Ramble

At this moment, three children are running through the house, one is reading, one is out on an errand with the Daddy, and one is sitting on the dining table. This is how we roll.
Caleb is impossibly cute - I'm pretty sure he stole some other babies' cuteness somewhere down the line. Fortunately, this makes his life a little easier when he's been playing in the toilet, unrolling whole rolls of toilet paper, or upending everyone's cups all over the table. Last week, he swiped Abi's retainer after dinner and dropped it in the toilet...which hadn't been flushed. Ugh. She was a good sport about it, especially after we boil-cleaned it.
Dan's been loving "school" lately - it's so cute! At least one kid begins the day looking forward to school...He's got a little workbook that he's loving and after he's finished 5 or 6 pages each day, I have to make him stop. It almost makes up for the whining we are working through when it comes to waiting for food.
Ellie's starting to read! So cool. Every now and then she has a brain blank and forgets a letter (usually "e", interestingly enough), but then she'll read a whole paragraph without a hitch. Of course, she still has wild woman hair, but still - baby steps.
Noah's gotten to be pretty close buddies with one of the boys who live across the street, asking to go over his house almost every day. I'm not sure if their greatest shared interest is Lego or screen-based games, but I'm glad that he's got a friend.
One of Anna's great joys at the moment has been giving Dan and Caleb baths. She's pretty good at it, and it's obviously a big help to me. Such a blessing to see her tangibly serve others, and enjoy it.
Abi is almost finished an online Red Cross class in Babysitting Basics. She's really been enjoying it and doing well, and has big plans for serving some families as a mother's helper. Again, it's so nice to see my girls growing in maturity and work ethic.
Toby's breathing a little easier tonight - he's just finished his first major project, his Biblical Theology paper. It's due the end of this week, and he's been working so hard on it, but still being faithful to keep up on his other work (like Greek, ahem) and spend time with all of us. Yesterday we went to a local park for a wander around in the snow, and he delighted in pelting the kids (and being pelted by them) with snowballs. If it were up to me, I still would have been napping. That's why he's the fun parent.
As for me, I'd say I'm almost back to normal. I'm still loving early bedtimes and afternoon naps, but at least an "early" bed is 9:30, not 8pm, and a nap is 30 min, not 2 hours. It's all in the details, I think.
I must confess, though, I haven't been reading much, and I haven't knitted in months! I know, it's crazy - I'm starting to question my identity/sanity! I've been thinking about knitting quite a bit recently, though, so that's something. Gotta start somewhere, right?