Summer fun ... too much?

The summer has just flown by way too fast. We spent about 80% of it swimming, 10% eating, and another 10% watching TV. Something about being in the water just calms my nerves and just makes life better. I love the water. I love looking at it, hearing splashing, I love dipping my head under and shooting through the coolness. It's something I can't quite put my finger on, but I just love it. And I'm so glad the kids do, too. Last summer was the first time I put the kids on the swim team. It's a program they'll do until they graduate high school I think. Originally I put them on the team to make them stronger swimmers. I basically teach them to the level of letting play around easily, at least swim across the pool once, but seriously, their fodder for jelly fish. So I thought it'd be a good idea to introduce some friendly competition in the water to them to up their swimming skills. It's worked perfectly. Nothing like some good ol fashioned peer pressure and competition to push my kids. They're nailing their strokes, have beautiful form, and confident about themselves which lends itself over to contentment and all around cheerful attitude. This summer started out full of swim team. At the end of July, my in-laws came for about 10 days and got to see the kids compete in the championship meet. When they left, soccer started. Soccer will last all through fall, come winter I want to enroll them in the basketball program, Spring will be soccer again, then summer ... SWIMMING! My MIL thinks we're too busy and even Matt's wondered if we were, too. I've told both ... "nope! Wouldn't have it any other way!" Here's my take on it all. You can agree or you can disagree. But mind you, I'm pretty confident in my "arguments." (Who argues when they know they're wrong?? HELLO!) 1 family. 7 kids. 1 season. 1 activity. That's it. Sure, it's every season, but my argument is that it's good for the kids, good for the family. I'm totally against the "overscheduled family." I wouldn't support 7 kids going 2,3, 5 different ways. Sports, music, art. That's too crazy. However, this fall, every night, M-Th, something will be going on, so maybe I'm playing right into it? We'll have to see. Anyways, the reason I like the kids to be busy playing sports is this: prepares them for high school. Keeps them in shape. Gets them comfortable with competition. Make good friends. Bottom line, and I know I'm going everywhere with this, is I think a busy teenager is a productive teenager. An idle teenager is headed for trouble. iTouch. iPhone. Computer games. DS. TV. Texting. My gosh, there's so much out there that totally plays to the idle teenager and I really don't want my kids to be this. Already I see my kids with work out schedules taped above their beds. They're forever talking about swimming or soccer or whatever sport they're participating in or getting ready to participate in. When we're in the car, nearing the field, the kids are anxiously getting ready to jump out of the car to make it to practice on time. The other day, however, Ange goes, "Mom, I don't want to go to the pool tomorrow. I just want to stay home." I can appreciate this. With a large family, busy is gonna happen. And in my opinion, brakes aren't just for cars. It's OK to brake every once in a while and simply ... relax. So we did. The boys were mad, told Angela "you ruined our summer!" and of course, they got into trouble. I do think it's wise to stop and let the dust settle every now and then. Just don't stay stopped is all. The next day the boys asked if we were going to the pool and I turned to Angela and asked, "Do you feel up to it?" She answered, "uhhh, yeah I wanna go swimming!" (I wondered if she forgot she had bagged it the day before?) So yes, we went to the pool today, loved it, came home, and relaxed. The kids will play soccer in the fall, but there will be days that we won't show up to practice. Why? Well, simply because I'm a "soccer" mom, not an "Olympian" mom.

Old hag in the bathroom

Last Tuesday I drove my in-laws to C'ville so they could fly home. Whenever I make any type of trip to C'ville, about 35 minutes away, I like to do other things there, ie hit shops that I don't have here in the 'boro. So yeah, with 7 kids, we hit 6 different stores. And believe it or not, the kids were awesome. I don't know how it happened, but I sure was blessed with very easy, super obedient children. Must be all the nursing they get as infants. And as toddlers. And maybe as pre-schoolers, but we won't go there. Who need to use the bathroom all at the same time and usually at the most inconveninet of places! What irritates me is when you have a bunch of children or are 9 mos pregnant (no I am not pregnant, but just speaking from experience) and you ask to use the bathroom and they say, "we do not have public bathrooms." Meaning they do have bathrooms, just not for you. I wish I had the guts to drop my pants or my kids pants and let things go. I mean, especially when I BUY something. Anyways, the only bathroom I could use was at TJMaxx, so we went there. There were only 2 stalls and unfortunately, one of them was being used. I put Addi on the seat and as I was shutting her door, heard, "Little boy! Go away! Go away little boy!" She said it like she was the wicked witch of the north on crack. I look over and there's Owen, peeking under the stall to stare at Mrs. Sweet Sweet. It irritated me, but I kept my mouth shut. Owen got scared and scurried away, I told him not to do that, but that was it. She had punished him enough. She comes out, all rich, old, scrawny and proceeds to reprimand Owen in the most harsh, cruel manner ever. I got pissed. "Excuese me, I'm his mother and I'll take care of it. Not you." "Well, he shouldn't be looking under the stall!" "He's 3 and you can back off now." And then it escalated. She got crazier and I got madder to the point that we were in each other's faces, trying to be gangster. Finally she left, but then popped her head back in the bathroom to deliver the last and final blow. "Well, you need to do a better job at teaching him!" She left for good as I told her to have a nice day. The old hag. I feel bad, only because it made Angela nervous. I have to admit, I wondered how I would act if I saw her in the store. Part of me wanted to loudly teach my kids that old hags exist and are usually friendless spinsters. The other part of me wanted to go about as if I were a stepford mom, super on my game, just to prove to her that I was indeed doing an awesome job at teaching my kids and that she was over reacting, and yes, the other part of me wanted to apologize because yeah, she probably WAS a spinster, never had kids, and that's just sad. And I wouldn't have wanted to add to her sad life. Anyways, I never did see her and the kids who witnessed the whole thing seemed over it. So we went about our day. Which brings me to the point of this post. Why is it that old people think it's their right, almost their responsibility, to harshly tend to other people's children? I have NEVER had a young mother try and give me advice. I've never had teenagers complain to me that my children need to have shoes on their feet. I have never had a young man tell me, "you suck at motherhood!" (OK, no one HAS told me that, but old people stares are open books.) And the other point. How should a mom react when such old people reprimand her children? I won't sacrifice my children to them, sitting quietly and letting the onslaught run it's course, at the same time, you don't want to react as if you forgot your last few doses of Prozac either. I wish I was super witty. My friend Missy's witty. She seems to know how to conduct herself in those types of situations. She'd have made that old hag laugh, maybe even become FB friends later that day. What DO you say, or have you said, in like situations? Because I know I'm not the only one who's had to deal with the crotchity of society.

I'm a happy camper said not me

Here's my experiences with camping: Family: We'd take summer trips to upstate NY when I was younger and at times, to avoid motel stays, we'd "camp" as a family in our 2 man pup tent at rest stops. Enough said. Girls camp: As a youth in the church, I was exposed to the famous/infamous week of "girls camp." I lived in TX at the time. My first experience was quick. We set up our tents, got hit with a massive TX down pour, my youth leaders themselves not campers, instructed us to take down our tents and we headed back home. Girls camp was over and done with in about 4 hours, travel time included. My 2nd year of girls camp was better. We lasted the entire week. I remember actually liking it, except for our "hour long hike." I remember being led by an older young woman (figure that out) who didn't want to get lost, so we literally hiked the perimeter of the camp site for a total of 1 hour. My 3rd and 4th years I was in Germany and wouldn't even give it a chance. I avoided camping until about 6.5 years ago when Matt decided to take the family camping, so this included me. We went to Sherando Lake. Super nice, family friendly place. We had a 10 month old who liked putting dirt and twigs and small pebbles in her mouth. It was about 145 degrees hot. With scorching temps comes tantrum throwing weather, so about 2 days in, we got rained out and even Matt felt it was best to quickly take down the tent, pack us up, and go home. I got stuck with 80 pounds of wet, sandy, twiggy clothes to wash. Here's the thing. Why CHOOSE to kick against modern advances such as the roof, stoves, beds, and front doors? The idea of spending a whole day to pack up a pretend house with pretend bedding and pretend stoves to sleep in the woods with not pretend bears, not pretend bees, and not pretend dirt in my pretend pillow just doesn't sound fun to me. However, I'm the only one EVER that feels this way. My husband, my children, my closest of friends, all feel that camping is only trumped by a million dollar lottery win. That said, last week Matt and I took the kids, along with 3 other families, to our Jelly Stone CAMP resort. The kids could. Not. WAIT. The things a mother will do for her off spring. Seeing how excited my children were, simply took the CHOICE out of my options. I was going. And I was going HAPPILY. The thing I learned about Jelly Stone. It's pretty cool! I actually, dare I say it? Was having fun!! Our camp sites were all next to each other, so pure hang out, chatting fun. Kids, there were 17 total, LOVED both the activities and doing the activities together. Jarrett made this dish called "paella" (or something like that) that was AMAZING (who knew anything cooked in a pretend kitchen could be so good?) They had a water park that I LOVED. It had a splash park, a pool, and best yet, water tubes (that I only got to ride a few times though cuz Matt hogged it all, leaving me with Riley so he could have his jolly fun times.) I'm just blabbing now, but I can't emphasize it enough. The kids loved it so much, how could a parent not? Seeing your kids happy, the good, healthy kind of happy, makes anything worth while. It was all going great to the point that I told Matt, "You know, I could totally camp here all the time. This is great! I like it!" Apparently, I am cursed. About 2 hours later, after eating the best burgers EVER, the sky went from gorgeous blue to murkey grey. We grabbed the kids and raced to the game room to wait out Mother Nature's tantrum. Matt feels that staking tents down is over rated. Especially when it's nice outside. That's why both our tents blew over. I mean, really, why stake things down that come with stakes and loops to put stakes through? After the storm sorta blew over, we returned to our campsite, or better yet, our pretend home that got beat down by the not pretend storm, and all of our soaking wet pretend crap. Long story short, families shuffled around to accomodate our not pretend short sightedness and Matt and I slept in Alicia's tent with 4 of our kids. Right before he fell asleep, with me sitting up nursing a very hot and cranky 9 month old, Matt goes, "sorry I got you into this." I didn't even respond because it would have NOT been pretend nothing!!!! That morning, we all packed up, just a few hours earlier than we would have if it hadn't been for the rain, and planned to end the trip on a good note by driving out to a Pancake house. That sounded good. So good that I stepped on a yellow jacket. But that's OK, cuz that's what camping's all about!! Anyways, I was in better spirits knowing we were heading out to a yummy breakfast and knowing I'd be able to end the trip with some fun, healthy chatting with my besties and of course the kids were excited to brunch with their buddies. So off we drove. We pulled up to the restaurant where everyone was waiting for us. Excited, I rolled down the window, wondering what they were all laughing and chatting about. "It's closed" Missy and Laura said. "For renovations." Of course it's closed. It's the only way to end a camping experience that includes me. It's been 2 days now since we camped at Jelly Stone. The kids are still talking about it. We're going to have to go back. They loved it. Here's the thing. I want my kids to have wonderful memories of their childhood. I want them to be able to do things I never did. This makes me all the more grateful to my husband, and also to my friends. They're all fun parents. I know that if I simply piggy back with them, do the fun things they are already doing, I'll be able to give my kids what I want that I can't on my own. I kept my moaning and groaning to myself (and to Matt and my friends) simply because I don't want to influence my kids for the negative regarding camping. And I think it worked. Tonight my daughter said, "I miss camping. I even miss the storms." Thanks guys for giving my kids the best camping trip ever.

Working girl

So I had this amazing epiphany last week. I am a stay home mom. It's been my full-time job everyday, all day, week long, month long, for the past 11 plus years. Stay home mommy-ing has been hard for me. The adjustment was rough and quite frankly, it's the hardest thing, job-wise, out there. Most men can't do it. They crack after a couple of hours. Many times, I couldn't do it and would have some serious "cry outs" to cope. However, as I grow more and more into myself, I've enjoyed more and more my role as stay home mom. I love my kids, I get to spend every waking minute with them, and it's a good thing. Even a blessed thing. Sooo, the other day, as I was saying, I had this super idea. I was going to shower just like Matt does. Matt works. Like, he actually gets up, gets ready, and leaves for work. I work, but really, I don't even have to brush my teeth for my co-workers. My co-workers are more concerned about worms in the yard and avoiding baths. Anyways, I decided to shower. Before work. Of course, you can't be showered and pretty and then put on frumpy clothes, so I went shopping and spent $150 on me, myself, and I. I NEVER EVER NEVER buy myself clothes. But my new job required it. One of the things I bought was a jean skirt from GoodWill. It was longer, but I loved the fit around my large marge bum and thighs. The idea hit me to "alter" the skirt. I'd cut it and sew some lace around the hem and it'd be cute. Cuz I am now a changed, "cute" mom. I took the skirt home, cut it, sewed some lace around the hem, and put it on. And when I bent over to pick up my sewing scraps, the air up my back side told me I was mooning the world. I had just sewn a hootchi skirt. And hootchi is not part of MY job description. Anyways, long story short, I noticed my curtains in the bathroom. Nasty, old people curtains. But the hem of the curtains, I noticed, had cute, embroidered edging. So I took the curtains down, cut the bottoms of it and sewed it to my hootchi skirt. It worked! Sorta. My skirt is cuter than fat-girl stretch pants anyways. The other day, as I was digging through my dresser for pants to wear, Angela came up behind me and said, as I gingerly tapped my sweat pants, "Mom, remember, you're gonna be pretty mom now." So I closed the drawer, got out my new jeans, ripped the tags out of my new shirt, and properly got ready for work. I have to admit, I sorta like it!

Cake Boss

Lately the kids and I have been quite captivated by the show, "Cake Boss." It's not the smartest thing for me watch, as eventually I'll find myself purchasing a wanna-be "Cake Boss" cake and eating the whole thing to myself.

However, after about the 45th episode, I stood up from my chair and announced to the kids, "Kids, lets make our own Cake Boss cake!" Colby and Angela cheered, the rest of the kids just looked at me, then back to the TV.

Mamma don't play.

I Googled "fondant" and found a simple recipe. Colby busted out our Betty Crocker cake mixes and the 3 of us went to work.

It was actually LOTS OF FUN!!! Angela went to town being creative and Colby went to town, kneading fondant into about 5 different colors. My brain went 5000 miles per hour, planning on each child's next birthday cake.

Here's what we ended up with:
Cake #1

Cake #2

Seriously, it was fun. Now I have all these plans for my kids' birthdays. Boxing glove. Lone Ranger. #1. Make-up. Dora. Football. Soccer ball.

It's gonna be so fun.

However, baking's not my thing. So the fun will start and stop with my kids. I'm too ADD to bake. Baking takes too long.

Anyways, nothing too exciting. I've got a bedroom that barfed up about 200 pounds of clothes, so ta-ta for now!

Holding and holding and holding

Wow, today was such a loooonng day! McSmiley seemed to think that the best thing on the agenda today as to be held. Literally, all. Day. Long.

And I did. I don't have a problem with holding a baby. I mean, I got nothing done, and it got a bit frustrating when I'd try and put him down cuz he fell asleep nursing, only to have him blast his eyes opened and cry at me, but BESIDES this, I don't really care.

I'm super anti the argument that "babies manipulate their mothers." Honestly, that's a load of crap. Teenagers manipulate, even spouses manipulate, but babies and in my opinion even young children, do not manipulate.

Not to sound combative, but if you think babies manipulate, I think it's just the wrong attitude. I mean, when I'm cold, I want a blanket. When I'm hungry, I want food. When I'm thirsty, I want water. When a baby feels alone or a desire to be comforted, he wants arms cradling him. He wants to feel the warmth that only a mother can provide. He wants to sense her beating heart.

It's not manipulation. It's validation.

Someone once told me, while witnessing my "validating" my baby, "ummm, you're supposed to be the one in control. Not the baby."

I did practice control: my temper, my tongue, and my middle finger. But I did not change what I was doing. Babies simply do not "control" their environment, but rather they "sense" their environment. And in my professional opinion as a mom of 11 years, the best thing a mom can do for her baby is let them know that they are in a loving, responsive environment.

Right now my house doesn't need to sparkle and really, my husband doesn't need to come home to dinner on the table. Right now what DOES need to take place is that my babies have a sane mother and are they themselves confident in their new surrounding.

Don't get me wrong. I did have to put him down and take a break, and yes, he cried his eyes out. But then he was picked up and I turned my back on my dirty house and just held him.

Laura came over to a very dirty house. She's the definition of "perfect friend." I have a strong 6th sense and guess what? I didn't sense for a second that she judged my dirty house. Instead she held Riley while we chatted and I washed dishes. Friends like her are next to impossible to find. Lucky for me, I have a handful right here.

Anyways, the kids came home, they held Riley and helped pick up the house, and by the time Matt came home, he was pleasantly surprised at how clean the house actually was.

"I thought you had a hard day? That you couldn't get anything done cuz of Riley? The house looks great!"

I told him, "it's the kids. They cleaned and held Riley so I could get some stuff done."

The thing is, I believe in spoiling babies, but once they're old enough to, I believe in producing my own army of Merry Maids.

So at the end of the day, everything ended well. Riley got what he wanted, Matt got what he wanted, the kids felt good for doing jobs well done, and I ... hmmmmm, well, what DOES a mom get???

"Ummm, personal question..."

Matt and I go on a date every single week. Occasionally we can't, but NORMALLY, about 90% of the time, we go out every single week. I was advised as a young mother, "Take time for each other. Date each other. Once a week. Leave the kids behind for 4 hours and enjoy each other. You'll either spend money for babysitters and dinners, or later on, for divorce lawyers or marriage counselors." I'd so rather eat a taco than pay an attorney's trip to Europe.

Anyways.

Yesterday we went to BW3. "Buffalo Wild Wings." The place should be called "Barf-alo Crap Wings" if you ask me. Don't waste your calories there. We had a 25 minute wait, so we meandered over to the furniture store. Just to browse.

Super nice sales lady. Wanda. I know they work for commission, so they're all nice, but you could tell by her easy chit chat and not forced smile that she was sincerely a nice lady. We were looking at bunk beds and said to each other, "we need to get 2 sets for the boys." This of course led to Wanda asking, "How many children do you have?"

We always look at each other before answering this question. I don't know why. Whenever anyone asks, we glance at each other, then both look at the person, say 7, then subconsciounsouly (sp? Killer word) sit back and prepare for the onslaught.

Wanda's face went from happy smiley to confusion. She looked at me. Then at Matt, then back at me. She looked at my legs, Matt's full head of hair, back to my gut, then finally made eye contact with me. Then eye contact with Matt. She squared her shoulders, cocked her head, and said, "Ummmm, can I ask you a personal question?"

There is no question I won't answer. Really. I ask the most nosey questions of all ~ I should've been a reporter ~ so quite honestly, I welcome any and all questions.

"Did you have them all together? Or did he have some, you have some, and you just got married with them all?"

"All together. Married, one month later got pregnant, and just never stopped" was Matt's answer.

"He just can't keep his hands off me!" was my follow up answer.

Wanda laughed and laughed and said, "Well, that's GOOD thing! It's time to worry when they WANT to keep their hands off ya!"

We've had this exact same question before. People wondering if we're a "yours, mine, and ours" family. You can't blame them. None of the kids look a like. We look more like a, "your's, mine, his, his, that guy over there, him, and ours" family anyways.

And you know what? I love the question, because I love the answer I can give. In a society where divorce is rampant, I think it's nice to let people know that families CAN be solid. It's not a thing of the past. It is possible. And it is beautiful. And I think if more people saw it, they'd see that it was something worth working for.

Matt and I have had our struggles. Don't get me wrong. We argue, we fight. Jess has asked, "Are you breaking up with Dad?" a number of times. I always tell her, "No Jess, I'd never break up with Dad because I love Dad and he loves me. We're just disagreeing, but it's OK."

And yes, they do see us kiss and make-up.