Busy week = less words & more video!

Every once in a while I decide to entertain myself -- and hopefully you -- by writing to the tune of a well-known little ditty.  In that spirit, I share with you the following and encourage you to read with the tune of "Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone?" running through your head.

Oh where, oh where has this busy Mom gone?
Oh where, oh where can she be?
A week has past since she posted last,
Oh where oh where can she be?!


To Chicago and back,
New York City as well,
She's oh so tired, looks and feels like hell,
Kids wonder, where can Mom be?!

To amuse you all when my writing does cease
There's new video here for you,
See the nav bar above and widget to right
Great HerChannel videos here morning and night!

Now I can't help but wonder where do the years go?
Oh where, oh where can they be?  
Here's a clip from back then and one from last week,
Hope they amuse you as much as they did me!

In defense of working moms -- this one, anyway!

“How was your weekend?”  It’s a perfectly normal question for folks to ask on a Monday morning.  The thing is, I’m pretty sure they don’t want to hear how my weekend really was.  And that’s ok.  Because the reality is, my weekend – our weekends – are often so exhausting that my husband and I are happy to see Monday morning arrive.  Monday morning means back to work.  A place that while challenging and stressful at times, also affords the opportunity to pee without anyone sitting on your lap and to eat sitting down… both minor indulgences  after 48 hours at home with our five little Lyons Cubs!

As I’ve mentioned in the past, people say a LOT of crazy things to me.  One comment I hear frequently goes something like this… “You have ALL those kids and you WORK too?!   Wow….”  Then they walk away, leaving me to wonder if I’m a terrible person because I have “ALL” these kids and leave them behind for roughly 40 hours a week or if there’s something in my appearance that suggests we are independently wealthy and therefore I don’t need to work.  Given that I’m cruising around in a minivan too beat up to even be called a "swagger wagon" and most of my clothes date from the 90s (at best!), I’m pretty sure it’s not the latter.  And, I know in my heart – and my checkbook! – that it’s not the former either.  Five kids (and one 99 pound dog!) are expensive.  And this past weekend was a real doozie in terms of dollars and sense.  Here’s a rough breakdown…

• Trader Joe’s for groceries                               $170
• Dog to Vet for annual checkup & shots              $175
• Return trip to vet for antibiotics upon discovering dear dog has lyme disease   $275
• Birthday gifts for upcoming parties                   $60
• Oil change and inspection for minivan               $75
• Car #2 to mechanic to repair failing brakes       $175
• 2 cases of diapers                                           $70
• Trip to Urgent Care for 6 year old with presumed pink eye      $50
• Antibiotic upon confirmation of pink eye                                $80
• Spring plants/soil/essentials for backyard clean up                   $100
• Stop & Shop grocery delivery                                                $150

It’s a lot, right?  I don’t have the heart to add it all up but at a glance, a weekend full of essential expenditures (not even including Friday night pizza or a date night!) looks like it’s close to $1000.  Granted, this time around our lovable lab accounts for more than his fair share but, we’re not about to give him up – the entertainment he provides our kids is priceless.  And I don’t think we can give up the diapers yet either although trust me, we’re trying! 

As I assess this list, I’m reminded that my paycheck is pretty important to our bottom line.  And as I assess my aching limbs after a weekend of chasing, lifting, wrestling, battling, tickling, and twirling our kids well, I’m grateful for the time we’ve had together and, I’m glad that tomorrow is Monday!

Five Hungry Little Caterpillars

Since having five kids is an anomaly these days and having identical triplets is literally a long shot, I am the recipient of a lot of unsolicited questioning and commentary.  From “How do you do it?” to “You must be EXHAUSTED!” and even “How DID you DO it?!”, I’ve heard it all.  An increasingly common remark is “You just wait; they are going to eat you out of house and home!” 

I just assumed this comment referred to when our "Cubs" will be teenagers; in addition to worrying about five kids learning to drive, rebelling against me and applying to college, I now have to worry about simply keeping enough food in the house!  Here’s the deal though – it turns out that the food issue has arrived early.  With a trio of two year olds, a feisty four year old and super-charged six year old, I can’t keep groceries (or diapers, for that matter!) in the house despite my weekly deliveries from Stop & Shop and Fresh Direct which are supplemented with monthly hauls from Costco and Trader Joe’s.  Every now and then, there’s a 48 hour window where I feel fairly smug and think I’ve adequately stocked the shelves.  The basement fridge will be full of milk, the cabinets brimming over with cereal, pasta and snacks and the fruit bowls full of fresh bounty.  Then, like some sort of fairy tale twist, BLINK! It’s all gone.

It struck me recently that dinner time (or breakfast or lunch!) in the Lyons Den closely resembles the story of a family favorite, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Here’s a recap of dinner one night this week…

 I came home from work (not quite by the light of the moon)  to find not one, but five very hungry little Lyons Cubs waiting to be fed.  Since Des was working late, I opted for a quick kid-friendly meal. 

• I served up THREE boxes of Mac n’ Cheese and ONE big bunch of broccoli, but they were still hungry…
• So I gave them each a large glass of milk and ONE empty half gallon later, they were still hungry…
• So I cut up, not one, not two, but THREE apples.  And they were still hungry…
• So I peeled TWO oranges… and they were STILL hungry!
• So I cut up FOUR kiwis… and they were still hungry!

In an effort to preserve what little food was left in the house, I drew the line and ended dinner before they ate their way through one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake and so on.  Even so, much like the very hungry caterpillar in the story, one of my little Cubs was up at 4AM with a tummy ache.  And much like that famously hungry caterpillar, my little Cubs are no longer well, “little”.  They are bigger by the day and there’s an excellent chance that the princess among them fully expects to wake up one day to discover that she is a beautiful butterfly... as she well may be.

As for me, well, I’m considering buying stock in my favorite grocery stores, planting a vegetable garden, an apple orchard and possibly buying a cow – how else can I ensure that we’ll be able to feed these kids when they hit the double digits?!  Any ideas, let me know.  I’m all ears.  And, very accustomed to random remarks, suggestions and advice… at least this time, it is solicited!

Church on time?

When our firstborn Liam arrived, Des proclaimed "There are two things that are non-negotiable: he will be Catholic and he will be a Yankee fan."  I've always wondered if he sees these two things as equivalent and with each passing year, I'm more convinced that he does.   With baseball season upon us, there will be plenty of time to share my musings on raising five little pin-striped fanatics so, today I thought I'd dwell on raising five little Catholics.

For starters, we go to church on Sunday.  EVERY Sunday.  We're as reliable as the US Postal Service; we show up in rain or shine, showered or unshowered, with sick kids, cranky kids, and sometimes need a spanky kids. And now matter how early our day starts, we always show up about fiften minutes late.  Now that Liam can tell time, I'm pretty sure he thinks we attend the 10:45 mass when in fact, the rest of the congregation dutifully arrives at 10:30.  

Now, as you might imagine, there is nothing subtle about our arrival at church -- or anywhere else, for that matter!  When the triplets were babies, we would walk to church because it was easier than getting all five kids in and out of the car.  Our entry procession included two strollers - a standard issue double for Liam and Ciara and a front to back triple as long as a Cadillac for Kevin, Declan and Cormac.  Today, as Liam and Ciara bolt down the aisle and the triplets toddle behind them, our entry is less impressive but far more vocal. "I see Jesus!  I see Jesus!  I see Jesus!"  the triplets can't help but announce, sometimes adding additional commentary like "Why he has no shoes on?" 

Thankfully, our priest and our parish are both friendly and forgiving.  Our tardiness isn't looked down upon and we seem to get a fair amount of credit and goodwill for simply showing up, no matter how late we may be.  Given the antics that we provide (typically from a front pew since that's the only space left by the time we arrive!), it's a wonder they don't just lock the door at 10:44.  They continue to welcome the Lyons Family Circus and we continue to show up.

Here are a few of my favorite moments from our weekly 45 minutes of religious obligation and observation:

• Cormac following the guy with the collection basket, taking a $20 and running for the door.  Hey, charity starts at home, right?
• A lady who told me that "my kids just LOVE watching your family at church; it's better than reality TV!"
• The day an elderly woman who had kindly settled down a distraught Declan suddenly dropped him back in my lap noting  "I think he has a present for you,"  as the stench from his diaper nearly knocked us out.
• The time that Kevin ran to the altar to check out the Nativity scene but left his pants behind. Turns out that I shouldn't have ingnored him when he said "pants too big Mama!"
• Advent.  Between the Nativity scene and Toys for Tots collection, our kids provided a lot of comic relief... which, granted, isn't why most folks go to church but it never hurts to have a good laugh, right?  Some highlights were the attempted removal of toys from the altar, failed attempts to "wake up" the Baby Jesus and the near demise of one of the wise men (courtesy of a wobbly triplet).

I clearly recall looking for diversions at church when I was a kid; now my family is the diversion.  It started when Liam was just a tot himself, clapping along with the choir and shouting "YAY!" when they finished a song.  I'm not sure if or when it will end but, until it does, I plan to just embrace it and enjoy it.  While I may not always hear the message of the gospel and while we may never get to church on time, at least I have 45 minutes a week to sit down (when I'm not shooing tots off the altar!) and reflect on just how lucky I am -- lucky to have happy, healthy kids; lucky to be embraced by our community and, well, with the season in full swing, lucky to have so many little Yankee fans... more on that later, to be sure!

Eight is Enough!

It all started out simply enough.  Let’s have a baby.  And so we did.  Two years later we thought, well, this is fun, let’s have another one.  And so we did.  Two years later we thought, well, this is fun, let’s have another one.  And then we got three more.  And then, with five kids under five in the house, well, let’s just say we cooled our jets for a bit.  Apparently, not long enough.

Here’s the deal.  They say that as you get older, the odds of having twins or triplets increases.  They also say that once you’ve had twins or triplets, the odds of having them again increases substantially.  In our case, they said that the odds of identical triplets are about one in a hundred million.  I wonder what they will say when they find out I’m pregnant again.  With triplets.  Yikes, right?!

Well, clearly I’m not getting any younger so, I (we?!) should have known that the odds of a “singleton” weren’t in our favor.  Even so, I have to admit, it’s a bit jarring.  Eight kids?!  Seriously?!  Wow.  This was not part of my master plan.  Frankly, five kids wasn’t part of my master plan.  I suppose I should have learned with our first set of triplets that I am clearly no longer on MY master plan.  I feel like lightening has struck twice.  Seriously, how could I possibly have ended up naturally preggo with triplets not once, but twice?!  What pray tell will we drive?!  A school bus?! 

With the notion of eight kids under seven looming ever closer, I have to admit that I’m at my wits end.  The formula and diapers alone will cause yet another financial setback – to say nothing of where we’ll put these little people, the pending sleep deprivation and the challenging physical transformation that my poor bod is about to endure.  Again. 

I wouldn’t have thought it possible.  And indeed, neither should you.  Ha!  Gotcha!  APRIL FOOLS!  Believe me, five is enough… for now and forever.  :)