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Just when I think I had a small parenting victory, reality comes crashing back in. I was so proud of my six-year-old daughter Elle, who drew an amazing picture during nap time. I sometimes allow her to take her craft materials with her while she lays in bed. It keeps her quiet and gives her (and, more importantly, her mother) some alone time. When I went upstairs to tell her that she could get up I glanced at the paper she had been working on. It was a picture of Jesus on the cross. But then she really upped the ante by also drawing a picture of herself kneeling and praying in front of the cross. Pretty sure I have a future nun on my hands. As you all are well aware I don’t often brag about my kids. I felt like I was overdue and I was itching for some peer adoration. So I did what any sane parent would do. I bragged about it on Facebook. You know, just innocently trying to get other people to build me up as a Mom. We all do it. I just wanted a few of those “Wow Sarah! You really are a great mom! I wish my kids were that cool! How do you do it!?” sentiments. You know, something along those lines. I’m not picky. I was sitting on my deck crafting this humble brag Facebook post after all four of my children were tucked neatly into their beds and were certainly sound asleep. The lights were all off in the house and we were enjoying a lovely evening on the deck at dusk. It was late. They definitely SHOULD have been asleep. But, in true karma timing, it was at that exact moment that a tiny light came on in the kitchen behind me. Alex noticed it first. Then, as he started laughing he told me to turn around. Sure enough, the four-year-old, Rose, was out of bed. She had no idea we were on the deck and thought that because the house was pitch black we were likely in bed upstairs. She had snuck out of bed, went downstairs, opened up the freezer (hence the tiny light), and was helping herself to ice cream. And not just any ice cream. It was a special Blizzard that Elle had gotten for being good on her date with Grammy the other day. She was out of bed stealing her sister’s ice cream in the middle of the night! She eventually noticed that we were out there staring at her and she froze. It was a perfect impression of a deer in the headlights. She dropped the spoon, slammed the freezer shut, and took off running back upstairs. Apparently, God thought that I was getting a little too big for my britches. And I’m back to average. Just like that.

I took Grant in to get his nine-month pictures taken tonight. I had to. Because I took my firstborn child, Elle, in to get pictures every three months for the first year of her life. It seemed easy and necessary at the time. And now, because I did it for my firstborn, I feel parentally obligated to do the same thing for each of my subsequent children. There’s just too much Mom-guilt involved if I don’t. Unfortunately, this process has gotten significantly more difficult now that I have four kids. Tonight I finally bit the bullet and headed to JCPenney. I don’t know if you know this or not, but they have a rule against taking your child up an escalator while they’re in a stroller. Who knew!? The weirdest part about this was that the employee that decided to give me a real tongue lashing happened to be coming down the escalator while I was going up on the other side. (We had a very small umbrella stroller and he was securely latched in front of me, just so you know!) The woman gave me a very stern talking to. I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten chewed out while riding an escalator, but it was actually kinda hard not to laugh, because when she started chewing me out we were face-to-face but there was no way for either of us to stop so she just kept on lashing out at me while I kept on inadvertently walking away from her. It was rather comical and, apparently, dangerous. Note to self: strollers require elevators to get to the second floor. I also realized today that I hadn’t even picked out any appropriate attire for the photos. Which meant that about five minutes before we left I was rifling through a dresser drawer and throwing random stuff in a bag to take with us. We could get dressed there. Again, he’s the fourth kid. Once we got there I decided naked chubby babies are cute. And bowties are cute. Therefore, a naked chubby baby in a bowtie had to be cute, right!? As soon as I got this outfit on him I started laughing out loud before the photographer even saw it. All I could think was Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live trying out for the Chippendales. If you haven’t seen this SNL skit, it’s objectively the best skit that has ever been created. Picture a very large overweight man trying out to be a Chippendales dancer. It’s about as funny as you think it would be. And that is exactly what Grant looked like when I put him and his naked body in nothing but a bowtie and a diaper. I actually decided it was so funny that I just went with it and had his photo shoot done primarily in that outfit. Again, by the time you get to the fourth child your standards are a bit subpar. After finding the freight elevator and heading for the exit, we found the perfect shirt for Scarlett. Unfortunately it only came in size “Boys Husky”. In hindsight, that may have been perfect.

If you haven’t experienced the joy that is trying to get a two-year-old’s wet one piece bathing suit that’s a size too small for her pulled down while in a porta potty, you haven’t fully experienced life. The only thing that made it better was that we didn’t make to the John-on-Wheels quite in time. But I didn’t yet know that when I went in. So, as I pulled down her swimsuit, the nugget plopped right onto the floor. Upon turning around and seeing the fruits of her backside that had fallen on the floor she exclaimed “Look Mom! A birdie pooped!” You’re not fooling anyone Scarlett…it’s the size of a small rodent. We all know it was you – you’re not pinning this on a bird. I then got to scrub the floor of the dirty porta potty because I felt guilty not fully cleaning the mess up, even though it was unlikely anyone would have noticed. She then fell onto the floor of the John. Since she was slightly damp, she came back up looking like a festooned Christmas tree. She probably has roughly 47 diseases now. But at least this only happened once. Just kidding. She pooped her pants three times while we were there. In the swimsuit every time. We’re now banned from the Grand Ledge splash pad. Pretty sure there’s a poster with her face on it getting put up right now. You can see the porta pottys in the background below as she gaily plays in the water as though she didn’t just destroy my entire evening. Oh, and if you ever go here…use the John on the right.

Scarlett tends to overestimate her abilities. She’s put up with an entire season of watching both Rose and Elle play t-ball without being allowed to participate. Apparently, she decided she was over it tonight. She was playing tag with her cousin Logan when they started venturing a little further away…and a little further away…and a little further away. I was keeping a good eye on them, but eventually they made it far enough away that they were no longer within earshot. Their game of tag carried them all of the way into the outfield of the neighboring ball field. With much older kids playing. I’m talking suited-up-umpire level of baseball. Serious stuff. They were literally circling the poor left fielder. My yells from that distance were doing nothing to deter them, so, naturally, I immediately started sprinting. The poor leftfielder had no idea what to do. The umpire had to call a time out. I had to run into the outfield and drag both of them away while sheepishly waving my apologies to all of the fans. Totally not awkward. Such good times. This photo is after dragging her off the field.

I’m currently sitting in my kitchen engaging in “Oreo Therapy” as my husband kindly refers to it. Did I mention Scarlett now shares a room with her two sisters? Did I mention it’s not going well? Within roughly 20 minutes of putting them to bed, Scarlett had not only gotten out of bed, but had completely left the room 3 times. Fun. After putting the three of them down, I was attempting to nurse Grant to sleep in the other room. It didn’t take long for Elle to find me to tell me that Scarlett had gotten out of her room and had found my lipstick again. I pretty much threw Grant in his crib and ran to find her. She had applied lipstick, and then also found my concealer stick and rubbed that all over her lips, mistaking it for lipstick. Silly child, that will do nothing to enhance your lips. It only hides them. I put her back in bed and disciplined her. I came downstairs. Elle found me again to tell me that she had gotten into the concealer again. It was everywhere this time. Either she has some huge self image issues and wants to hide her many cosmetic flaws, or she just really likes make up, because this time she had put it all over her face, arms, and torso. Apparently her concealer application technique is improving. Can’t say she doesn’t learn! I disciplined her again. I put her back in bed again. Next, Rose came to find me to tell me that Scarlett had gotten out of her room, found a large, heavy, Tervis-style cup upstairs, brought it back into their room and threw it at Rose‘s head. Otherwise the evening is going very smoothly. How about yours? If anybody has an extra pack of Oreos laying around I think I’m gonna need it tonight. They don’t even have to be brand name. I’ll take the cream-filled-cocoa-wafers too. You know where to find me. (I’ll probably be hiding in my garage by the time you get here. Make a bird call. That’s the only way I’ll know it’s safe to come out.)

We go through enough toothpaste in this house that I’m starting to think it might actually be cheaper to allow my children’s teeth to rot out of their heads. This is Scarlett after her nightly brush session. And this picture was AFTER she rubbed most of it off onto one of my towels. A clean hand towel at that. Which is a big deal because I rarely change out my hand towels. (I have four kids. That’s pretty much my excuse for everything.) If you’re ever a visitor at my house you’d probably be better off allowing your hands to air dry. However, today was my bi-monthly hand towel changing day. And she decided it would be a good night for her to rub toothpaste all over her upper torso and then proceed to show me her cleaning abilities by wiping it up with my clean towel. The girl lacks finesse. Isn’t there some sort of magic pill that I can have my children chew every night that cleans their teeth?! It’s 2019 people! Somebody get on that! Or, at the very least, start making toothpaste clear. So, when my two-year-old rubs it all over my clean hand towel I can just hang the thing back up and let it go another two weeks. I’ll just pretend like I didn’t notice. (This story is probably as much about my issues with hand towels as it is about my issues with toothpaste.) You’d probably be better off using hand sanitizer at my house. Consider yourself warned.

No day is complete without my daily dose of Mom Guilt. This past holiday weekend I was trying to do the good mom deed of taking my children to a Memorial Day parade, followed by a visit to the local park per my mother’s suggestion. The four-year-old, Rose, has been particularly attached to her blanket lately. She’s had the same pink cupcake blanket since birth and it has the well-loved holes to prove it. Ordinarily, I would not allow my children’s blankets to leave the house, but lately I’ve been ascribing to the path-of-least-resistance model. Which means she basically does what she wants. She had the blanket in the car and took it out to watch the parade. I remember her handing it to me and me handing it to Grant to play with. It gets foggy from there. You know where this is going. We drove roughly 25 minutes one way to Portland to attend this parade. I didn’t notice that the blanket was missing until it was naptime back at home. While tucking Rose in she told me she didn’t have her blanket. I scoured the house. Nothing. I reconvened with Rose to see if she remembered where she last had it. She reminded me that she had had it in daddy‘s truck a couple of days ago and suggested I look there. (Rose probably shouldn’t be your first pick if you are recruiting for a search and rescue team.) So, I did what any rational, sane parent would do. I put her to bed while confidently reassuring her I’d find it. I then went into full-freak-out-mom-search-mode. You know that desperate feeling where you find yourself suddenly looking through old totes of Christmas decorations thinking “Just maybe…” You open a jar of peanut butter thinking “It could fit!” No luck. I then decided that the only rational next step was for me to drive the nearly half hour back to Portland to search for it during their coveted naptime. AKA: Mommy’s break time. I had three kids sleeping at the same time people. AT THE SAME TIME! Instead of resting, I drove. (Yes there was an adult at my house with my sleeping kids while I did this completely rational act.) I drove all the way to Portland. I confronted random parents at the park to see if they’d “mistakenly” put it in their diaper bag. (“Everyone knows you’ve got sticky fingers Camilla!”) I knocked on multiple doors near where we had stood on the parade route. I was desperate. I posted on the local Facebook page asking the community to spread the word that I needed this blanket back. And then I drove home in glorious defeat. I walked in my house and sat down on the couch and began searching Google for “pink cupcake baby blankets”. You’d be surprised at how many there are. None of which match my daughter’s. It must have been a limited edition… (Only the best for my kids. JK. It was a gift.) It was while scouring the internet that my two-year-old woke up from her nap and calmly walked downstairs carrying not one, but two, blankets. My initial instinct was to be ragingly mad. But I quickly turned that around into pure elation that it was found. I’m now keeping it in a lock box inside a fire proof safe. Apparently, my reconnaissance mission in Portland was a bit premature. Also, if you decide to allow your children to become strangely attached to a specific baby blanket, it’s probably smart to have a matching one on standby. Just buy two from day one. Or zero. Buying your kids zero blankets would also solve this problem. Just throwing it out there…

While this picture may look very innocent, I can assure you on the other side of this door pure havoc was being wreaked all over my son’s nursery. I can’t believe children have lived in this house for six years and this fateful day is just arriving. But yes, during my daily “Where’s Scarlett!?” session, I finally realized she had locked herself in a bedroom. And the lock was on the inside. How this has not happened before is a pure miracle. As I stood in the hallway yelling at her to come over and twist the doorknob, she repeatedly yelled to me that she couldn’t. I then heard a loud crash and she started crying. Naturally, I started to freak out. However, they didn’t seem like near-death-screams, so I continued to try to get her to come over to the door to unlock it because that seemed like the best solution, though I had yet to make any progress. I also had nothing around me that could unlock it. While I’m having my Mommy-freak-out my very calm six-year-old got the inside of an ink pen (!) to help jimmy the lock and we had her out in about three seconds flat. The jury is still out on my two-year-old, but I’m pretty sure my six-year-old is going places. It may just be to lock picking school, but I’ll take it! And just to give you the full picture, because I know you’re wondering, when I opened the door Scarlett had been on a stool that had toppled over into a bookcase and was pinned up against it. She was ultimately fine, but that would have been a far superior photo op.

There was a moment this morning when I seriously feared that I had created some incredibly soft kids. Both emotionally and potentially even in the head. Though the below picture is of poor quality (I didn’t feel like walking a 1/4 mile to get a better quality photo – feel free to question my dedication) you can make out a few of the many sheets of white paper scattered around the play set. When I asked Elle what they were, she informed me that they were notes that they had written to the animals. (This is when I began to question their intellect.) They said things like “I love you birds” or “I love you deer” When they told me they were doing this I had obvious misgivings. I started imagining Elle might have to repeat Kindergarten…that is, until they told me the rest of the plan. Apparently, they scattered these notes around to lure the animals in with a false sense of security. And THAT is when Elle plans to whip out her crossbow to shoot them. (Don’t worry…it’s a Nerf crossbow so it would only stun them.) I’ve never been more proud. The ingenuity! I mean, obviously the plan has a few flaws. I’m pretty sure the birds would need to have some capacity for understanding written word, but I’ll just trust that that part of the plan will work itself out.

You guys know I tend to be a rather hands off parent. Honestly, I pride myself on this a little bit. I’ve told countless people how proud I am of my six-year-old whom has been packing her own lunch for school almost every day this entire school year. “I don’t even check it!” I exclaim. “I just know that she does it and it works out well!” Today, I happened to walk by the counter after she packed it, but before she had zipped it back up. I’m now second-guessing my entire parenting style. This is very bad. I can only imagine what the school has been thinking of me all year. Apparently, my sweet tooth is genetic. There was SO MUCH CANDY! It was EVERYWHERE! There were loose jelly beans! She had apparently just opened the bag and dumped them in on top of the other candy. Can’t leave any gaps! Yeesh. Who needs PB&J when they have Skittles? Apparently we’ll be having a sugar-free summer to average it back out.