not serious people

Well, what's new...

I finally convinced Patrick to move from the French Press to the Automatic Drip coffee maker.  I know this is a sacrilege to some of you, but c'mon, don't I have enough to do in the morning?  I mean, who wants to spend 20 minutes making coffee?  Not to mention that cleaning out that stupid thing is right up there with emptying the compost bowl as my two least favorite household chores.  So the bliss of waking up to already brewing coffee is ours once again.  But many of you who know me know I don't make the coffee anyway, so what does it really matter?  It is one of the two things I don't do as a wife.  The other is pump my own gas.  Hey, I'm from Jersey.  

Every night at dinner we share out best and worst thing from the day.  Tonight, Patrick said his best thing was getting a haircut (an official Mamakee haircut, I might add).  Ceci said, "A haircut?" with this, "Seriously, that's the best part of your day?" tone to her voice.  Patrick and I cracked up.  She has also recently told us she only likes to wear soft pants.  With the cold weather, I have been mandating she wear pants.  I even bought her sparkly jeans.  She told me the other day that she only wants to wear soft pants, not jeans.  

We went to Orlando on Friday and got to visit with Ben and Megan.  We had a great time, went to Ikea, played dominoes, made some pesto, drank a little wine, lost Henry's jacket, and made a total mess of their house.  Their little boy, Wes, is Malcolm age, more or less, and is catching up to him in both size and hair composition.  They were really cute together.  Wes is so laid back, and being around him, I was reminded, like I need reminding, at how non-stop Malcolm is.  Wes would kind of wander around, mostly staying with us and chatting us up.  Malcolm would careen down the hall, shout at one of his siblings something unintelligible, slam some blocks on the floor in the back room, come careening back into the living room pushing that ride-on truck at full speed, shout at us and steal my chips.  Wes would sit in Ben's lap playing with one or two dominoes.  If I had let Malcolm up in my lap, he would have leaned over, put both hands on the table, and slid them back and forth until he knocked all the dominoes all over the floor.  It is not that Malcolm isn't laid back because he is.  Meaning that he's not high strung or anything.  He is just busy.  He's an explorer.  And he likes loud noises and chaos.  This is good since our house is full of those things.  

Seeing Ben and Megan with Wes kind of reminded me what it was like having just one.  I thought about things so much more.  I knew how much milk he had to drink that day, whether or not he had pooped, when he had last had a bath... Poor third babies.  I have no idea how much milk Malcolm drank today.  And he's still okay.   These days, I have to concentrate on not letting all the little moments with my kids fly by, and in the midst of that, I think a lot less about stuff.   I guess I have come to the "Everything in Moderation" philosophy by default.  It's the easiest to enforce, makes the most sense with my personality, and lends itself to the least amount of thinking.  And, I think moderation is a good practice.  It keeps us from taking things too seriously.