will find yourself crying for no reason on an almost daily basis. This is normal (feel free to call me and I will tell you, this is normal). You may be crying at the dinner table for no reason for the fourth time that day and Nicholas may be so used to it, he will just say "can you pass the salt?"  Totally normal. You will contemplate the "drop your babies at the fire station no questions asked" policy. This is normal (just don't act on it). You will learn what it's like to walk around without a shirt on because you have some place to go and you know you cannot safely put a shirt on until the babies are buckled in their seats, lest you get spit-up on. This is normal. There will be days that your teeth feel like they are wearing sweaters because you haven't brushed them. This is normal. You will give them everything they need--food, clean diapers, and most importantly, love. They will give you spit-up, explosive diapers, and wide eyes at 2:00 AM. Here is where my most important piece of advice is. Cherish those wide eyes, rock them at 2 in the morning. Don't miss out on this moment. Be present in it. Breathe in their sweet innocence as the rest of the world is quiet and sleeping. I promise, it only lasts for a second, and then it's gone. People told me how fast it goes when I had Rori. I didn't believe them. I was wrong. When I had Liam, I knew, and I cherished the moments, and when Brendan came, I begged time to stand still. It didn't. And I can tell you honestly, in the blink of an eye, Rori went from a tiny inchworm to a long legged third grader. You will bring those babies home, and you and Nicholas will look at each other and think school is so far away. Then you will blink your eyes and those babies will be off to Kindergarten. The first few months will feel like years, but I promise, looking back, they will be only seconds of your life. Enjoy them. Cherish them. Don't miss out on them. They are but a season, one that you cannot get back. There are many more seasons, but this is one that you don't want to rush.

My mom used to sing this song to me and I sing it to mine now. It's lyrics are true.
Where are you going, my little one, little one? 
Where are you going, my baby, my own? 
Turn around and you're tiny. Turn around and you're grown.
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own. 

The day before yesterday

yesterday