It's 8pm on Thursday night.  I just put all the kids to bed.  Doug is not at home - he spent the day chaperoning 120+ students on a river rafting trip, and is not expected back for at least another hour.  Even Ben is quiet for a change.  He didn't nap today (as is becoming a rather distressing trend), so I'm guessing he's passed out from sheer exhaustion.  So I am reveling in the unusual level of silence here.  Someday, when the chicks have flown the nest, I'm guessing I'll miss the commotion (at least sometimes!), but for now a little peace and quiet is a delicacy to be savored.

Speaking of noise, Ben is taking it to a whole new level.  (Who was it that defined a boy as "a noise, with dirt on it?")  This morning when I went into his room to get him up the first thing out of his mouth (and he was still half-asleep at the time, mind you), was a very loud, very wet raspberry.  This was quickly followed by several more raspberries interspersed with brief periods of laughter.  Later, when he overheard me recounting to Megan what had happened, he repeated the performance.  He spent most of the rest of the morning making a variety of truck noises as he played with his collection of rescue vehicles.  In just a couple more days he will officially be 2.  Tomorrow I'm going to bake him a "dump truck" cake (I'll have to post a photo later on...)  It'll be fun to do something boy-ish for a change...

We've got some busy birthday celebrating ahead.  Doug, Ben, and I all have birthdays in the coming days, plus Mother's Day gets thrown in the middle there.  It'll be the big "35" for me.  Ever since Ben was born I've been a year behind.  That birthday of mine that supposedly occurred 3 days after I gave birth never really registered in my mind (for some strange reason!), and I've been a year behind ever since.  So far the 30s have been a blast, better than the 20s in some ways.  Something about turning 30 (way back in 2003!) made me much more comfortable in my own skin, and much less concerned about anybody else's opinion of me.

I remember when I was getting ready to graduate from high school... being told nostalgically, "Oh, someday you'll look back on these as the best years of your life?"  My response (in my mind, not out loud!):  I sure as h*** hope not!!!  (I had some awesome friends in high school, and a couple of good teachers.  But the "best years of my life"?  Hardly!)  At the time I had high hopes that my college years would be MUCH better, and thankfully that turned out to be the case.  But honestly, the life I'm living now is MUCH better even than the college days.  Sure, I'm busy.  (Whenever I'm out with the kids, someone invariably comments, "You have your hands full".  I've always wanted to come back with "Better full than empty!", but I've yet to work up the nerve.   But hey, I'm going to be 35, right?  Maybe next time I will...)  And I'm often tired.  Occasionally discouraged.  But laboring in the trenches of marriage,  motherhood, and homeschooling is the life I'm loving, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.