My two middle littles are often up to no good. At 5 and 6 and a half, they are always scheming and dreaming, and don’t always think about the consequences. Consequences of things like, pouring water in a trash can with apple cores and diapers in it and letting it sit for a week (talk about a home brew), or drawing tiny people with speech bubbles above their heads that say “Mom” on the trim work all over the house, or bringing a little container full of bugs into the house and losing track of it.
Then, sometimes they come up with fantastic ideas. Like the quiet time last week when they completely detailed their room, including dumping out drawers, refolding everything, and putting it away in neat little stacks. I was so impressed, I told their dad. He then congratulated them and offered to have them organize his drawers for a little cash.
Pictured above at ten months, on our first trip to Tobago.
She was my first daughter.
And she’s always kept us on our toes. As a baby, she refused to nap for fear she might miss something. She was walking at eight months old, an impossibly tiny creature on two legs.
By a year, she was a confident runner. And she still takes that same courageous, energetic spirit into whatever she’s tackling next. Unless she doesn’t want to.
She simultaneously fascinates us and infuriates us.
When we went out when she was a toddler, I was sure she would find another family she liked better than us and leave with them. Starting as a small person, she could always find someone she knows in a crowd.
Once, when we were at Jones Beach, she disappeared. I was terrified until I found her a little ways down the beach playing with a family she knew from her grandparent’s church. On a huge beach, in the summer, she found familiar faces.
Now, my fears are more along the lines of how we’ll survive her teen years. 
She is in turns amazingly helpful and completely maddening. We often marvel how such a dramatic, fantastic, social person came from two introverted homebodies. I’m sure she will continue to amaze us.
And drive us nuts.
We love this kid.
When it comes to food, I’ve had to experiment with what things are worth paying more for, and what things are just as good in store brand form.
As it turns out, our family prefers Walmart brand to Oreos.
When it comes to baked beans, 6 out of the 8 people who eat solids in our house prefer name brand baked beans. That didn’t stop me in the past from trying to save a little dough and buy the off brand.
I am a bit of a pantry hoarder (the zombie apocalypse could come at any time). I bought several cans of the off brand at once, and they were really, really terrible. No one wanted to eat it alongside our time tested, made-from-scratch, mac and cheese.
I started googling ways to make canned baked beans taste better.
There are actually a lot of ideas out there. But the truth is, once the beans are made and they are already bad, adding new flavors tends to muddy the waters. So I tried making my own.
This girl has been bringing us joy from the very beginning. 
The day she was born, I was struggling to surrender to the process of birth. Her older brother, born just 18 months earlier, had subjected me to the hardest labor I’d ever experienced, and I was terrified about having to do that again.
We knew the baby was coming; my parents had already traveled in and were caring for our other kids. The pressure was on. At 11 a.m., in frustration and desperation after hours of an early labor phase that wasn’t progressing, I messaged my husband’s family and asked them to pray. After that, I was finally able to let go. Real labor started almost immediately.
This child’s entrance into the world was the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to a painless birth. She was smiling from the very beginning. 
These days, she has grown into a fierce fighter and a nurturing helper in equal measure.
If there is a disagreement or a brawl at our house, chances are, she’s involved. 
I love her independent spirit and her ability to advocate for herself. Those traits will serve her well in life. 
Another important quality of a fifth-born child is the ability to shine brightly in chaos.
We are so glad to have this little spitfire in our family.
A while back, I came across these artistic representations of mental illness as little monsters. I can’t remember who first sent me their way, but I really resonated with the idea. Especially that anxiety is a little, hairy living being. In my mind, it latches onto the back of one shoulder and hangs on to different things in my life, whatever is providing the most interest and fuel. Recently, its entire existence was being fed with our marriage problems. We are still cautious, but the crisis seems to have passed. Anxiety got hungry and after just over a week of calm, it latched onto my self worth.
The last four days have been tough.
