Tales from the trenches

So things are going pretty well, although I'm seriously considering not having any more kids. The girls have gotten to school on time each day, we're sort of keeping up with homework and piano practice, the boys are all alive despite eating a lunch consisting completely of Ritz crackers, we've had nutritious dinners exactly at 6:00 every night, the boys' naps miraculously overlapped for 20 minutes yesterday (whereupon I immediately fell asleep), and I'm calling it good. We've had some minor blips, like the boys violently and completely dismembering a houseplant in about two minutes flat while I was folding laundry (Um, Ruth and Bill, if you're reading this, sorry about the plant), and Joseph unravelling Lizzie's knitting project last night, which rightly caused some heartache. Nephi came home early this afternoon to help out, which I really, really appreciated. Our boys both pretty much dropped from exhaustion at 5:00 this evening, and we're crossing our fingers that they'll make it through the night; sleeping hasn't been going so well for them, so a good long rest would definitely help everyone out. But there have been some very cute moments, like the three mudcaked boys playing out in the dirt for hours, the heartfelt sincerity of an eight year old girl singing Disney lyrics, the disconnected storytelling of a five year old, and a very silly rendition of "Do What I'm Doing" during Family Night.