As you may have noticed, I’ve been away from the blog all week. We’ve been busy with summer fun: swimming lessons, silliness, shopping, silliness, taking walks, silliness, and playing outside.

Did I mention silliness?

I love how easily the kids make us laugh!

However, I seriously underestimated how much time it would take to keep a puppy from devouring everything located less than 36 inches from the floor.

I underestimated how exhausting it would be to make sure bedroom doors are always closed so the kids’ clothes and shoes and toys don’t get shredded.

I underestimated how much vigilance it would take to catch or prevent piddling and pooping in the living room.

And I underestimated how directly and actively I’d need to supervise all child-dog interactions to keep things from getting out of hand.

My new hobby is finding non-destructive yet time-consuming hobbies for Xena. And picking everything off the floor fifteen times a day.

It just doesn’t leave much time for writing. As I get a spare second here and there, I’ll try to share some here. Hopefully we’ll be back to regular blog programming when school resumes.