I'll Be Sitting On The Beach With A Good Book

Today after church we head out for vacation at the lake.

Suitcases? Check
Jet skis? Check
Annual day-before-vacation emotional meltdown? Check

Am I the only mother who is overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes to get ready for relaxation? Every year I question the sanity of even going when the preparation stresses me out so much. There is always so much grumbling and crying and gnashing of teeth, and that's not the kids that's me. Bless Nate's heart, he has come to expect it and does an amazing job waiting it out and enduring the Heth until I finally come around and we roll out of the driveway, beach bound.

It's all worth it, laying on a floaty in the crystal clear water, soaking up the sun.

Adios! I'll be at the beach.

How To Be Pregnant In the Summer

With the temps and humidity both hitting the 90s, (ok, maybe not the humidity, but it feels like it) I have discovered the secret of how to not swell up like a balloon this summer. The belly is swelling like a balloon, but it's supposed to.

Yesterday we headed to the pool at one o'clock. I planted my behind on the prickly cement, feet dangling in the water, it was the stuff dreams are made of. At least my dreams. I only had to leave for about forty five minutes to go to my 31 week appointment just a few blocks away. I went in my suit. I'm sure the OB appreciated that.

And then it was back to the pool. We didn't pack up and leave until seven pm. It was one of those days where the stars aligned and no one was whining to go home. At least until supper time. Today we are all moving a little cautiously, what with the pink shoulders and noses. I love it.

Now THIS is summer.

Mexico

Nate has been out of town for the last week. He was on a mission trip to Mexico. I didn't say anything about him being gone while he was gone, you know, axe murderers and everything.

It was a roller coaster of a week. We had a couple crazy incidents with kiddos, one involving a child who scaled the front of the entertainment center in pursuit of a DVD on the top. Of course, like I have always warned would happen, the whole thing came crashing down on top of the child, who is totally OK by the way. Stuff like that. Dear, dear friends of ours moved away quite suddenly this week. We miss them already.

But through it all I had such an amazing emotional strength and peace. A peace that can't be explained. Nate arrived at ten forty five last night and it is so, so good to have him home.

Four: The Real Story

Don't let the sweet grin and cute little bob fool you. The previous post about my newly four year old is a snapshot of sugar and spice and all that is nice. That's not the truth. The truth is, the past few weeks have brought out a whole 'nother side of Gemma. A side that is the "terrible twos" multiplied by two...thousand.

We have entered a new phase of wildly swinging emotions, flailing-writhing temper tantrums, and lots of tears. Is four the new fourteen? Every day I have to make the weighty decision; do I try for the nap or not? Is it worth it? On most nap days she wakes up like a raging bear roused prematurely from hibernation. It's a gamble. Are those minutes of silence worth the aftermath?

Oh let this pass quickly. Please, for the love of all that is right and good, let's just skip straight to five.

Birthday Girl

Watch out world, somebody just turned four and she's got wheels.

Transformation

Oh what a difference a haircut makes.

School's Out

Summer is upon us. The kids are out of school and spending the days climbing trees, riding bikes, making backyard forts, and toad hunting.

My poor, poor flower beds.

Recent casualties include:

• My Bleeding Heart and surrounding ferns murdered by little boys looking for a soft place to "camp".
• A struggling little baby hosta, trying to find it's way in the cold hard world but living too close to the egress window, the potential home to small animals who have fallen into their prison
• Colombine, plucked for it's unique blossom shape, the perfect addition to a home grown backyard concoction of some kind.
  

On a happier note, I finally cleared off my kitchen table. (Don't count the days on that one) and we are finally eating indoors, all together again. Hallelujah.

Pray

“To pray, I think, does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God. As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove God from our daily life and put him into a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings. … Although it is important and even indispensable for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can only become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts —beautiful or ugly, high or low, proud or shameful, sorrowful or joyful —can be thought in the presence of God. … Thus, converting our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer moves us from a self-centered monologue to a God-centered dialogue.”

-Henri Nouwen

Disclaimer: I am not endorsing Henri Nouwen or his teachings. I don't know enough about him to make that call. I just know that when I read this quote it really resonated with me, especailly the part in bold. (Emphasis mine) I know that for me personally, it's true that the majority of my thought life is a "self centered monologue" and my deisre is that it becomes a God-centered dialogue.

"Break Resistant" Is Not The Same As Shatter Proof

Tonight's mess makes the top five Laundry Pile Family messes of all time. Maybe the top three.

Others in the top five include :

• Jack Vs. The Carpet.
• An incident that was pre-blogging days involving our oldest child (then two-ish), an entire jug of liquid laundry detergent, and the bedroom carpet of our rented apartment.
  
• Anything involving barf.
  
• Anything involving Desitin

This was a different kind of mess; this one involved a plate. A Corelle plate. They are supposed to be pretty difficult to break. Broken plates have happened before around here but always on a hard kitchen floor; a surface that can be swept and mopped.

Tonight we were eating supper on the deck. While that sounds summery, nostalgic, and very Norman Rockwell of us, the reality is that I have too many stacks of to-be-sorted papers on the kitchen table to actually eat there. So we ate our BLT's outside. One plate ended up balancing on the deck railing and eventually made the inevitable plunge down, down, down into the sandbox. Which would have been fine except for the fact that our artsy-fartsy sandbox is edged in boulders. Of course the plate landed directly on one of the boulders and proceeded to shatter into a million pieces, most of them microscopic. I almost cried.

The glass was as widespread as ten feet away from the original break all the way into the grass. I hand picked every single visible piece and then I skimmed off the top layer of sand. The sandbox is now off limits to all children until the sand can be replaced.

Tomorrow is the last day of school. Nothing says summer vacation like a sandbox full of shards of glass. Good dang times.

I Know He Will Never Be Terrible

Toby turned two on Saturday. We celebrated by going out to eat as a family. Since little Mr. Man hasn't had the greatest track record at restaurants lately, we decided to go somewhere that would be appropriate for a squirmy two year old. Burger King Playland.

We drove to the nearby Bigger Town and hit a BK that we had never been to before. We ventured into the unknown and explored strange new worlds, we sought out new life and new civilizations, we went where no man has gone before. We came out with an obscene number of little cheap Star Trek toys that say "Beam me up." when you hit the button. Imagine how fun the ride home was. They have all been confiscated.

Here we have birthday boy appropriately celebrating with two toddler sized burgers.

Happy Birthday Toby.