I don’t know if this is REALLY horrible, or just a little bit horrible, but I have a confession:

My six and a half year old does not know how to tie… as in her shoes.

Am I the WORST mother ever?!?

What good is all that stellar home education if she can’t even tie her shoes!

I’ve been feeling guilty about this for a long time, but I do have kind of good reasons for my neglect.

Here’s the story: when Miss A was four and a half, she started learning to tie her shoes.  She really liked it, but it was extremely challenging for her and required A LOT of assistance.

About two or three weeks into that project guess who got pregnant? (NOT MISS A!) It was me.  And guess who spent months crawling from the couch to the bathroom to stick her head in the toilet?  I’m sure you know the answer.

As you can imagine, the shoe tying was forgoten.

By the time I wasn’t sick, I was HUGE, and the thought of getting on the floor and helping her tie was just completely inconcievable.

Then Miss I was born and the thought of listening to blood chilling newborn screams while trying to kindly instruct Miss A was ridiculous.

And on and on.  You get it.  Now Miss I is one and a half, and finally it seems that maybe I could manage the shoe tying again.  (You didn’t know that learning to tie shoes was a bigger comittment than potty-training did you?)

So, Miss A and I set out shopping, searched high and low, and FINALLY found a fabulous pair of shoes that tie (have you noticed how they’ve kind of disappeared? maybe I’m overestimating the importance of this skill).

Now she looks totally cool at all times, and she is HOPEFULLY, for real, learning to tie her shoes.

Please don’t think I’m a bad mom!

Picture me with shoulders slumped, head down, speaking softly….

We didn’t do our Unplugged Project this week. ((EEEEEKKK!!!!)

I know. I’m a failure.  It’s just that I’m not used to going on vacations. Or more specifically, coming home from vacations, and all of the insane chaos it seems to create, at least in my life.

So I spent the ENTIRE week trying to put my life together, and I think it’s finally done.

But the Unplugged Project was sadly (sniff) neglected.

In the meantime, I don’t think I’ve shared any links for awhile, so here’s all the things I think you should look at, but I know you’re not going to.

If by some miracle you DO look, be sure to leave me a comment.

Here are a couple of little cheats to make it feel like you have a clean house.

I figured we could all use this right now: The Southern Girl’s Guide to Proper Political Discourse

I LOVED this post about making good choices for your family. Very timely for me…if you’re only gonna read one link, I pick this one.

Here is one of those ridiculous yet important conversations that happens with young children.  (LOVE the tagline beneath her title, btw)

For the wives, here is a great, spiritually insightful post about ….something that I don’t talk about.

Finally, here’s a fright laugh for you.

Have a happy Monday!

Okay, I promised myself NO MORE than a week’s worth of posts about the vacation.  I don’t want to bore you all to death.

So here’s your final glimpse into our glamourous holiday…

I thought I would wrap up with a few of our most monumental achievments on this trip.

This was the first time Hombre and I went on scary rides together.  I won’t say who was bravest….it doesn’t matter

This was Miss A’s first time getting to participate in a big show (while Miss E watched, wailing in sorrow because Lucy didn’t pick her).

These were Miss I’s first steps into an ocean.  She LOVED it.  Would have been gone in two seconds if I had turned my back.  No fear at all.  I think we’ll save the big beach vacation for a couple of years at least!

And finally, Miss E’s first time down the waterfall.

I PROMISE, she loved it as soon as we hit the bottom.  She wanted to ride again and again. (thankfully there was NO line)

So there you have it.  Our grand adventure.  Hopefully we’ll get to have another one someday, maybe sooner than six years from now if we’re lucky.  Although I don’t know.  At the rate it’s taking me to put our lives at home back together I may need at least six years in between each trip.

What do you get when you drag three small children around an over-stimulating theme park for two 10 hour days in a row?

If you’re lucky, a little of this…

Way more than anyone wants of this…

And hopefully, enough of this to keep you going.