johnny and ginger.

i asked hudson to get out of the pool. after a couple of minutes he hadn't made much progress so i asked him again. "hudson. please get out of the pool right now!" he didn't seem to listen so i pulled out all the mom threats. promises of no swimming tomorrow if he didn't listen. and on and on. finally he yelled back to me, in slow motion, "but mooooom!!! i can't hurry!!!! i'm a slooooooth!!!!" he's a piece of work. but he gets all the points for creativity. #cannonballsfordays

because we absolutely cannot go on family vacation without at least one late night visit to urgent care. #doubleearinfection

vacation is different when you have kids. #8pm

motherhood exhausts. overwhelms. depletes. motherhood demands. and often forgets to say please. the work is mundane. the days often monotonous. but let's never forget. this holy ground? this journey of raising babies and finding ourselves? it is an extravagant love story. our story. too often i forget. the busy takes over. the grace runs out. and that is when they crawl up, cuddle close. show me the grace i can't find for myself. remind me why i would do this all over again. no questions asked. a hundred times over. and when i'm really lucky, this boy sings me an original song about his cute mama who he loves so much. then he gives me the sloppiest kiss. and my heart bursts.

it's not every day your baby brother walks your mama down the aisle, and your family doubles in size. it's been one of those once in a lifetime, best day ever, sort of days.

they fight. they make up. they fight. they make up. all day. every day. on repeat. #spudandwillie

he woke up like his.

when your husband has been sick for days. and you've been on the couch nursing your eighty year old hip issues. the house is a wreck. and your kids ate an entire family size bag of potato chips last night and called it dinner. when you haven't left the house since last week and your kids flooded the basement from the bathtub. when life just seems to be throwing one giant tantrum. your kids will definitely get bored. their silence will absolutely indicate trouble. and you probably won't check on them because walking twelve feet is like an olympic sport and quite frankly you don't care what they're doing because the peace is too good for you to even try to care. and besides, it's been too long since you laughed so hard you peed a little. #sharpie

last week my mother in law found him in the bathroom. peeing into the garbage can. the one exactly two inches away from the toilet. a few days later i heard him yelling from my room, "mom! i'm peeing on the dogs pad!!!" meaning the puppy training pads we use for our elderly yorkie. i asked him why in the world? he said he had to go so bad he couldn't walk (the approximate twelve feet) to the bathroom. the only question left is, where will hudson pee next? #boysaregross

because you never know what the weekend might hold. and you need to be ready for literally anything. #hudsondresseshimself

i posted this gorgeous photo of my son last night. i woke up to see that @instagram had removed it for violating their community guidelines. i suppose someone out there thought it was a photo of a little girl not wearing a proper swim suit at the beach and they decided to take matters into their own hands. so this is a public service announcement. summer is coming. we live across the street from this beach. there will be many many photos of my kids swimming and playing and doing all the things little boys do in the summer. please spend your time finding something worthwhile to report on instagram. there are so many options far better than my posts. as hudson reminds people daily, "boys can have long hair too!" #longhairdontcare

some days are a marathon. and bedtime is the finish line. but remembering our best moments of each day always reminds me why i would do every second of this motherhood thing all over again. #raisingwildfire

today we visited weeki wachee springs state park. we saw the live mermaid show. ezra took it upon himself to inform the enamored kids next to him that the mermaids are not, in fact, real. as her kids shrieked in horror, i avoided eye contact with their mom and hightailed it out of there. then on this pontoon boat ride down the crystal clear river, hudson declared, more loudly than necessary, "this boat ride is wasting my time!!" i couldn't escape that one so i just pretended i didn't know who's kid he was. oh and finally ezra exclaimed how gross it was that the lady a few feet away from him was smoking. she left quickly so we didn't have to. the moral of the story is that no matter how hard you try, no matter how diligent the parenting, no matter how many reminders of manners, no. matter. what. some days your kids will be those kids. you will be that family. and the sooner you accept that, the better. #wearethatfamily

four years old and as fearless as they come. #raisingwildfire

when their play looks like this. with a soundtrack of laughter. dinner can wait.

reminding myself tonight that the most spirited babies, the wildest ones, the ones you just don't think you can tame, the ones who hear everything even when they pretend they don't know how to listen, the ones who feel all of the good and all of the bad and all of the things, the ones who exhaust us while at the same time they fill us up, the ones who are filled with fire and depths we would be lucky to know. those ones. these ones. are the souls who will say yes to the impossible. absolutely to the world changing. and pick me for things that no one else would dream of volunteering for. i see his face and i feel his fire and i make a promise. forever and always his wild will be the mark of a life called to great things. never something to fix. or solve. always a journey to disciple and teach and nurture. because one day i'll get to watch him take on the world and i want him to always know that i believed he could before anyone else knew he would. #raisingfire

when he's feeling a little scared at bedtime he likes to lay on top of me. like a newborn falling asleep on your chest. a newborn who weighs fifty pounds. but i always say yes because he's my baby. and it only hurts a little bit. last night he asked to lay on me. as he climbed up he said, "i like to lay like this because this is the best way to fall asleep." there was a short pause in which i savored his sweet words. then this. "but mama? um. your breath is so hot and stinky." oh. my bad. let me hold my breath while you take thirty minutes to fall asleep. i don't even like oxygen that much anyway. also i don't feel self conscious at all right now. #howtoraiseagentleman