Yucky things I would rather do...

...instead of accompanying 3.0 on her play date.

1.  Get my teeth cleaned.

2.  Clean my home.

3.  Clean someone else's home (depending on the filth factor.)

4.  Organize a closet.

5.  Organize my food storage.

6.  Clean out the kids' art cabinet.

7.  Babysit.

8.  Take the kids to the beach alone.

9.  Clean my carpets.

10. Clean out my car.

11.  Clean out the fridge.

12.  Call the VT Supervisors and find out why I have no reports, yet this month.

13.  Call all the sisters who are struggling and check in on them.

14.  Ask the missionaries if they visited the folks I asked them to, and see what they had to say.

15.  Steam clean the dining room carpet the dog keeps tinkling on.

16.  Speaking of dogs - get them groomed.

17.  And pooper scoop the back yard.

18.  Weed the flower beds.

19. Paint 1.o's furniture like I promised.

Ohhhh - I could go on and on.

I'm coming to a realization.  I just don't love going on play dates for the kids anymore. I am tired of trying to make 3.0 play with other kids when she really just wants to be left alone. I am tired of racing around a park in the 100 degree heat, when usually, I just take my kids, read my book, and go to a land far, far away in my head. I am tired of encouraging 3.0 to be nice when she really wants to shriek.  I am tired of disciplining my kid in front of someone I don't know well and then having to make explanations about her crazy behavior.  I am tired of keeping a conversation going with someone who is, essentially, a stranger to me,  when I have about 3,000 other things to do and I know my kid does NOT want to be here. I am tired of convincing 1.0 and 2.0 that they could indeed get along at the "little kid park" for a couple of hours and not be so self-absorbed.

I fear I've gotten old.

I love meeting new people.  But I am tired of play dates.  From here on out, I might just say, "Let's go to dinner, OK? Please don't make me make my kid play with yours. PLEASE!" 

With my big girls, I realized early on that play groups were not for me. I didn't like the chaos and inevitable fighting, or the tears, and cajoling kids into sharing.  Now with 3.0, I have come to the realization that play dates aren't a ton different. The whole time we're "playing" I'm thinking of the slide show I want to be working on for my friend, the gal who is 16 and preggers that I am trying to contact, all the phone calls I need to return (including one to the dance teacher - whatever could THAT be about?), how I am going to get 3.0 to talk more.....my ADD totally kicks in and I can't relax and enjoy the play date.  

Park play dates leave me feeling like a referee, a child psychologist, and a sidewalk food vendor all rolled into one.

I really HAVE gotten old, haven't I? I am weak and small-minded and unkind. Sadly, it would appear, in my old age,  I have developed issues, my friends....whodda thunk?  And the worst part of all of this is knowing I will NOT really skip out on kids' play dates because I want them to grow and learn and have to share and have some friends.  

sigh

 

Sometimes, it's best to be out of town

Well homefries, I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

Did y'all check out our sweet digs (featured above?)  We know how to live!!  I wasn't sure it would float, but it did and we had a blast!

It was a great time bonding with Drama-o and Captain Jack.  We're all a little browner and a little more rested and totally not ready to deal with real life.  In a tribute to Hemingway (we were in Key West, after all) I'll let Drama share our little gem, The Pea Coat and the Sea.  

Speaking of real life, I am not at all sad to have missed out on home life for 6 days while I was gone.  See - 3.0 got some sort of creeping crud that eventually landed her in the pediatrician's office with a 104 fever.  The same day, 1.0 was complaining that her throat hurt, so at the last minute, she escorted Grandma and 3.0 to the doctor's office.  While there, the female doctor (who Mother-in-law was sure was a nurse because she is a woman) found some strep throat and a mystery infection hanging with my homeys.

Amoxicilin to the rescue!  Now, our grocery store gives out many prescriptions for free - and that is one of them.  No cost - no nothing but picking that stuff up and doling it out to your angels. Sadly, though, for free, they don't add the flavoring to that bad boy that makes kids not want to wretch it out.  Mother-in-law was wrestling trying to get the kiddos to swallow it. Stinks to be her!*  

So, Mother-in-law comes home from the "nurse" to find that the fridge had died and the freezer items had melted on the kitchen floor.  GOOD TIMES!  Luckily, our friends stowed the rest of our food for her and called the repair man. They had also picked up 3.0 from school when they called to say she had a fever and had to go home.  I love them!

I feel badly for Mother-in-law, but am not at all sad to have missed it.  Sounds to me like the PERFECT time to have been on vacation.  I came home to antibiotics-ed kids and a running fridge. 

I learned a couple of things from going away this time:

• dirty, ripped, random pea coats can be fun.
  
• kids can be sick and live without their moms.
  
• 70-year-old, leather-skinned women should not wear silver, lame bikinis. Ever.  Even with blood red lipstick.  Especially with blood red lipstick. The 5 carat diamond did not distract us enough, ya know?
  
• always show your babysitter where the thermometer is - because it's hard to explain its location over the phone bobbing in the ocean.
• no matter how much laundry you did pre-vacation, someone will still somehow find some amount of your underwear and will wash it. And will explain to you how to better get stains out.  Oh yes - feel my mortification with me, friends!  It was just utterly Fantastik. **
  

Perfect vacation - interesting home return - and now I'm ready and raring to go celebrate 2.0's birthday!  She's reached the ripe old age of seven!  Life is good...

*Update - I took the meds back to the pharmacist who laughed that my kids won't drink the stuff and added flavoring in about 45 seconds.  Ahh - a mother's touch!

**The stains were from red paint - and no, I didn't paint my walls in my panties!  The paint went through the shirt and onto the....wait - why am I explaining this again?  Apparently, I wasn't mortified enough first explanation through....

You want to dance with stars?

Then come over and boogey with my big girls!  They just got in the school talent show! 

79 acts entered, but 20 were chosen (at least - that's what the mommy-rumor mill is reporting.) They'll be doing a jazz dance to You Can't Stop the Beat from Hairspray.

Each act that was chosen gets to work on advertising the event.  1.0 was selected in her group to make a poster that will get to hang on a real live SCHOOL WALL!  Oh yes!  Her poster - on a school wall - announcing a Mormon family dance!  Their lives are now complete.

I have few demands as a mother of my children, but there are a couple of must-dos.  Someone in the house 1. WILL be an Olympian, and 2. WILL be a professional dancer. And it seems we're well on our way to accomplishing number two.  I mean, I'm not personally on my way to making number two.  Two being a dancer, not ummm, you know, the other Number Two.  One of my kids might end up dancing - not pooping. I mean, they all poop - that's going well here. Not that I check...I just don't hear complaints about it. But this is about dancing, not pooping....

My kids are real kids - they do plenty of real kiddie stuff, like arguing and making messes. But today, they really impressed me.

When I woke up, the big girls were snuggled up on the sofa with their Easter baskets on the floor next to them.  And they were watching TV.  So I looked at the TV, and they were watching a movie about Easter and the Resurrection.

sniff

Happy Easter, everybody.  

(Not) Rolling, rolling, rolling with my homies...

Look, I know folks have real problems in life.

I know my son is not having surgery, I don't have a kid who will need daily injections, and I know how blessed I am.

But today, I'm grieving a loss of something. Just a smidge of grieving. Not GRIEVING grieving like, "Oh - let's send Mama some Prozac!" but more like, "Mama's wiping a tear."

It hit me today leaving Publix (God's gift to us via a grocery store chain) that it was the first time I can remember where I didn't have a little buddy in the store with me during the day. And that I won't have a little buddy regularly grocery shopping with me during the day again. I didn't need to trek over to the cookie counter for anyone now and I didn't get asked if I wanted a free balloon for the car trip home.

It dawned on me that, on those gorgeous Florida spring days, I won't have a dinky pal to take to the park before all the big kids get out of school. And while I read my book in said park, I don't have anyone with me who will run around and play with the other kids while I try skillfully to ignore their mothers so I can read more of my book. In fact, if I go to the park now with a book and no kiddo, the other moms will keep an eye on me, wonder why I'm there, and try to match me up to any face they have seen on America's Most Wanted.

I realized today that I don't have as much of a reason to listen to classical music in the car all day to help anyone's brain from getting mushy. (I tell the kids that classical music will help their brains un-mush from all the TV they watch.) 3.0 calls it "Butterfly Music." I can listen to it now, I suppose, but I'm content with my level of mush-brain and think I'll switch to XM 156. But I didn't realize I could even make that switch until I was basically home from errand running.

I dropped 3.0 off at school today and went to the grocery store directly afterwards. And as I pulled up to the store, I said, as I typically do, "Ok Banana Butt - what do you want for dinner tonight?" Only to realize my Banana Butt was in school now. For 8.5 years I've had some little munchkin in that carseat behind me who I chit chat with as I do my errands and who I have asked what she wants for dinner. But now, I'm free. Free meaning "alone." No pal to errand with. No little-person reason to sit in the park on a sunny day and read.

I kid-swap with another mom on Thursdays and I called to tell her now that 3.0 is in school, she won't need to babysit for me. Of course, she immediately said that I didn't have to watch her daughter anymore. I basically begged her to let me keep her baby. I explained I think I'm going to be a little lonely and need a pal. How lame am I?

Many of my friends have stuck their kids in school the minute they were able (or the minute they had to.) Very purposely, I've kept mine at home. I like them. I like hanging with them and I like that the house doesn't feel so empty. No, I don't love every minute of child-raising, but the last year has been pretty perfect with 3.0 and I've enjoyed it especially knowing this was the last baby to be home. I've kept my kids here when they were tiny as much for them as for me. Every mom loves her kid her own way - and it's not wrong. But I like mine at home when they are little. And I was lucky enough to get that. A lot of moms wish for that, and it isn't what is in the best interest of their child or their family, I know. So I'm just reminding myself that I lived what I wanted for a long time.

But right now, I miss having a tagalong.

In a week, no doubt, I'll LOVE IT.

And in the summer, I'll wonder why the flock I ever wanted them home at all!

Tell me whatcha want, whatcha really really waaaant...

I love the song Dream Big. I found it on a couple's blog - they are trying to adopt and from all the looks of it, will just make wonderful parents. Kudos to them. Since I heard it there, I've added it to my own playlist and am starting to think of it as my anthem. Anthem of the month that is. I'm fickle - I know it will change.

Anyhoo - I like the message of the song that you can dream big things. Really - for the most part, what does it hurt to dream big?

Sometimes, living life and being productive hinders you from pursuing your own dreams. College loans and marriage and kids and health issues and spouse concerns and job struggles sometimes cause us to adjust our dreams and plans a smidge. And frankly, that's as it should be. If we all did exactly what we wanted all the time, we'd not only be selfish, but we'd be denying ourselves the right to a mid-life crisis.

Most of us haven't dreamt anything huge since we were little. I was thinking back today on what I thought my life would be when I was older - and what I thought I'd be doing. I've been thinking about my 12-(or so) year-old-self's dream life.

I thought I'd be a concert pianist - or some type of musical performer.

I thought my husband would dote on me and treat me like a queen and I'd be the envy of all my friends.

I believed I'd have this fabulous musical career in the evening, after tucking my gorgeous and well-mannered (and slightly above-average) children into bed every night. Their father would read in the study while I counted the standing ovations.

I imagined I'd be a philanthropist of some sort. I'd use all my gobs of money to help others.

I thought I'd have a nanny. (And I hoped she wouldn't woo my husband while he was reading in the study during my ovations!)

Remembering what I wanted when I was a child, I realize, goshdarnit, I have a lot of it!! I'm not a musical performer, but it didn't take me long to know I did NOT want that! ARGH - what was I thinking? It's not all Liberace and Celine Dion. It's a lot of nightclubs and smoke in your face.

I have a fab husband and great kids. I'm living the dream there. There's no study - but we DO have bookshelves from IKEA and a pool table. Close enough.

I don't write cardboard checks out to universities and have hospital wings named after me, but I do volunteer. Right now, it's just people in my ward and at my children's school, but I am using my time to help make others feel glad. And that's very right for me.

I don't have a nanny, but I do watch Super Nanny.

I'll try to think of other ambitions I had as a child and see if they've come to fruition. So many are stuffed deep down, it's hard to remember, really. But all in all, it's a good life with a lot of "dreams come true." You? What were your hopes and wishes as a kid?

The rest of the story...

Setting -  Picture me (which will be hard if you do not know what I look like - imagine a Catherine Zeta Jones look-alike in this case) driving like a maniac home from church.  Picture the miniMormons looking pooped and whining they are huuuuuuuuungry and going to diiiiiiiiiiiiie.  Picture me cleverly trying to redirect the children.  

Mama - "So, what did you learn about in Primary today?"

2.0 -  (my middle miniMormon) - "My class learned about Paul."

1.0 - (the oldest mini - who thinks she is the third parent) - "Which Paul? From the Bible? Paul Harvey?"

Mama - "Yes 1.0 - Paul Harvey!  He is instrumental in our salvation."

Good day!