define the term "quick"

we finally got another offer on our house in asheville! after negotiating back and forth several times, we found an agreeable number. it wasn't quite what we were hoping for, but really, what is in this market? after the movers take three days to pack up and load the trucks, our closing is scheduled for july 25. this has been a very l-o-n-g process. i don't remember the exact date that we went on the market, but i do know that the for sale sign was up in our yard on halloween. (yep, halloween. as in, eight months ago.) i can't tell you how many times i'd get a call about a showing with less than an hour's notice, sending me into a frenzy of picking up toys, tossing some food into the kids' mouths for an early lunch, and dragging the pack & play into a helpful neighbor's guest bedroom for susanna to sleep. (agents seemed to have a knack for knowing my toddler's nap schedule, and loved to come right in the middle of it.) when we relocated to raleigh at christmas, we left all of our spring clothes in our closets, convinced that we'd surely have sold our house by the time warmer weather arrived. (poor kids are still walking around in wool sweaters. ) i met someone today who heard that we had just gone under contract and are closing in three weeks. her response? "wow! that's so quick!"

ratios

the ratio of 1 to 2 is not the same as 2 to 4. crazy statement, i know, coming from a former math teacher. any of my middle school students would assert that i must be off my rocker (or, at least, i hope they would, after completing my class.) but, in terms of adults to children on a beach, having 1 mom with 2 kids is quite different from 2 moms with 4 kids. liam isn't afraid of the ocean in any sense of the word. there is such a thing as a healthy fear of the water, and he doesn't have it. so there's just no good way to ensure that susanna is totally safe and, at the same time, keep liam from possibly being swept out to sea. therefore, having an additional adult with me (even with two of their own children) is really crucial. this past visit, i was fortunate to have lainey there to help entertain susanna while i took liam bodysurfing (only a slight exaggeration). of course, the ratio of 4 to 4 is best, which on our family trip was attained after chris and bill arrived. i'm just waiting for the day of the ratio of, say, 10 adults to my 2 children. that would allow 8 other people to unload the beach bags and spread out the towels and set up the umbrella and apply the sunscreen and get out the snacks and wipe off the sand (and all the other not-so-exciting necessities), while chris and i are able to focus solely on the fun stuff with the kids. i mean, who really wants to be dragging out chairs when you could be building sand castles, swimming, flying kites, chasing crabs, digging tunnels, and searching for those special seashells with holes just the right size to thread string through to make necklaces?

so THAT'S why minivans were invented

we're headed to the beach today for a 5-day weekend. my dearest friend lainey and i are making the trip with our four children, enough food to feed an army, and a couple of swimsuits. web, her oldest, is 5; liam is 3; susanna (her goddaughter) is 2; and marshall (my godson) is 1. we bought a dual transportable DVD player just for this event, but chris seems to think that we could air a political debate on AM radio and they all would be happy, just to be sitting so near such fun pals.

getting the four car seats installed was a monumental feat. lainey and i have decided to enter as a dual team in the Car Seat Installation event at the upcoming olympic games. i know they're important and safe and that whole illegal-if-you-don't-use-them mess, but wow does it complicate things. one of us has to shimmy in between the two smaller children's captain chairs to reach the bigger boys in the third row just to buckle them in. God forbid they need a drink or to go to the bathroom. we're grateful that my mom's pacifica even has the room for all of us, since our only alternative was to strap liam & web to the top of the roof and give them a few snacks to keep them occupied. (it was genius until we couldn't come up with a good plan B if it rained.) we refuse to pay a total of $160 in gas round-trip (yes, you read that right) to take another vehicle, so we're determined to make this work. whatever happened to the days of throwing all the luggage on the bench seat of the station wagon and letting four kids roll around in the way back playing twister? didn't our parents bring us home from the hospital in shoe boxes? those were the days ... but i digress.

so, wish us luck on our adventure! we're looking forward to five days of vacationing with such good friends -- although at this stage in our parenting lives, "vacationing" makes as much sense as "relaxing by the pool". in lieu of any such associated restful/peaceful/tropical drinks sort of terminology, my friend stacey coined the phrase "family trip" , and i'm hereby adopting it as my own. so, lainey and i will we be eagerly awaiting the arrival of our husbands late thursday night to join all the festivities of our vacation family trip.

what's in a name?

our dog is super.

that's not a biased statement -- our dog is named super. after our previous dog passed away totally unexpectedly from cancer, we found ourselves lonely without having a sweet boxer as part of our family. we contacted the blue ridge boxer rescue group, and, after a thorough application process, welcomed super into our lives on november 18, 2006. she came to us with the temporary name of "shiloh", but we weren't too interested in paying homage to brad & angelina's daughter every time we called her. so, she became super. our last dog was spider. we're slowly going through the superhero list, although chris seems to think "anita" or "ivana" would be a comical choice next time.

we don't know much about super's previous life, other than the fact that she was found emaciated on the side of a highway in south carolina. of course, we don't really want to know much. sadly, we've noticed that she cowers any time a man starts to take off his belt in her presence, and the sight of golf clubs or long sticks sends her fleeing to the opposite side of the room. how anyone could possibly abuse and neglect our precious super is beyond our comprehension.

as i type this, i know without even looking that she's curled up on the floor beneath me. (the kids are both asleep, or she'd be with them.) she is loyal, playful, affectionate, often (unfortunately) flatulent, and always, in every way, lovingly protective of our children. she's great at fetch, skilled at catching discarded food from susanna's plate, and, as evident in the above photo, quite patient while liam ponders his next move in a rousing game of candyland. we love her so.

our dog is super.

physics lesson

newton's third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. (aunt leslie the PhD would be so proud.)

it only takes ... two

as soon as chris had accepted his new job offer in raleigh, we contacted a realtor and put our asheville house on the market. we chose, as chris likes to remind me, the worst time since we've been alive to try to sell a house. it became a running joke between us of how often we were reassured by friends that, "it only takes one!" (for those of you who have not been blessed with our bad luck, this apparently common phrase means that it only takes one special buyer walking through your door to get it sold.) this turned into our mantra. we'd be wallowing in our misery of having yet another week without any showings, and turn to each other and say, "remember, honey, it only takes one!" this is the ironic thing. we finally got a great offer in april, accepted it, and went under contract. eleven days later, the buyers inexplicably pulled out, and two l-o-n-g months later, we finally were able to re-list. (i will spare you the pain of hearing our nightmare story of agents, attorneys, and old people who change their minds for no reason.) so now, chris and i look at each other and and say, "remember, honey, it only takes two."

for the love of nascar

poor chris. he is a sports fan in just about every sense of the word. he loves to watch sports, play sports, discuss sports, read about sports, participate in fantasy sports leagues, and complain about sports. (apparently his beloved dodgers are providing much fodder in that department this year.) although he has no idea when his parents' anniversary is, if you ask him who the leading receiver was of any random pro football team in, like, 1947, he'll tell you the answer without blinking an eye. liam is beginning to follow in his dad's footsteps. he's actually quite good at baseball (although his batting form needs a little work), dribbles the soccer ball up and down the field, catches a football with relative ease, and has set basketball plays that usually involve a slam dunk. i am thankful for chris's athletic DNA, because Lord knows our children aren't going to get much in that area from the atkins side of the family. (my wall was adorned with those orange "partipicant" ribbons from swim meets growing up -- i didn't realize that people were awarded actual medals and trophies for being good.) so -- why did i start out by saying "poor chris"? because the one sport he doesn't really follow, doesn't really care to follow, and doesn't understand, is car racing. and car racing happens to be the one sport that, at this point in our lives, fuels liam's very existence (pun intended). my husband has a son who is obsessed -- and i mean OBSESSED -- with the only sport that doesn't interest him in the least. every night as we say our family prayers, liam clasps his little hands together, closes his eyes in reverence, and starts us off with, "God bless nascar." minutes later when we tuck him into bed, he makes sure to line up his 42 car and 1 car right next to his pillow. just in case you're interested, the 42 car driver is juan pablo montoya and the 1 car is driven by martin truex jr. i also know that the 20 car is orange for its home depot sponsor, that the semi-good looking jeff gordon drives the 24, and that kyle busch is the most despised man in the game. i could die a happy woman if i never had to listen to liam read NASCAR: the need for speed to me one more time. (thankfully it's a library book that's going back this week.) so, during this phase (we're trying to convince ourselves that it is, indeed, a phase), chris and i are expanding our horizons. we're learning something new. i guess that's a big part of what parenting is about, anyway -- growing and changing and becoming more than what we used to be. we just never thought our personal development would involve darrell waltrip.

pool planning and poor planning only differ by 1 letter

there are people who can go to the pool carrying their few essentials in their hand -- a towel, some sunscreen, and maybe a magazine. i used to be one of those people. you know, back when "going to the pool" was actually a relaxing thing to do. i'd meet a friend there, sip a cold soft drink, and actually drift off to sleep if the lounge chair was comfortable enough. "going to the pool" these days takes more planning than a meeting of the U.N. i have a 2- and 3-year old who both are convinced they can swim far better than they can. so, unless i want to be performing CPR on both of them on opposite sides of the deep end at the same time, life jackets are necessary. toys also prove to be rather helpful (until some random kid swipes them, who then always acts totally offended when i ask them nicely if we can have our own toys back.) then there's the hand sanitizer. goggles. hats. sunglasses. snacks. ice pack. juice boxes. napkins. chapstick. cover-ups. you get the idea. after liam had to ride home from the pool last week totally naked ("buck nekkid", as we say here in the south) because i'd forgotten to pack some dry underwear, i decided i'd type up a list of all the things we needed, print it out, and put it in a plastic sleeve to keep next to the pool bag in the laundry room. if that weren't type-A enough, i figured i could use a dry-erase marker to check off each item as i placed it into the bag, and then wipe it off for the next use. there were 42 things on that dadgum list -- just for a couple of hours in a contained facility! no wonder i could never make it to the pool with everything we required and still have my sanity intact. now that i've mastered the art of remembering of all the stuff to bring, my next mission is to find a bag that will hold it all without causing my arm to fall off in the process. there's nothing quite like being weighed down with half of our house on one shoulder while i've got 33-pound susanna hoisted on my other hip, liam tugging at my hand, all the while battling the 250-degree heat radiating from the pavement in the parking lot. at least all the effort is worth it -- they love every minute they're there! i'll take their excitement over relaxation any day. (i've kind of forgotten what that feels like, anyway.)

wink, wink

one lazy saturday morning, susanna climbed into bed with us and i couldn't help but wink at her chubby, shirtless belly. she immediately tried her best to return the look. who knew the action was audible? ;)

what's the use?

hello, 21st century! i'm just eight years late ... i'm setting up this blog mainly to be able to post video clips. we've gotten some great (short) footage of the kids recently and then have no good way to share it with family and friends who aren't nearby, so hopefully this will help solve that problem. i will say that i've been fascinated with the idea of a blog ever since heard the term way back in, like, april. (i even pronounced it "bee-log", thinking the "b" stood for something. the person i was talking to gave me the funniest look and i had no idea why.) i can't imagine anyone being terribly interested in the mundane going-ons of our life, and i'm also notorious for getting excited about something new and then losing steam quickly ... so we'll see how often i wind up posting. but evidently these things are all the rage -- it took me about a half hour just to find a blogname appropriate for us that wasn't already in use. ("themanns"? gone. "mannfamily"? taken.) i elicited the help of my supposedly more creative sister leslie, until she suggested "deMANNding", and then i figured i was better off on my own. here's to my foray into bee-log world.