Mothering Many

So, here we are, with Earl on the way, Fiona and Gaston and “un-named storm” right behind, and do you know what I am doing? Planning a camping trip. Haha, timing is everything! You may recall that we were planning to go in July, but we decided to wait because it was just so stinking hot!!

I’m allowing the kids to bring a couple of friends this time, and we are all looking forward to the adventure. It will be nice to get away from the tv, laptops and door locks for a couple of days. They are already counting down the time. Hopefully, we will leave before the 9,978th ritual asking of “when are we going?”

Right now, I have stuff I’ve got to do to get ready, namely sort through the massive pile of shed stuff in the living room. All our camping gear is on the bottom of that pile. You’d almost think I do this stuff to myself on purpose, wouldn’t you? I don’t. I assure you. It’s just that it takes me forever to get stuff done, because there is always more stuff to do.

At least here. And I am sure in most other places, too. I think we were among the last to go back. The house decompresses regularly at 7am when the bus arrives and quiet reigns until 4pm. I miss them, but I’m able to get a lot of stuff done on the days I don’t work. What I DON’T MISS is saying “stop that” every three minutes!

What I do miss is the easy summer laundry. Since they have to wear only certain colors of shirts and breeches, and I want them to look decent for school each day, I have to do a lot more sorting.

I also miss the laughter and joking that went between the “stop that”s, but DaBaby is still here, so we are getting in a few good times with just the two of us. Lemonade from lemons, right?

My kids are, anyway. And truth be told, I am too. Next weekend, we will be visiting my uncle in Emerald Isle. (Robbers don’t even try it, the house will not be unoccupied. That goes for you, too, Personal Stalker.)

I saw a lot of my friends posting about Disney vacations on Facebook this summer, and I did briefly consider getting jealous. But then I realized there was no need, because I don’t like huge crowds and Disney is very spendy. This trip will be way more intimate and a lot less costly. And for me, it’s a novelty, because although the kids have been for the past couple of summers, this will be the first time for me. Yay epi-pen!

Beach, beach, beach, family, family, family. I’m lovin’ it!

Not for me, for you. Specifically, this is for some of you older mothers who had walked his path before me. How do I show my girls how to age gracefully when I am being dragged kicking and screaming into menopause and my baby is only four years old? How am I supposed to keep up with the demands of young children when I feel like I could cook breakfast with the heat radiating from my face??!!?? Seriously, do they make vitamins for that? One A Day for the Grumpy Hotflashing Bitty Who Used to be Mary Poppins?

Kidless weeks mean that not a lot happens for me to blog about here. Somehow, even though I have purposed to talk more about the children, not that much happens with them when they are gone. Go figure. I do enjoy the quiet, but I miss them. I think I will be glad when school starts again and they are home more. That seems paradoxical, but…yeah, if you have children who have “summer visitation” it will make perfect sense.

I did spend the day with Country on Tuesday. Well, except for the doctor’s appointment and the going to bed with a migraine part. We didn’t discuss very much about anything, not even motherly advice on the best face wash for acne. We had a good visit as far as it went though.

Yesterday, I brought home some bubbles. Today, I blew some. The kids had a lot of fun for ten whole minutes!

And then they started blowing some themselves. They had a great time with that!!

By the way, you should always wear a helmet when blowing bubbles. It’s very dangerous, you know.

Who needs to read nuphedragen reviews when you can have more fun with plain ol’ soap and water? I should totally do this more often!

So, yeah, we went to the party. The kids had a great time, and it was very nice to be able to have an alternative to our usual Fourth of July party, since that one won’t be happening anymore. They enjoyed the good food, some pool time, fireworks and feeding the pigs. So did I!

I saw something there that I think I’d like to do in my yard if I can ever got the kids to help me clean it up. Nope, not install garden windmills, though at the rate my electric bill keeps climbing that may eventually make it to the list. The neighbors to the house we visited had built a permanent fire pit in their backyard. They were having so much fun sitting around it as the temperature dropped that it inspired me. They did it using tree rings, just like we sell at work. How neat and cost effective is that? For less than the cost of one of those dinky portables, I can have a pit large enough for the whole family to gather around, that will actually hold stuff large enough to burn to make heat. Yeah. So on my list!

What are you folks doing this weekend? I’m thinking we are gonna hang out and relax quite a bit. Of course, there will be fireworks with Micheal’s family on Sunday. I plan to eat enough hamburgers to justify a bottle of adipex. I’d really like to do homemade ice cream with all the kids, but I don’t have an ice cream maker, and I didn’t think to get one before I left work today.

And I think we’ll spend a couple of hours tomorrow tidying the house and yard. As Julie says, I know you envy my rockstar life!

Ok, so I posted that I needed to come up with some plans for the children. They will home tomorrow evening and I’ve come up with this: I think that instead of playing with them after my work is done, I will spend some time with them first thing in the morning. We can play Chutes and Ladders and Othello and such. After that, I will give them some tv time, and get a bit of work done. After lunch, we can have “quiet time” where the readers read and the non-readers sleep. By the time that’s done, I should be at a point where I can call it a day and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening hanging out with them.

What that means for me is that on the weeks they are gone, I need to be generating a lot of drafts that I can pull up, edit, and publish on days we get busy and lose track of time. Because I am certain that once we start playing that is so gonna happen, which is why I try to do it after my work is done.

However, summer and childhood are short. I’ll adapt. And I hope this works, because otherwise, I will be burning so much midnight oil that I am gonna need under eye cream for dark circles and even more coffee than I am already drinking. Which is already more than I want to confess.

Someone turned 15 this week, and it was Darling Diva! I am out of glowing adjectives to describe my kids, but this one’s a winner, too. She’s so excited to be a rising freshman, and already planing how to take the local high school by storm!

She recently got her own cellphone, and here she is opening it:

And on the 24th, her birthday:

And with her new do, styled and stylin’:

How in the world did get so grown up looking in just 6 months time?

Of course, with the cost of her hair products, I may need an epson receipt printer just to keep track of my expenses. LOL, I’m just teasing. She’s really a low maintenance kind of gal, just like her mama.