My usual excuses are worthless here

Having five kids is a good excuse for almost everything.

House messy? Well, of course it is, I have five kids.

Not super involved in the community? Well, I do have five kids to take care of.

Finished my Bachelor's at age 34? Well, OK, but I have five kids. Really, it's impressive that I finished at all ("but Ali, didn't you start, like, 7 years before your first child was b- " "Five. Kids.")

But having five kids is not a good excuse as to why I completely stopped updating my blog that was/is all about my kids. As a friend recently reminded me, "Just record whatever they say."

(It's also not a great excuse for slacking at work, because there's a woman in my department who has a PhD and whose job is way more impressive than my job and who is pregnant with her sixth. Not that I'm jealous or anything; my readjusted Life Goal has been "make the top 50% look good by comparison" for quite some time now).

Anyway. The point is - there's no excuse for neglecting a blog for over two years. Or at least, none that I could make with a straight face. All the good excuses - say, "I got super busy with work and school" - would work a lot better coming from someone who hasn't been making as extensive use of her Netflix subscription as I have.

So how are the kids?

Adi is 11. She wants a cat very, very badly. There are probably other things happening in her life, too, but the cat thing is the only thing she's in the mood to tell me about.

N just turned 10. (Adi was not pleased. "If I'm 11 and she's 10, that makes it sound like she's almost my age! I know, if someone asks me her age, I'll just say 'she's in fourth grade,' then it sounds like we're two years apart"). She likes singing, and is remarkably well behaved. Basically, she got her personality from the other side of the family.

D is 8. When I last posted, she was in first grade. So how has school been going, for a child with D's... let's say "spirited" personality?
Ahahahahaha. *sobs*
Seriously, though - she can read, she can do math, and she even knows all kinds of stuff about the Bible that I never learned. So she's doing fine in my book.

S is 6. She did eventually get speech therapy. It helped. She likes anything by Disney.

E is 4. He also got speech therapy. So we're 3 for 5 so far, and for three entirely different reasons. D had hearing trouble that led to trouble pronouncing certain letters; S had memory retrieval issues; and E has general communication issues. Or more - the world has trouble communicating with him. He, for his part, is perfectly happy sitting in the corner and playing with his dinosaurs.

And hey look! That last line reminded me of a child-related story, which I will share as my first step toward blogging again:

About a year ago, the kids and I were hanging out at a friend's house. E was playing with some of their toys - a stuffed puppy, and a toy baby carriage. He had the puppy in the carriage, and was rocking it gently and humming.

I practically melted. Awwww. Sure, he tends to fit all the boy stereotypes - all sticks are actually swords, trucks are the most amazing thing in creation, etc - but he has a sweet, nurturing side too.

And then he pulled out a dinosaur toy, which proceeded to eat the toy puppy with great gusto (I believe "AHM NAHM NAHM" were the exact sounds...)

So much for nurturing.