This post-every-day-for-a-month thing has made certain that I don’t have time to blog. Just typing that sentence I heard Trixie and Gloria scream at each other and had to go sort it out. Twice.

I have to choose each night between solitude and sleep. Even if I do choose solitude I’m in no shape to blog; I write things like “Home day kids played me go sleep now” and even more incoherency.

Not that I’m better than that now, either.

The toilet was faking and was actually still broken. It was fixed, briefly, this afternoon but is broken again now. It’s usable but really slow, and the guys who temporarily fixed it today are coming back to try to fix it better tomorrow.

Bede has been having a really tough time lately, for reasons unknown to me. He’s been sensory seeking and very easily upset. In the past, these times have presaged periods of intense developmental growth for him so I think that might be what is happening now. In any event it’s difficult for all of us but especially Bede. I hope it passes.

Faith is really enjoying the Warriors books. They’re full of war and angst and love – with cats. Like Watership Down. Abby spends most of her time drawing and making things out of cut paper. Gilbert is growing up but still has many little boy traits. He wants to play sports. Trixie and Gloria are delightfully themselves.

That’s all now.

Today the bathroom pipe was clogged in such a way that the entire system was backed up: sink, tub, and most importantly, toilet. We have one bathroom for eight people,  so it’s more than just an inconvenience. Sean fixed it.

Sean also had a job interview today, wow! I am simultaneously excited and filled with dread at the idea of Sean working fulltime outside the house. On the one hand: money. On the other hand: no husband. Bede, Gilbert, Trixie and Gloria have never had a daddy who leaves every day. But interviews aren’t job offers, so I’m trying not to be anxious. Much.

Oh would you look at that, the pizza is ready.

Today I rediscovered (as in, found it behind a bookcase) one of my favorite books as a child, The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. I loved it as a kid and remembered lingering over the illustrations. My kids love it just as much as I did, and Gloria is quite put out that I’m not reading it to her for the ninth time.

Amazon is currently running a sale on Dr. Seuss books – buy two get one free. Some other Extreme Favorites here at the Gleeson abode are Go, Dog. Go!, Big Dog…Little Dog, and Fox in Socks. I love these books!

DW4169, originally uploaded by feebeeglee.

The suit, the orange suit! SAME ONE.

AAAAA THIS REGENERATION IS GOING TO KILL ME DEAD.

(click for embiggened angst and great, really great hair)

Michaels has a CRAZY yarn sale this week. Among other yarns, Patons Classic Wool is $2.50 a skein. Holy sheep, Batman, I am so there. Lion Fisherman’s is supercheep as well. Hot diggity!

This anemic post is brought short to you by Insistent Gleeson Children numbers Five and Six.

My children adore Club Penguin. Our home is festooned with drawings therefrom, and one of Gloria’s first words was “puffle.”

Today we deduced where Club Penguin was likely to be. It has trees and other plants, so it can’t be part of Antarctica proper. According to Wikipedia, the southern tree line maxes out around 55 degrees latitude, so we decided that Club Penguin must therefore be one of the thousands of islands located north of Cape Horn, which is around 55ish. Can’t be too far north though, because it has a standing iceberg and year-round glacial ice.

Faith is currently working on her drawing of a predator for the island, a cat or catlike creature that is as yet unnamed. We’ve decided puffles are like neon-colored lemmings, with tiny near-invisible legs and paws.

(lemming)

(puffle)

That’s the name of Bede’s favorite book. Have I discussed this before? I don’t think I have. It’s a REALLY GREAT BOOK. Did you like The Monster at the End of This Book? Then you’ll love this book. Bede acts it out constantly, redraws it with other beasts and beings (There Are PIXAR Lamps In This Book, etc) and it has given us a whole new world of bridging scripts upon which to drape deeper meaning. Abby has drawn several semi-sequels and derivative works. Faith still chuckles at it, at age nine. Trixie and Gilbert love it too.

Go buy it immediately. If you hurry, you can get it hardcover at bargain book price – $6.80. Go on, go!

Today was too short! I didn’t manage to get many of the things I planned to do, done. I don’t quite know what took the time away. I think it’s the darkness coming so much earlier.

I’m all boiling with thoughts on adolescence and social development. Especially in an online environment. As regular readers of my blog will recall, Faith adores Club Penguin. The tenor and overall culture of the game has been changing in subtle and not-so-subtle ways in the last year, and it is much more schoolyard than before, with all that implies. Faith finds it more and more difficult to simply “play” on Club Penguin due to the polarized and often mildly predatory nature of boy/girl interactions. Tonight I showed her the beauty of the Ignore feature and I hope it helps. Lord knows it has made many message boards and Facebook more tolerable for me.

Today I left the house with no children!

I’ll just let that sink in a bit.

My mother and I went to the fabric store, the drugstore and the thrift store. We emerged with fabric for Christmas presents, some toys, and winter pants for Gilbert and Bede.

I was universally assumed to be a store employee everywhere we went. I like to think it was the air of calm I have in situations where I dont have six children clamoring about my feet. Anything is easy when you’re a Mother Alone; all the effort I usually expend in keeping my ducks in a row was just there for the taking. But… it was mostly due to my attire, no doubt: blue dress shirt, tan cords and Chucks. Instant non-personhood. Thanks for calling B. Dalton Booksellers, this is Phoebe.

Have you ever answered the phone at home like the one at work? Heh.

We baked challah today.

It’s unbelievably good.

Bede approves.