Hmmm… I was just sifting through partially completed drafts and realized that I never published this back when I wrote it last November. Oh well, better late than never. Here goes…

Our youngest turned three earlier this week and, despite all of the germs flying around our house, we managed to squeeze in a happy little birthday party. We had originally planned on celebrating with family in the midst of our Thanksgiving travels, but we had to scrap those plans due to illness. Fortunately, we already had the necessary party supplies on hand, so we just changed venues.

As it turns out, this party was quite a milestone for our family. First of all, it marks the official end of the “terrible twos” in our household (though two has never been a particularly difficult age for us). Second, this was the first time that we actually dined in our new dinette.

As far as the “party” itself goes, it was a very simple affair. Since we hadn’t planned on being in town, there weren’t any outside guests. Rather, we just decorated the dinette with Diego (of Dora the Explorer fame) party favors, ate cake and ice cream, and lavished our newly-minted three year old with gifts. As disappointing as it was to have to stay in town for Thanksgiving, a quiet week to ourselves was just what we needed.

One of the first signs of spring has visited our house… Three out of four of our boys are once again sporting buzz cuts. It’s not secret that I cut my own hair, and in the summers we buzz the boys as well.

The lone holdout right now is our six year old, whose hair has recently garnered compliments ranging from people telling him that his hair “looks like gold” to someone saying that it’s “delicious.” As long as that keeps up, I suspect he’ll want to keep his hair. The good news is that his hair grows the slowest of the four, so it still hasn’t gotten shaggy.

What this means in practical terms is that we now only have to worry about one case of raging bedhead before getting the boys out the door to school. And guess what? The boys love this as much as we do. No more combs running through scraggly hair, much less of a rush in the wee hours of the morning, etc.

It seems like just yesterday that we were in the early stages of planning a Disney cruise, and yet… Here we are in March, having returned from the Western Caribbean over a week ago. Given that it’s still relatively fresh in my mind, I thought I’d put pen to paper (so to speak) and hammer out a review of our trip. With all that transpired, I hope I don’t leave out anything major… [more]

As you know, we have four little boys running around the house — though I’m somewhat hesitant to use the term “little” since they’re growing so fast. Anyway, with that as a backdrop, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the transitions from zero to one child, one to two children, etc.

Zero to one: Monumental. Having your first child results in an infinite increase in the number of kids in your house. Life will never be the same again. But that’s a good thing.

One to two: Doubling the number of kids in your house. A major change, but not as big as the first one. And you’re still not outnumbered.

Two to three: Thus is a smaller proportional increase, but now you’re outnumbered. In basketball terms, you now have to switch from a man-to-man defense to a zone defense.

Three to four: Life is so out of control at this point that you’ll hardly notice the change. Not really, but kinda. Having a new baby with three other kids running around is a challenge, but by this point you’re sorta used to the chaos.

Four to five: We’ll never know…