It’s been two years since I’ve posted last, so I’ll reintroduce myself here, even though my only readers are immediate family who already know me.

I’m a mother of four … four human kids, one Great Dane, one French Bulldog and a cat who was somewhat of an impulse purchase.

When I started writing this blog, I had one toddler and one baby. That toddler turns nine a week from Monday and while we’ve added two more kids and are therefore still somewhat in the toddler stage, I’m definitely entering a new stage of parenting.

It’s a stage where the state of my car, always somewhat embarrassing, has become an abomination, now that we all but live out of it on our way to and from activities.

I vacuumed this thing out on Sunday. It’s currently Thursday and it already looks like this. Somehow I vacuumed around those goggles and that sandal that have been in here since pool season, but my hands are either always too full to bring them in, or I just don’t care to. Hint: it’s the latter. The toddler loafer is stuck to the carpet by a lollipop.

My husband and I are in fact taking our first vacation without the kids next week, but that’s not what the champagne’s for. That’s for a cake I’m making tonight (oh I’m also a baker, but more on that in a later post where I lament about the 30 pounds I have to lose.)

The champagne and the beer are in the toddler’s car seat because the nectar of the gods needs to travel safely, and the floor is littered with partial pretzel nuggets because my children are absolute animals who cannot eat anything without 90% of it ending up on the floor, chair, their clothes, their hair, their face, my clothes, my hair, or my face. I’m not sure what I expected, but still having to wipe faces and hands at 7 and 8 was not it.

Somewhere under those seats are library books that will stay there until January when I will sell a kidney to pay the fines. Next to the library books it’s very likely there’s a sippy cup of milk I won’t find until June when it starts to get hot in here again and I can follow the inevitable smell to its source.

The kids have made a rope swing out of one of the seatbelts, and there’s an unidentified substance staining the ceiling.

In case it’s not obvious, we have decided to keep this car until the wheels fall off because I’m not letting these kids loose in a decent vehicle.

Another new thing about this phase of parenting was just discovered this morning as I prepped my kids for school picture day. Apparently we are beyond the age where honking my nose or making fart sounds can crack a natural smile, but not yet to the age where they can naturally smile on their own. Therefore, we are squarely here:

And here:

Other things to know about me is that four kids in, I still take nutrition very seriously.

I do offer him nutritious food, but he looks at it like this:

…. So pretty much the way you guys probably just looked at that picture of my car.

So. This is where I am, and I am back. I can’t wait to start writing here again more regularly — and I hope by sharing my parenting journey I can inspire you to feel much, much better about yours.