It's time for the new...

I know I haven't been a very good blogger lately. Between work, three kids, and morning sickness, it's impossible to find the time to use the bathroom in peace, let alone sit down to write.

And I was bored with "Momma Musings..." It wasn't as challenging as it used to be; there was no joy. Added to that, once you are your third child and cooking the fourth, I think you are "musing" less and "b&#$%ing" more.

So I decided to give myself a little break. But it was always on the back of my mind... I should write. I miss writing. I want to write. But I never forced myself to find the time.

Then my husband made dinner last Friday night.

He made his specialty -- spaghetti and meat sauce. The kids helped (or hindered) as they love to do. And we encourage that, since that means they eat dinner -- one less battle to fight.

We sit down to our "noodles and sauce." We say Grace (my husband and I are actually praying for the strength to get through the meal). I feed the baby her truly disgusting, mashed up chicken. My husband pours juice. And then we hear:

"Look at me, Mommy!"

I glance in my daughter's direction. She has pulled A noodle from her mound of spaghetti and is spinning in her fingers, watching is fly in a circle in front of her face. Spaghetti sauce is flying -- my yellow walls, the pantry, the white kitchen cabinets.

And then her brother gives a crack of laughter and shouts "I do it too!" Only he is less coordinated than she is. One noodle is three. And now there is spaghetti sauce on my ceiling fan. And on his naked chest. Because he doesn't wear clothes in the house. Ever. "Knock that off right now!" my husband orders, but doesn't make a move to take their spaghetti away. I turn back to the baby, wondering if I can pretend that only she and I are in the kitchen.

The older two are in fits of giggles, twirling, spraying, and - yes, eating - while my husband tells them to stop repeatedly. Finally I turn around "STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!" I order.


Girlie and Boyo momentarily pause. Is Mommy serious? They seem to be thinking. Are we about to get in trouble?

"We DO NOT play with our food! I am not raising savages!" I continue in my stern, it-is-6pm-and-I-have-been-doing-this-all-day-do-not-test-me-voice.

"Yes, you are," my husband interjects.

I stare at him in disbelief while the children watch us, waiting to see how much trouble they are going to get in. And I can't help it. I start to laugh.

"I thought I was raising children, not savages," I told my husband.

"That should be your new blog title," he told me, finishing his salad.

And thus, while my daughter begins to slurp up her pasta like in Lady in the Tramp and my son uses noodles to give himself hair (and a mustache and beard), a new blog idea was born.