Tuesday, April 26, 2011

When you are an inept blogger...

...I find that it is desperately hard to start again.

We have had so much happen in the last 5 months and hardly any of it has been documented...where do you start? Do you go back to 5 months ago and hope to rehash? or can you just move on and start fresh from where you are at the moment?

Knowing that I'll probably go all defunct again very soon, it'll probably be best to just start from here and see what happens.

Just know that in the major 5 month gap, we've lived...chaotically, unconventionally, and barely holding it together at times...but we've lived.

About 5 months ago we gathered our children up from Ethiopia and came back to the States to meet and greet and celebrate Christmas. 3 months after we touched down, we found ourselves unable to return to Italy...and then my camera battery died (the charger being in Italy with my other lenses, video camera, extra memory cards, camera cord for the computer, and card reader--all left behind in the frenzy to pack up the 5, pack for the 2, close up the apartment, and skidaddle to Addis with 3 days notice)

But now, thanks to my mom who knows how terrible this loss of camera use really can be for my general well-being, I have a battery charger once again and after borrowing my mom-in-law's camera cord, I can share pictures with you fine people once more. Much better than just words... much better than a post relying on my ability to piece thoughts together coherently for those of you NOT privy to the inner workings of my indecipherable thought process...which lends itself much more toward james joyce-ness all the time.

So enough of this...the children are outside playing, screaming, riding their trikes like crazy--they spend the majority of their time in this way these days. Hope the neighbors don't mind. I don't normally regulate their noise level when they are outside I had to do that in Italy, I don't want to do that here if I don't have to ...it's when they get quiet that I have to worry. In the meantime, I have the extremely noisy dishwasher running, a load of laundry in the washer and a mountain waiting to be gathered up by their owners and put in the appropriate closets and suitcases (because, alas, we are still living somewhat from suitcases having no furniture in the boys and our room yet)... all that this all means is that there is time, however brief, to share a few pictures.

I'm sure someone will be running in to tattle on their sibling in about 2 minutes. But I'm trying the new tactic of 'work it out yourself'...shocks them every time still. I think they think I'm truly lazy, when in reality I'm learning that it gives them a chance to see that the offense really wasn't as bad as they first thought--they are going to live, they have words they can use directed toward the other person, and if you give a problem 2 minutes to rest, you most likely will end up thinking about something else.
Not to mention that if momma has to get involved that fought over toy will go into an indefinite time out and one of the offenders (if not both) will end up enduring a rather lengthy sit in a boring corner of the house. I'm pretty consistent with the consequences and so far, tattling is less frequent.

So, none of this is illustratable yet--so I'll just stop and start posting the pics...a plethora from the last couple of weeks. Elijah's class at school reenacting the Land Run, Judah and Iliana at church on Easter Sunday helping their teacher tell the story of Holy Week through Resurrection Eggs, my attempt to get Easter pictures of the family...good stuff. And if you follow me on facebook this is a colossal waste of your time...sorry.