After a brief hiatus from the Mom Things- back with more!

After a quick survey of the playroom, you consider that if naked baby dolls were currency, you'd have to be among the richest families in the world.

Although you don't exactly enjoy hearing your two year old cry every other time you get into the van, you do find it endearing that she gets that upset when you don't go to church.  She starts the inquisition in the garage - "We going to church, Mommy?"  If the answer is "no", she defaults to requesting a trip to Chick-Fil-A and/or the library.  Can you tell the places we frequent most often? 

You applaud your childrens' creativity and hate to squelch it under most circumstances, but when they start using dining room furniture to build an indoor playground, you have to put a stop to it.  You know, in the name of safety.

After retrieving an unidentifiable skinny, red object from your two year old's mouth, you ask her what it is, and she happily replies, "It's clock!"  Yup.  That's the second hand from your cute, miniature wrought-iron table clock.  What on earth possessed her to rip it off and taste it?  We'll never know.

Whether you ran to the grocery store for milk, spent an evening with friends, or walked down the driveway to check the mailbox, you love that your girls are just as excited to see you walk through the front door as if you'd spent a year abroad.

You find out the fastest way to infuriate your eight year old is to tell him you have a surprise for him.  Turns out, he's not into mysteries.

You couldn't help but laugh when your hot-natured-by-genetics eight year old walked out into the oppressive late-September heat one Sunday afternoon and vehemently declared, "I wish we lived farther from the equator!"  (Preach it, brother.)

As penitence for a punishable offense, your eight year old was subject to be your personal gopher for an entire evening of chores.  After a surprisingly agreeable two or three hours of service to you, he thought it would be clever to begin saluting you every time you gave him another instruction.  You can't lie.  You kind of liked it.

Although it's been nearly a daily occurrence in your pantry for months, you finally snapped a shot of your toddler's primate-like climbing skills as she endeavored to reach a lollipop on the 4th shelf.

You know that most parents tend to have biases towards their own kids' abilities, but when you pulled the family painting out of your four year old's bookbag, you were impressed.  And you felt justified when even her eight year old brother admired the artwork.  Kudos to the budding artist in the family.  Lord knows she didn't get that from her mother.

 (Additional commentary on the painting:  That's a black sun in the sky and on Mommy's shirt.  Not a mother spider swooping down to rescue a baby spider off of Mommy's belly.  And Abby, herself, is not in the photo because she "didn't feel like it".  Sam and I maintain she just ran out of room.  Too many people in our family already, huh?  She's going to have to learn to go landscape instead of portrait.  She totally nailed the dark circles around my eyes though.  Love her attention to detail.)

Blessings, my friends!  Have a Happy, Happy Wednesday!