Mothering Many

Guest post written by Sarah Helmund

Church is very important to my husband and I. For years we’ve attended attentively—we even have our spots on the third row claimed every week.

Well, last week we arrived a little late because of bad weather and some unexpected traffic, so we ended up having to sit in the back of the balcony. We’ve never sat back there before, so it was a totally new experience for us…in more ways than one. Almost immediately we both realized we could barely hear the preacher. We looked around to see if other people looked like they were struggling to hear, but everyone around us seemed to be nodding attentively to whatever the pastor was saying. It was then we realized that we should both probably go get our hearing checked.

The next day, we decided to go the local miracle ear center. The specialist there told us about the great options we had – even the possibility of getting free hearing aids—and set us both up with our first pair.

In the end, I’m really glad we ended up getting caught in traffic that day and missing out on our usual seats—if we hadn’t, who knows how long we’d be putting up with sub-par hearing.

Not so much here. It’s still in the 80s almost everyday, and instead of shopping for Fireplace accessories, I’m calling the air conditioning man. Weekly. Because the darn thing keeps breaking! He’s been out here three times in the past month, and guess what? For a change of pace, it’s broken AGAIN. This is mildly frustrating, because he put a new unit in just last year. And do you know what? Kids get really grumpy when it’s hot. And so does mom! Just sayin’

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.