The Asmussen Family: TTT: Season 4, Episode 9

- Dear Diary, I promise I haven't forgotten about you! Thursday turned in to Friday, Friday in to Saturday, and now it's late and I should be crawling in to bed but instead find myself typing away. This time I can't argue that things have been so busy that I haven't been able to find the time to write. Instead, they've been somewhat normal, which is actually code for "not-much-to-write-about." Normal life stuff consists of a doctor's appointment for a baby who I assumed was teething and instead had ear infections. (yes, that's infection with an s at the end.) Normal life is soccer practice. Grocery store visits. Picking up toys for the hundredth time in the same day. And oodles of loads of laundry. And for a special spin on normal, my dad picked up all three boys early on Friday morning so I could have the entire morning to have a clothing intervention. My crew was in need of major dresser/closet overhaul and that's just one task that cannot be accomplished while children are awake. And doing it while they're asleep is just as impossible. After roughly three hours, five bags and several boxes hadn't made the cut. The "to go" pile was impressive. Yet their rooms still somehow looked the same. One of those projects where you feel like you worked your tail off yet when the hubby arrives home it doesn't look like anything has been accomplished at all. Hey, at least when I pull open the drawers looking for a 2T pair of pants, I'll be successful instead of pulling out something in 18 months. So that's normal for ya. Life is normal, and normal is good.

- I think I, like a lot of other bloggers, often give the impression that we have this perfect, idyllic life. We write about the highs and chose to skip the lows. Or they're too personal for us to discuss. Or we fear that people will cringe and scoff at us when reading of our failures. Or even worse, pity us. But I don't think it serves anyone well to paint us as perfect. We most certainly aren't. And more specifically, I most certainly am not. In fact, I have multiple failures daily. I'll give you a good example: Thursday was one catastrophe of a morning. It was "teacher appreciation day" at Kolbe's little pre-school and I had signed up to bring brownies and bread sticks, assuming I could make the brownies and find fresh bread sticks in the bakery section of the grocery store. After searching high and low and striking out, I decided I'd make them myself. The boys and I made the brownies on Wednesday night and I went to bed setting my alarm earlier than normal so that I could get up and make the bread sticks. Unfortunately, my phone is my alarm. And one sneaky little four-year-old woke up early and stole it away from my nightstand. His older brother woke me up at 7:45...also known as forty-five minutes prior to our load-the-car time. I immediately went in to panic mode. Kolbe had to pack his own lunch, he and Rudy dressed themselves as I barked commands while attempting to get the bread sticks in the oven. Poor Grant stayed strapped into his booster chair, witnessing all of the chaos. I scampered away to hurriedly dress myself and brush my teeth and noticed the timer going off in the kitchen. And not the first round of beep-beep-beep-beeps. The shorter ones that mean "hello....aren't you going to come get this out of the oven?" The bread sticks were burnt. We jumped in the car, abandoning the kitchen calamity and took off. I decided I'd just take Kolbe to school, explain my epic failure and offer to run to Olive Garden. But as I plotted my explanation in my head, I sadly realized I had forgot the brownies...nearly half way to school. After returning to retrieve them, we finally arrived at school twenty minutes late. And despite my pledge to go fetch bread sticks, I was sent away with "It's no problem! We've got plenty of garlic bread to go around...and you already have your hands so full that the brownies alone were a feat in themselves." Gee. That made me feel so much better. So there. That's just one of many example of the real world that goes on around here. Sure, we have our moments of picture perfect. But they are moments. Not hours. Every peach most certainly has its pit.

- After dropping Kolbe off at school on Tuesdays, Rudy, Grant and I have made it a routine to go to the grocery store for our weekly haul. Over time, I've discovered quite the treasure. At least for me. On Tuesday mornings, the floral department clearances out all of the flowers that didn't get picked in order to make room for the new arrival. At the back of the department they always have several buckets of random bouquets up for grabs. I'm not typically a flower person. I do love wildflowers. But $50 arrangements that will die within a week aren't my thing. I always end up rifling off a list in my head of things I could have used that $50 on. But clearanced flowers are another thing. Especially ones that are just as fresh looking as the newbies. This week a dozen red roses came home with me. For $1.99. Last week it was tulips for the same price. Sure, even at just a few dollars, it's an unnecessary splurge to have fresh flowers in the kitchen every week. But for this lady living in a world of men, it's something special that brings a smile to dish washing, a sigh to lunch making, and a little sunshine to even the rainiest of days.