Thoughts on Blogging and Our Week in Review

This post was written on Saturday but in the midst of life, I didn't have a chance to hit the publish button until now :) 

I've been struggling a little with this blog lately. There are weeks that I want to recommit to writing more regularly and then there are times when I think about closing this chapter and shutting the blog down completely. The "keep writing" part of me is the part that loves to write and document pieces of our life in this way. But it used to be easier, both the finding the time to write and the what to write about parts.

The boys are getting older and there are no more times when everyone is napping and no more super early bedtimes. Those used to be the times when I'd get on my computer and blog away. The boys are up and active as ever, morning until night. They eat more. This means that I'm cooking more, which takes up a lot of time (at least for me, I'm not the fasted cook in the world). Most evenings, you can find me cooking in our kitchen, preparing for the next days inhale of food. I refuse to feed my family crap and in turn, meal planning and prep takes time. Time I used to spend blogging.

Also there seems to be SO MUCH going on day to day. There's so much good, so much busy, and yes, there is still so much that's challenging about parenting five young children. Teasing out what to put on paper (err, computer) seems overwhelming at times, especially when I'm not writing regularly.

And then there's this. Those times when I consider closing this chapter in our lives stems from the fact that our boys are getting older, and as they get older I become less comfortable putting their stories and pictures on the Internet. The boys might grow up and appreciate the fact that I've blogged parts of their lives and stories here. They may enjoy reading it. That's my hope. Or, and this is my fear, they might grow up and resent it. I'm trying to find a balance between not putting too much out there (in all forms of social media), yet wanting to document our days together. I'm trying to balance wanting to write honestly from my heart about my experience of motherhood (the good and the hard) but at the same time, not putting too much out there in this medium. I'll always write but which outlet is best at this point in my life, I'm not sure. I am not a mom who is great about creating baby books or even hanging pictures. Only my oldest has a semi thrown together baby book. So blogging works well for me as a way to capture our days. And when I look back over posts, I personally enjoy remembering days spent together, days that I'd almost forgotten. But it's not about only me and in turn, I'm thinking through where to go with this blog.

Bear with me as I sort through my thoughts about this.....

In the meantime, here is our week in review!

I mentioned in a previous post, that we do not have as much help with the boys anymore. In fact, I think that we have the least amount of help we've had since the triplets were very young. We still have our nanny and she's like family to us by now and phenomenal with the boys, so we're so thankful that we were able to work out a schedule that keeps her in our life and yet fits with the level of help we need right now.

Being able to parent my boys without help has given me renewed confidence and enjoyment in parenting. There was a period of time when the triplets were younger, I was pregnant with Owen and Colin was no more than 3 or 4, where felt impossible (and unsafe) to go anywhere with my children alone. That was hard and again, thank God we found wonderful help to get us through. But we're through that period now and on the other side! I can take all of the boys to drop Colin at school and then the triplets, Owen and I can go have adventures and then pick Colin up again at the end of the day, all together. The triplets can now follow directions, put on their own shoes, and almost buckle themselves into their car seats. When we're out, they stay by me. They can tell me with words how they're feeling and what they need. This all makes life a lot easier!

The boys started soccer this past week! Chris is the coach and on a six kid team, we take up four of the slots!

Colin in the red pants, Everett to the right, then Carter

Finn decided to watch, this time. Owen, reluctantly watched, but wanted to play in the worst way!

Finn, Carter and Everett attended Nature School on Thursday morning. It's a once a month program put on by our local nature center. I decided not to send the boys to preschool this year so it's nice to have these little school type experiences every now and again. They loved it!

 Art, art, art!

The triplets love doing artwork and so we do a lot of it these days. As soon as Owen goes down for nap, the art supplies come out and they create, create, create for hours. It's becoming one of my favorite times of the day.

And today, kind of on a whim, we headed up to Grand Rapids to check out the West Michigan RV outlet show. Basically, lots and lots of RVs, pop-ups and Motor Homes were lined up and ready to be viewed. The boys thought it was so fun to run from camper to camper checking them out. "Let's get this one!" they'd say, after every single one. We'd love to buy a camper so it's fun to see what's out there and dream about adventures we'll have together camping as a family. Hopefully someday!

Afterwards, we hit up Potbelly's. Yummmmm.