Life At The Circus

Bet you can’t guess what movie we watched this weekend? little boys dressed as super heroes truly melt my heart… especially this little boy… sitting at breakfast with his tussled hair and sheepish grin… We had a family movie afternoon yesterday and watched The 1978 Original Superman with the big 3 while our three year old was napping.  He woke up in time to catch the heroic finish and then fly around the basement with his cape blazing behind him while the theme music blasted from our stereo.  Good times after a long week. I have to confess the movie didn’t hold my interest entirely.  But, I was struck by a scene at the end.   Superman literally spun the world around backwards to turn back time and rescue Lois Lane.  After saving her life he comes down to her and she lets him have it.  She has no idea what he did for her and that her life was saved and instead whines on and on about her car that wouldn’t start and all of the things that went w...

It has been C-O-L-D this past week here in MD.  I heard rumors that parts of the bay and various rivers and inlets were freezing.  So, this afternoon we took the kids out to see for ourselves.  At one of the beaches we visited these ice balls had formed in the river.  I had actually seen pictures of them floating earlier this week.  Now the ice balls are frozen in to the ice. I was impressed with how far out the ice went.  All the way to the end of the pier and far past it was frozen. See the ice behind the kiddos? Here we are at another beach.   It appeared to be frozen all the way across the river.  But, since we didn’t know how deep it was frozen, we only let the kids stand on the ice on the beach.    They enjoyed it though. I don’t recall it ever being so cold for so long here in MD.  It’s been a nice change of pace to have some actual snow and ice on the ground in January.  It’s nice to not ...

I’m going to a baby shower today for my one of my best friends.   I met her when we both taught together at a small Christian school, 12 years ago, though truthfully it feels like eons ago.   She’s the kind of person that once your friends with her, you feel like you’ve always been friends.   She’s also the kind of person that makes everyone feel like her best friend.  I was thinking this morning what a blessing she was to me during my early months and years of mothering.  She wasn’t a mom.  She didn’t really like babies all that much.  In fact she refused to hold my son the first SEVERAL times I offered him to her to hold.  She had no opinions whatsoever on co sleeping, Baby Wise, cloth or disposable, nursing or bottle.  She was just there.  No judging, no telling me the right way to do it, just sitting in the front seat of my escape while I spent close to an hour nursing my son in the backseat before we could make a “q...

My own paraphrase of a very busy 30 minute period of time here at the circus on our first day back at school at home, based on the "If you give a...." book series.  There is no embellishment here.  This is how it really went down at the circus house this morning. If you give a mom a minute, she'll sneak a peak at facebook. And when she sneaks a peak at facebook, she'll see one of her friends posted a crock pot recipe.  This will remind her that she needs to put her own dinner in the crock pot. As she gets out the crock pot, she will see the flour and looking at the clock, she will realize she should start lunch prep soon. As she pulls out the flour to make waffles, she will see a box of pretzels. The pretzels will remind her that she wanted to finish a conversation with her daughter from last night. She leaves the room to talk one on one with her daughter and as she's talking she will suddenly hear her 3 year old crying and screaming for Mommy and Daddy. This will...

It’s funny how our New Years Eve festivities have changed through the years.  Scott and I have never been big party animals, but we did go to downtown Pittsburgh on Dec 31, 1999 to ring in the new millennium with a kiss on the Roberto Clemente bridge.   For several years we would watch the fireworks in Annapolis at midnight. Then we had kids. And New Years became a stay at home night.  Some years we’d have friends over, some years we’d do an in home date night of dinner and a movie after the kids were in bed.  The past few years New Years has been a Family Fun Night.  Last night we sat around the table and talked through the year… we broke it into quarters and talked about some of the highlights of those months. 2013 was an epic year for the circus family.  We went on a mega vacation .  Without a doubt that was one of the major highlights of our year.  6 months later and when the kids recall our trip, their highlights were Mt Rush...