Irish Daisy

Today, the fifth day of summer vacation, I’m making my girls clean their rooms. Three of them...together. Cleaning. There’s been yelling, slammed doors, shouting, thrown toys, hysterical weeping. It’s awesome. Yet, all I can sit here and think is how lucky I am. In my nice house in a nice, safe city, in a safe, prosperous county, in a state with the 5 th largest economy in the world, in the richest country in the world…I’m so lucky I have the opportunity to sit here and listen to my kids battle their way to a clean room. I’m not walking across a desert, or hiding from murderous gangs, or fleeing a home buried in violence or mud. I am not begging my rich neighbor to let me in so I can scrub their floors, tend their nice houses and lawns, pick their crops, make their food, or wash their dishes, so I can feed my children and keep them safe. I’m not sitting in a chain-link cage wondering where my babies are – the babies I suffered and struggled to get to saf...

7,000 pairs of shoes.

This is Circle. Isn’t it cute? It’s not just another cute, little gadget though – it’s my little helper, my partner in crime, the engine of my evil plot. Seriously though, this thing is awesome, and I really recommend all parents get one. Unless you live in the wilds of Sweden with no computers, internet or WiFi – in that case feel free to skip it. If you don’t live in the wilds of Sweden, and you have kids in your house, sit down for a minute and let me tell you all about my little buddy. But First A couple of things: I've been researching kids and internet safety since my oldest was born (so, 13 years now), I've found lots of resources and followed too many terrifying rabbit holes (never do a Google image search for "Fluffy Unicorn" without parental controls...just sayin') I was horrified to discover Chromebooks, which the kids' school uses for classwork and recommends for homework, do not support any kind of parental controls or internet ...

It all started with a rejected dinner, and it was a darn good dinner too – one of the kid’s favorites which is why the rejection of said dinner was so strange. Half-way through, Quokka dropped half her sandwich and said, “it’s good mom, I just can’t tonight.” Tomato-basil soup and a tuna melt, mmmm Coming from Quokka, this is a major thing. The girl has never met a dinner she didn’t eat – even when it was my disastrous attempt to make brussels sprouts – she will do her womanly best to choke it down. She took her uneasy stomach to bed and was an immobile lump in the blankets within minutes. Then, Badger, who is still small enough to make middle of the night visits horror-movie-levels of creepy, woke me up at 2:00 am to tell me she didn’t feel well. After I peeled myself off the ceiling, I told her to try a sip of water and see if that would settle her tummy. Water running  Slurping noises Pad, pad, padding little feet across the hall and the creak of her bed frame A few...