When Things are Sour

Last week I waxed poetic about our sweet summer. I painted a vision of frolicking in the spray of the sprinkler and splashing merrily in the pool. And we have had a lot of days like that. This has been a really great summer.

But some days are just not sweet. And yesterday was one of those days. The first part of the day was actually pretty good. Travis worked on a project in the garage and the kids were in and out, playing together at times and doing their own thing at times. We planned to go to afternoon Mass.

And that was our downfall.

I needed to remember that Ben is still two years old and busy and loud and that is just how kids his age are. I needed to remember that what I wanted was about me, and didn't consider the reality of the situation. So by the time I was sitting in the car with Lily and Ben (because both of them were in rare form and there is no nursery in the afternoon and it was too hot to be outside so in the car we went, AC on, wasting gas by the minute) I was pretty frustrated. Frustrated at myself for trying to force a situation that I knew wasn't likely to work. Frustrated at the kids for acting like kids (I never said I was rational all the time). Just frustrated.

We came home and the kids ran wild. We sent texts to a number of sitters, practically begging them to come babysit at the last minute because everything was just so loud and crazy and we were just so tired and, well, done. But of course no one was available with virtually no notice and that is how it should be. These are our kids and we take the bad with the good. We can't escape every tough situation. There's no turning back.

We went to a restaurant for dinner. A place with large, almost private booths so we could eat and hopefully not bother anyone else. Ben was still as busy as ever and Lily was taking her cues from him and we were still not exhibiting much grace and patience. We sat looking at each other (Travis and I) and decided it was time to stop fighting it. Our two younger kids are different than the older ones and we can't do all the things with them that we did before. We're going to have to stop going to afternoon Mass or get a sitter or something (there's more to that part, potentially). We'll probably need to stop going to restaurants with the little ones for a while.

Most importantly, we're going to have to stop trying to avoid the hard parts. I don't know why I am still struggling with this, six kids later. You'd think that by now I would have resigned myself to reality and truly embraced this stage of life. But I'm a selfish person and I have a lot of refining to do. (I'm pretty sure that's a huge part of being blessed with six kids, when I grew up with a vague idea of two or so.)

So while our summer will still be mostly sweet (gosh I hope so) I know that there will be sour times. And those are the times when I really learn who I am and who I'm supposed to be. Those hard times are there to mold me into the woman I was created to be, the wife and mother my family needs. No one can do this for me, no sitter can save me, there is no escape button. And that's just the way it should be.

Sweet Spot

Friends, we are loving summer. I'm a fan of summer in general anyway. I prefer hot to cold (even when hot is over 100 degrees), I love all things baseball, and I have a lot of tank tops. But this summer, I feel like we're almost living in a dream.

It is not perfect. Of course. But it is better than I could have imagined. One of the reasons (the main reason) is that I can finally take all six kids to the pool by myself and not feel like I need anxiety medication to recover. My big kids are independent swimmers and the youngest are comfortable in their flotation devices. I'm not sitting in a lounge chair reading a book yet, but we're getting closer. Also, some of the kids can do their own sunscreen and help with the younger ones, so it is no longer a 45 minute production to get ready to swim. We can decide to go swimming and be out the door less than 15 minutes later. It is magical.

Another reason to love summer is the freedom of unstructured days. This summer has actually been fairly mild, relatively speaking, so we don't have to head to the pool to cool off. Sometimes a sprinkler in the backyard is all we need. And again, we can just head out the back door and play without having to plan ahead. Maybe they only play for 15 minutes, but when there was no lengthy prep or a drive somewhere involved, it is worth it.

We're enjoying indulgent desserts. We're staying up late watching movies. We're discovering the joys of older kids. We're in that sweet spot--our kids are getting more independent, but still want to hang out with us. The big ones help with the little ones. We have leisurely mornings and spontaneous adventures.

Summer is sweet.

Lily is eating a S'mores bar (recipe here--I used a mix of peanut butter bars and chocolate bars). I used PicMonkey for the collage and to crop the other photos.

Vacation, Vacation

Our family (minus Ben, who stayed with his fabulous godparents) went on a vacation last week. I'm tempted to call it little, because compared to some it was a little vacation, but for us it was just vacation. I'm working on my attitude and a spirit of contentment and so I'm not going to diminish what was a lovely vacation.

We started by driving to Glen Rose, TX. Glen Rose is famous for dinosaur tracks. Real dinosaur tracks are in the Paluxy River and there is a state park there. We had a picnic lunch. We had to use plastic bags as plates because I forgot plates but remembered to bring half a dozen plastic bags for whatever needs came up. I'm not sure if that is a sign of preparedness or forgetfulness.

 Chief sandwich maker. I'm a fan.

  We let the kids play for a while on the playground before setting off to see the dinosaur tracks. I tried to embrace a spirit of adventure. We didn't have a schedule to follow and there was no reason to get in a hurry. They obliged me with a fun photo opportunity.

Finding the tracks in the river was fun. And hot. We wished we were in bathing suits and water shoes so we could actually get in the very shallow river bed. Alas, I wasn't feeling so adventurous that I was willing to let them all get their socks and tennis shoes soaking wet. We still had big plans to go to Dinosaur World. So we just walked along the edge of the river bed and across it stepping on the big rocks.

On to Dinosaur World! Dinosaur World is a walk-through park with life size models of lots of different kinds of dinosaurs. It was fun to read the different names and imagine coming across a real dinosaur in the wild a long time ago. There was a liliensternus, which my Lily monster would not take a picture in front of, so I'm sure they have similar personalities. We fed some koi, played on a playground and then had a little fossil dig. It was fun.

Proof that we were on the trip too.

After an evening in the hotel, where we must have said "Stop jumping. Stop stomping," one million times it was time to get on the road to Austin. (We will always request first floor rooms from now on!) We took the first route our Mapquest app gave us, which was on smaller roads through small towns for the first part. This was fun, as we usually get to Austin via one boring highway. The kids got to see hills (they thought they were mountains!) and trees. It felt very adventurous.

A kind and generous friend gave us use of his two bedroom apartment while we were in Austin. (He keeps it for business purposes.) It was so nice to have room to spread out and the two bathrooms were great when it was time for five kids to get clean. The apartment was in a luxury building near downtown and it was very clear that kids are not usually seen there. People acted like they were seeing something exotic every time we got on the elevator. Everyone was very friendly though.

Our first day in Austin was spent seeing Brave, having dinner with a friend and watching a movie in the apartment. Nothing super special, but fun nonetheless, as we were somewhere other than home and not on a schedule. I think vacation is about attitude as much as destination and we definitely had a vacation attitude.

The next day started with a late-ish breakfast at IHOP. It was close and not crowded and our kids loved it. We spent the morning visiting the Capitol building. I'm a geeky political science major and would have loved to spend a lot of time reading all the signs and soaking up history, but our kids are not political science geeks and were ready to move on fairly quickly.

We also visited the Capitol (am I spelling that right?) Visitors Center, where a certain 4 year old expected much more entertainment. She was not impressed.

But a few rolls down the hill on the grounds made up for the lack of indoor entertainment.

After a late nap (glorious!) we headed to my friend Kim's neighborhood for a swim. I met Kim via blogging and Twitter and in person at Blissdom. Yea for internet connections! (Oh my, what a bad pun.) Since we were late we didn't get to spend as much time together as I would have liked, but it was still lots of fun. Lily is already asking about when she can play with Libby again. They were fast friends.

We ended our day at a Round Rock Express game. The Express are the AAA team for our Texas Rangers. We met good friends and had a lot of fun. I saw about an inning of baseball, as my Lily asked for everything in sight and never stopped talking. I'm pretty sure we spent a couple of innings in the team store too. Still, what is baseball but an excuse to eat cotton candy and drink lemonade, at least when you're four.

We took all the kids, promise. They just didn't always cooperate with picture taking. Timmy was in heaven watching baseball though, especially from such a close vantage point, something we don't get at Rangers games because the tickets are too expensive!

We headed home the next day. Happy to have had time away, happy to be on our way to seeing Benjamin. We talked about the vacations we want to take in the future. We shared our favorite parts of the trip. And we're trying to keep a vacation spirit through the summer, being grateful for small things that are different from our usual routine. Vacation isn't about where you go, it is about slowing down and looking at things with a different perspective.


I've linked this post to the Big Family Summer Memories Blog Hop .

Zebras in the Shower

Every night when I go to bed I have to check for toys and other detritus before I climb in. Lily takes naps in my bed most days, and like all little girls she does not go to bed alone. Last night there was one half of a broken set of binoculars, a slap bracelet and a whisk.

Travis and I usually laugh about what we find in unexpected places. Of course there is a car in our shoe. We don't think twice about finding a Zooble or Littlest Pet Shop animal in the cabinet. Just little reminders all around us that we are not alone.

We have this ledge in our entry way and right now there are no less than 3 nerf-style basketballs up there, in addition to a plastic pineapple and some stuffed animals. The boys play some kind of baseball game in our large entryway and when the ball lands on the ledge they think they can get it down by throwing more stuff up there. Every so often Travis gets out the ladder and gets everything down and it is like finding treasure.

No matter how we try, we can't erase evidence of children from our house. There are too many stray pencil marks and paint smudges and scuff marks to ever have hope of cleaning them all up. And of course we wouldn't want to. The fact is, our kids leave marks on us we don't even see or notice.

What mother doesn't use pregnancy and childbirth as a sort of calendar of events? And we carry around shoe sizes and color preferences, replacing the trivia that used to fill our brains (or in my case, joining the random trivia in our brains). Even if we are out with our husbands, we inevitably talk about our kids, despite promises not to talk about them. We might go on a vacation, just the two of us, but we'll be wondering what our kids would think of this or that experience.

One day my house will be empty of my children. I think I'll let the zebra stay in the shower though. I don't mind reminders of the lives we've been blessed with.

(Gratuitous picture of a cute baby. Who is 2. But still a baby.)

Just Write with Heather of The Extraordinary Ordinary