Playful Rooted

How’s that for a title?

I have no real plan for this post, just a bunch of photos sitting on my phone that got together and told me they were ready to see the light of day. Here’s a little glimpse into our life lately; some good, some scary, some annoying, some super cute. Enjoy! 🙂

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Our Pria, as many of you know, seems to thoroughly enjoy making life exceedingly difficult for her poor mother. Whereas both her brothers took to eating solid foods with vigor, Pria is v e e e r y slow to accept any new foods, or really any solid foods at all.

Except trash. She loves trash.

Drop a tiny piece of paper on the floor, and she’ll hurriedly find it, shove it in her mouth, chew, and swallow.

We often joke that her favorite food is “floor trash,” so while trying to feed her a banana the other day, I found it very fitting that she refused to eat the actual banana, but really enjoyed chewing on the peel. In other words, the banana trash.

At least it was organic.

Pria is, however, an expert at using a straw already, so when we went out for smoothies on my birthday, she immediately took ownership of mine and suckled down A LOT of it. Better than trash, but it was MY birthday smoothie that she so unabashedly claimed as her own. Just more proof that this is her world, and we’re all just living in it.

I took all three kids on an unplanned adventure day to Deanna Rose last week, and we had a great time checking out all the adorable baby animals! Spring, it turns out, is a really good time to visit a farmstead! Sawyer, as usual, was especially CUTE meeting all the animals; he was most enamored with the baby goats.

There is nothing I love more than getting to know my children as they grow up. I love watching them develop personalities, interests, and likes/dislikes. They’re each so different, and that’s my very favorite thing about being a mom of multiple kids!

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While we were at Deanna Rose, Ben was busy ripping up the horrible carpet in our basement/play room area. It has needed to be replaced for years, but life kept throwing other expenses at us, so we kept putting it off. Finally, after Shiloh threw up all over it for months before he died, and then Mocha peed on it dozens of times before she was fully potty trained, we decided we had had enough of shampooing that disgusting carpet and it was TIME for hardwoods!

True to form, I didn’t take very good “before” pictures, but you can sort of see above how there were random patches of linoleum in front of the back door and the door to the garage; the powder room also had this linoleum. It was a very weird setup, and we hated how visually jarring it was to have the carpet broken up by these odd linoleum squares.

Finally having hardwoods* throughout makes the space SO much more cohesive and pleasant to look at!

And now that we have beautiful flooring down here, the rest of the house looks terrible in comparison. Ben and I both have the itch to make a million more upgrades now. Goodbye, money!**

*They’re actually not hardwoods at all, but vinyl plank, which looks and feels great!

**Hahaha, we have no money. We’ll be living with the rest of the terrible looking house for the foreseeable future. 😉

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I guess our biggest news lately is that two weeks ago, the boys and I were in a car accident. It was NOT my fault, as proven by our dash cam footage, but what’s most important is that everyone involved was okay. The kids and I all suffered some injuries and are still recovering, but I am so incredibly thankful that it wasn’t worse. (And I’ve never been happier to be a car seat safety nut; my kids are rear-facing and/or in five-point harness car seats until they absolutely MAX out the limits!)

We were driving down a two-lane frontage road when it happened. There was a person in the lane coming the opposite direction who decided to make a left turn RIGHT in front of me. Like he didn’t even see me coming! It was incredibly bizarre. I was going 35-40 mph and had absolutely no time to stop, so we crashed right into the other car. The airbag went off and hit me hard in the chest, and I remember genuinely not knowing whether I was alive or dead or okay or what and Luca’s terrified voice from the back seat saying, “Mama? Mama?” Once I determined that I was okay, Luca kept asking me if he was okay, and I had to keep reassuring him that he was. And poor Sawyer just cried and cried. Gosh it was awful.

It was so hard to answer the millions of questions the EMTs and police officers had once they arrived on the scene. I was in such a daze (two weeks later, it’s still surreal and traumatic) and it was so, so scary having this happen with two of my babies in the backseat. (Thank goodness Pria was at home with Ben.) Sawyer needed to be held during the entire aftermath and refused to leave my arms or go anywhere near the car. He’s still having a really hard time with it, which sucks. He’s okay physically but emotionally very scarred.

Luca’s doing okay, but he’s my guy who stews on things in his mind and I have to coax him into talking things through, so I’m not entirely sure how he feels. Anyway, it was all very scary and horrible. I hate that it happened, but I am grateful beyond words that the only casualty was the coffee in my cupholder.

One of Ben’s coworkers has a family full of lawyers, and he told Ben probably a year ago that everyone should have a dash cam. It’s a small investment that can make things way easier down the line. Ben took his advice, and I’m so glad! This is the one we have (look at that, it’s on sale), and it indisputably proved that the other person was liable. However, our lawyer told us that sometimes dash cam footage can cause a settlement to go on for months as the opposing party tries to use the footage to dispute claims. Regardless, I think a dash cam is a good thing to have just in case you’re ever in an accident. Just know that you should sit on the footage (meaning, don’t release it to either insurance company) until speaking with a lawyer.

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We have had to heavily pivot on so many plans recently, and our garden is the latest endeavor to turn out very differently than we thought. For several bummer reasons, we chose not to plant in our raised beds this year, so we’re just growing a few things in pots on the deck instead.

It’s still gardening, I tell myself. It’s still good. We still get to watch things grow and nurture our plants, and we will still have plenty of great things to harvest and savor.

And look – our first cucumber of the season!

In truly happy, not just “tell-myself-I’m-happy” news, I had an amazing idea for a kids’ book the other day. I can’t tell you about it or you’ll steal my idea, so you’ll have to wait until it’s published! But I have one excellent little co-author who basically wrote the book in the first hour after I told him about it.

I’m not kidding when I say that, at five years old, Luca is a better storyteller than I am. We may need to find an illustrator to collaborate with, though. 😉

Then again, maybe not.

Gang, I hope you’re all doing so, so well. Thanks for reading my silly little blog! I appreciate you, and if you’re still here, I’m sending you so much love and many warm wishes. Have a wonderful weekend!

xo!