A Pattern of Words

Cousin squad exploring new places together.

When video games and computer games are pretty nonexistent at home, this is what happen the second we walk into a library with the kids.

The perfect cousin combo. S comes up with the adventures and shenanigans (usually related to hunting for dinosaur fossils), E provides the enthusiastic backup support, and N keeps everyone in line (mostly), while trying to keep any real damage from happening (somewhat successfully).

M’s famous “Look” she gives Mom every time Mom a) tries turning the conversation from pleasant banalities to politics or b) says something that is factually unfounded – especially in the area of American civics or social studies.

When the kids were younger, I LOVED reading aloud. Then we hit the four-kid stage where it became a huge chore, primarily because the kids fought endlessly over who sat next to (or on top of. Or over.) me. Not just a “one and done” fight, but a “after every picture book” fight. I started reading less. Now I’m trying so hard to read more again, but we’ve entered a new phase. A “every time you ask them what they want me to read it’s a Minecraft book” phase. I try to pass that chore off to Vincas whenever I can.

She’s the Little Mama of our family: the one always desperate to be older than her actual age (five) and beyond excited the few times she gets to be in charge of anything. She’s usually pretty even keeled (except for when big brothers tease her one time too many) and incredibly responsible. She’s the kid who does school because she wants to (she’s five! I’m definitely not making her do school and would much rather she’d be off playing), is always down for earning a quarter by cleaning the living room for me, has ridden a two wheeler since she turned four, enjoys making her bed and arranging every stuffy on it, and helps cousin R with every coat that needs zippering. She loves twirly dresses, bows for Sunday mass, and all things unicorns and rainbows.

Our ladies are laying again! Thank goodness, seeing as egg prices just keep shooting up and up and up. We might finally start re-cooping (haha) some of our fowl-nancial investment!

Resist.

This little breakfast sitting nook is one of the first spaces I created after we moved into our house and, to be perfectly honest, it doesn’t get utilized as much and as well as I’d like. The chairs aren’t very comfortable (I snagged them off the side of the road when a neighbor put them out, so I can’t complain too much about that) and the table space is a bit too shallow for an adult to eat here. It mostly gets used as a “where all the junk gathers” desk sort of space. I’ve been thinking about how I can make it more useful and have had several ideas. Idea one: continue using it as an overflow eating space, but ditch the four uncomfortable chairs and get two stools that are actually pleasant to sit on (only having two would make it easier to pull them in and out and give sitters more elbow room). Bonus: maybe space would get used more? But sitting here doesn’t give you full access to the kitchen, so I think that hampers kids’ desire to be there. I do sit here and eat lunch occasionally just to avoid the arguing happening at the actual dining room table, but it doesn’t happen *that* often. Also, we didn’t know what we didn’t know when we moved in and we put down the cheapest linoleum possible thinking that we would be renovating within the year…this didn’t happen and the linoleum has NOT held up well. It’s tearing in places and stained where the chairs touch the ground. Switching out the chairs would highlight these defects. That said, if we truly aren’t renovating the kitchen for a decade+, then addressing the floors will have to happen sooner rather than later. Idea two: ditch all chairs and build storage underneath and above the counter space. This would be great, because I do need more storage. If it worked perfectly, I could ditch the shelf by the window and create a comfortable desk space there that kids could use for drawing. Negatives of this plan: money being poured into a space that *eventually* I’d like to gut. But gutting probably wouldn’t happen for a decade at least. Idea three: Combination of the first two ideas. Swap chairs for two comfortable stools, keep the seating area in the bottom half, but add shelving to the top half. Even just two shelves (our ceilings are quite high) would give space for storage (albeit dust collecting storage). This would NOT be enough space to get rid of the shelves by the window, so that would eliminate the possibility of creating a kids’ nook there.

Thoughts?

This is seven.