We Were There {November} | Blog Circle 2014

It’s been a crazy month. SO CRAZY. It’s technically December as I am writing this (hello 12:04 am!) and I only just took a photo of us today. And I shouldn’t even post it. But I was there! All month I was there, and all month I was there doing it solo while Sean has been working like an animal out of town. So, that deserves a photo, right? Because I was there.

Sean has been working in Oshawa, which is just far enough away to effectively be across the globe. It’s too far to travel home after his shifts, and so we’ve been having a long-distance marriage for the past few weeks. And you know what? Solo parenting sucks.

The kids got their progress reports and I met with their teachers, and (as usual) they are all awesome. Nathan had to get his 4-6 year immunizations, which he was not happy about. He also lost his first tooth this month! Sean’s two sisters came to visit for a week with their two daughters, and it was really nice to have some adult company around for a while. My nieces are both getting so big! It’s hard to believe. Miranda, Annie and I had a lot of plans to get out and mess around with our cameras, but it proved to be impossible with six kids to watch. I did get a couple of cute ones anyway, though.

Obviously, my adult supervision is not adequate. Nathan and Alex redecorated the house this month with Crayola Marker (not the washable kind), pen, and permanent marker (why do we even still have these in the house? You’d think that I would learn). They were so pleased with themselves! I guess that the bright side is that, since we live in a perpetual state of renovation, it really didn’t make the house look any trashier than it already looked.

(Gosh, we really need to spring for those baseboards!) And you know what; these photos just sum up the sort of month that it has been. Our upstairs toilet was clogged for days – I don’t know what was in there, but it took 4 days of plunging and snaking to send it off to sewer-land. I exploded blue toilet bowl cleaner all over myself. Our van needs yet another repair.

I thought that I needed a little pick me up this month, so I went for a hair cut. And I asked for bangs. And now I look like a pumpkin pie haircutted freak. They are so short and goofy looking. At least my hair grows fast, I guess!

And finally, we come to our family photo. A more logical person would have gotten prepared for this. It’s not like I didn’t know about it; I mean, we’ve been doing this for months. But I haven’t been super logical this month. I’m pooped, frankly. We had fake moustaches in the house, and I wanted to get a photo of us wearing them for Movember. Sean (hallelujah!) was granted one day off this month, and he drove home to spend the day with us. He had just woken up because he’s on a night shift schedule, and he was going to have to leave again shortly to get back to work on time, so we grabbed all of the kids (some in pajama pants, and some in no pants), the moustaches, and a tablet. Turns out that it’s super hard to get a selfie with 6 people in it. So I rushed for my big-girl camera and I didn’t even check the settings. (I’m tired, okay?) I knew that we had about .75 seconds before the moustaches started coming off, so I just turned the camera on and let it go. For some reason, the shutter speed was at something like 1/30 (I never leave it under 1/200!) and of course I hadn’t focused the camera. Like, I said, I’m tired.

So it’s a hot mess. But that’s what this month has been like. That’s what the house is like. It is what it is. Happy Movember!