V is for Volumes

Since my first son was born 12 years ago I've written volumes about my children and about being their mom. And not just in this blog. On paper. In journals. Lots and lots of journals. You dear reader get the best, the prime rib if you will, of those entries. 
For years prior to the arrival of my first born I sporadically kept journals. I have one from the three months I spent in Europe in 1990 and another of the summer I spent working for Peach Tree Circle Farm. There are others but they tend to ramble or go months and months between entries.
The reason I've been able to keep this current spate of journals going is that parenting is something new everyday. Just when you think you've figured your kids out they change, just when you get used to a phase, it's over. You find that you can barely keep up with their shoe size much less the inner workings of the growing psyches.

So you write entries in journals and try to grasp moments, catalogue them, file them away for when there's time to revisit them. 

Entries like: 

- Parenting is explaining that the "touchie takie" rule applies only to food and not to 59¢ items at the Christmas Tree Shop.
Nice try guys.

- parenting tip #4891: The toddler who does not poop in his diaper all morning will unload with a colossal dump the moment you arrive at: a) the park, b) his big brother's piano lesson, c) the library, d) all of the above.

- Tonight I told one of the boys that if he couldn't eat his dinner, could he at least artfully arrange it on his plate?

No sense wasting food and sacrificing good design too.

- I think we can all agree that over weight guys with white beards and nicotine habits should not don Santa hats.

My kid (pointing out the car window): "Mommy. Is that Santa?"
Me: "I don't know. Maybe."
My kid: "Doesn't Santa know that smoking is bad for you?"

- When you're over 40 the a game Concentration with your kids could pretty much be renamed Just Guessing.

- Today the twins ate an entire bag of SeaSnax dried seaweed in the car on the way home from the health food store.

My tuna casserole they snub, but a big bag of kelp? Bring it on.
ps. In case you've never eaten seaweed and you're wondering, it's not as if seaweed tastes like chicken. Seaweed tastes like seaweed.

- Parenting is asking your children if they'd rather enjoy their lives and be happy or keep arguing and fighting over who stepped on a crack.

Good times.

Read my A-to-Z posts to see if you have what it takes to be the parent of four boys.
Find out more about the A-to-Z Challenge here.