Settling Down

Last night my family and I grabbed our ponchos and strolled downtown for an evening of 80s music and fireworks. While it may seem we were prepared due to my mention of ponchos, we were decidedly unprepared. We noticed this soon after we arrived at Lakeside park with no ID card with which to admit our ready-to-pee, penis-holding three-year-old to the restroom. You see, in our neighborhood, one has to have his town ID card to get into the amenities, such as the awesome playground our kids had to sit next to all night without being able to go in, because I forgot aforementioned card.

Also woefully left behind was the blanket we were to sit on, the cold beverages and tasty snacks, and the card game we would have enjoyed until someone got tired of losing and threw the cards all over the grass. Insect repellent: who would have thought to bring that along on a warm Florida night near the lake?

So we perched on our ponchos amidst our fellow townspeople who could pee when they wanted or send their whiny kids to the playground or pick up the Uno cards their sore loser seven-year-old tossed at her brother's head. We waited about two hours there shooing bugs and playing solitaire on our phones. We "watered" the bushes and found some toys in the bottom of my backpack amidst the layers of toddler snack crumbs, diapers, and sand. The children quit fighting and complaining about lack of snackage. It didn't even rain as expected. Little by little the "misery" eased (it wasn't true misery after all). We settled down.

I wish to "settle down" in the other areas of my life. Like our outing on the Fourth, our lives are lacking due to not being prepared. Granted, it is not easy to prepare to move a family of eight out of state and start a new job and life, but I am rethinking our decisions this past year. We have moved three times. We are currently paying high rent. We need new cars. We may have been emotionally damaged by homeschooling. I am only partly joking on that last one. Our decisions have gotten us to this place in our lives, and this place is not ideal.

Let me go back a few steps. I said it wasn't true misery on our Fourth of July outing. It wasn't. We were sitting under the stars waiting to see breathtaking displays of pyrotechnics to celebrate the amazing country in which we live. My baby girl perched on my belly as I lay on my back to view the show. The rest of my family was flung out beside me, the sparkles reflected in their eyes. It was worth the wait, and the wait wasn't all that bad anyway (spoiled Americans we are!). Reflecting back on that outing, let me put my life in perspective. The place we are in is not ideal, but it is far from horrible. We live in a beautiful home in a beautiful town, albeit temporarily. I could go on about the ocean, the weather, the Mouse at our disposal, blah, blah... We have the challenging, but fun task of finding a permanent home, school, and "life" for a family of eight. We may not have things exactly as we want, but like the fireworks display, all's well that ends well.

What's this Cardboard Thing with Pictures on It?

Why does it feel good to see my children sitting around the kitchen table playing Chutes and Ladders? Yet, seeing them in their respective bedrooms playing PSP and DSI brings no fuzzy feelings.

I have always loved board games, cards, and dominoes. I do enjoy the occasional video game, but I love the human interaction and physicality that comes with games like Monopoly and Uno. I think kids like those things too. It is ironic, but I think my kids like the "novelty." For me, it is the nostalgia.

I am always happy to retrieve the games for them from the closet, even though I know that, in this house, a board game never ends well. They end with silver thimbles thrown on the floor, or maybe a preschooler throwing himself on the floor. Dice are rolled, then eyes are rolled. Tears and tantrums. Yes, we have sore losers. Often, games are played too close to bedtime for tiny temperaments to handle. Then there is the cleaning up (or not) of little pieces, fake money, and flitting cards.

Why do I still enjoy handing them Operation or Connect Four? You see, all that fighting and frustration is good for them. Video games bring frustration as well, but a computer won't talk back or fight. It is good for children to work out these human conflicts and have a little fun while they're at it. They also practice different skill sets playing a board game than with a computer game.

Secretly, I am glad board games, flat, non-animated, and sans flashing screens, still entertain my children. It means they still have innocence of some sort. They aren't completely spoiled by modern technology.

I'm sure I'm not the only parent who gets an uneasy feeling by the fact that my kids know more about computers (or possibly everything) than I did at their age. In fact, it is because of computers that they probably know more about everything. This knowledge separates us, and it does so early. My three-year-old is already joining the ranks of the computer literate, as are most three-year-olds.

So help me Candyland. Work your magic, Slap Jack. Keep them a little longer laughing at the kitchen table. Sibling rivalry, you're OK, go ahead and stay. It's better to play and fight than to never play at all.

Adventures in Moving

Moving Day

We'd been planning our trip to Disney World for several months. We helped clean a local park and got free tickets through Disney's Give-a-Day, Get-a-Day program. Finally, we were heading to Orlando over Labor Day weekend. Coincidentally, Steve landed a job interview with Disney, so he coordinated it with our trip.

I enjoyed Magic Kingdom as much as I could, being eight months pregnant. I have actually never been to that park not pregnant, so I am used to swollen feet, aching back, etc. etc. of being at a theme park all day with an extra passenger.

Steve had his interview, and I didn't think much of it, as he'd had many interviews this past year. Maybe it would work out, maybe not. Whatever happened, I'm sure it would happen way after the baby was born.

Steve got a call from Disney only a few days after we returned from Orlando. He was offered a job. I was in shock. Didn't the company have a bunch of red tape it needed to cut through, a number of people to consult, many other tasks to do, taking a month or two, before they could just hire Steve? I was going on nine months pregnant! We didn't need another life change. I told Steve I was OK with moving to Orlando, but I was having the baby first, and the kids were finishing the nine weeks period at school.

Steve accepted the job and gave October 11th as his start date. Our baby was due the third, so he thought he was in the clear. Dear Steve forgot that our babies tend to be late. If our little one was two weeks late, that would put her birthday on the 14th. However, I had a good feeling about this one. I really thought she was going to be a forty-weeker. The one constant in all my pregnancies is that I start having serious pains two weeks before the birth. The pains started at 38 weeks, so I was hoping 40 weeks would be the time. Thus, I agreed to the start date of the 11th, and moving date of October eighth, after the kids got out of school. Disney did say Steve could start later if the baby didn't come in time, but he was really hoping to get a good start at his new company without having to ask for time off right off the bat.

October third came and went. Then the fourth, and the fifth... We had painters coming and going, cleaning crews, packers (who packed our stove knob by mistake), and movers. We were slowly closing up our Georgia life. One thing remained "open." Our last little Sullivan still had not arrived. We were getting nervous. We knew we weren't able to make the eighth as moving day. Maybe the ninth, or maybe Steve could go ahead without us. We were trying to figure it out, when I decided maybe I would have an induction.

A semi truck worth of stuff

I don't like inductions; I learned with my first pregnancy that Pitocin is not my friend. I realized that an induction may not even be an option, anyway, because I had had a previous c-section. We were getting desperate. We went to talk to my doctor. He said, "come in tomorrow morning, and we'll get you out of this pickle." Elated, but also nervous (I'd had all of my babies except the c-section, without medication or interventions) we left the doctor's office to prepare. Steve's mom came down to help with the kids.

As the evening went on, I told Steve we were probably going to the hospital that night. My "pains" that started two weeks prior, were organizing themselves into regular, consistent contractions. Sure enough, little Delaney Grace was born that night, October sixth at 10:33 PM. I suppose we just had to threaten her with the induction to get her to come out.

Eli, Sawyer, and Delaney

We were released to an empty house on the eighth, our original moving day. I slept on an air mattress. We decided Steve was going to Orlando on the ninth with or without us. We just had to decide if I could make the trip, or come later after resting up. Well, this being my sixth baby (and ninth pregnancy), I just didn't feel that beat up. It was an easy delivery, and she was sleeping a lot still. The house was empty, and so I decided to go ahead to Orlando with Steve the next day. Yes, you are reading this right. I birthed a baby on the sixth, and took a roadtrip on the ninth. Yes, for those of you who haven't caught on yet, we are crazy. Did you miss the fact that we now have six kids? We are still waiting on Amazon to deliver our straight jackets.

We loaded up the vehicles and said good-bye to Kilmersdon Lane. I went to use the bathroom before we left. I heard a plink and a small crashing sound. I looked down in horror to see my cell phone in the toilet. It had fallen out of my back pocket. I grabbed it and dried it off the best I could, but it was ruined. Now, I wouldn't be able to keep in contact with Steve on our road trip.

I go outside to share the news only to find that our van won't start. We had left the doors open all morning. Steve jumped the van and told me he'd meet me at Chipotle for lunch. I left him and his mom and got a head start for my burrito.

I turned the corner and drove through a big pile of glass. Great, now I could get a flat tire and not be able to call Steve. Steve and his mom would drive through this pile of glass later. So Steve's mom could get a flat on her way back to Indiana by herself.

At Chipotle, the kids and I wondered what was taking Steve and Baka (my kids' name for her) so long. Finally, they came in and told us Baka's van wouldn't start (this is a problem with Dodge minivans). We were off to a terrific start (pardon the pun).

All's well that ends well. The rest of the trip was uneventful and the baby slept through most of it as did I. Just kidding. We agreed that if I got tired we would stop. We broke the trip up into two parts. Four hours each day. Not bad for a sleep-deprived mama.

We're sort-of settled here in Orlando. We're in temporary housing and the kids aren't in school yet. We are ready for our new adventure in Florida. We'll sell our Atlanta house (hopefully), get a new one, make new friends, explore the state, but we miss our old life. It is painful, but exciting. Just like giving birth, no pain, no gain!

Eli and the view from our new balcony

We began our married life in Indianapolis. Seven years later we moved away from our home state of Indiana to the foreign land of Georgia. I was pregnant then too. New house, new job, new state... Another seven years later, here we are again. Who knows where the next seven years will take us?

Look, Mommy!

Today at Arby's Bubble Boy pointed to something and said something I couldn't make out (he is in speech therapy for intelligibility issues). I had a sense that he was pointing to someone instead of something so I was afraid to look.

I remember when I was about three or four and I was sitting in a restaurant with my younger sister and mother. My sister and I were giggling and pointing. To my mother's horror, we were giggling and pointing at someone. That someone was a black man. Thankfully, we weren't saying the "N" word. I don't even think we'd heard that word. We had heard the word "colored," however, and that is what we were giggling about.

"Mommy, look, there's a colored man. Hee hee hee."

Obviously, there weren't many "colored" men in the town in which we grew up. Obviously, we had gleaned from society or certain family members, who shall remain unnamed, that being "colored" was something to giggle at.

My mother tried her best to hush us. I don't know if the man heard us or not, but he gave no indication that he did.

I remembered this incident as I sat in Arby's with my four-year-old, hoping he wasn't pointing at someone.

"Mommy, I said look!"
"Look at what?" I said, eyes still lowered, procrastinating the embarrassment I knew was coming. Who was it? A person of color? Surely not. Bubble Boy has seen a million on t.v. not to mention the many we call friends. A disfigured person? Maybe.

No. "Look. It's an old guy."

I briefly looked out of the corner of my eye. As in my childhood memory, I couldn't tell if he heard us. I hoped he didn't. Awkward!

When I didn't respond, Bubble Boy said it again, louder. "AN OLD GUY!"

I whispered the mommy-type things. "It's not nice to point at people," etc.

Bubble Boy sulked. How could I not get excited about an old guy? Maybe he rode dinosaurs or something. What? Has my son not seen old people? To his credit, his grandparents, and even his great-grandparents, do seem young.

I know how disturbing it is that my sister and I laughed at an African American back in the seventies. Our society has come a long way. Thankfully, my sister and I did too; we grew up as sensitive, caring people who would never do such a thing nowadays.

I find it disturbing that my son thinks of an elderly man as a novelty. What does this say about our society today?

My family is planning on participating in Disney's "Give a Day, Get a Day" promotion. We have chosen a job that entails visiting and helping out the elderly. The timing is perfect.

Lately

Cumming Country Fair:

Myrtle Beach:

Little boys do not think fish heads are gross...

My three-year-old (or a wild boar) got into the cupcakes for my daughter's party.

I should've used gloves. No, I didn't kill the three-year-old. This is food coloring from kneading fondant cake icing.

Birthday cake for nine-year-old vampiress.

On My Honor....

The weekend before last I camped with my daughter's Brownie troop. I was one of two moms to "rough it" overnight with four giggling third graders. Half of the troop couldn't make it, mainly due to illness (H1N1 has made a home here in Georgia). So, it was a fairly easy gig due to the small group.

We were competing in an "Iron Chef" challenge. Each troop was given a secret ingredient and was to make a dinner to share with the other troops. Our ingredient was chicken. We planned to make chicken pot pie. The other mom, Bridget, had brought portable propane Webber grills to make the dinner on. Neither one of us had used them before. I have a Coleman stove that we use when we camp, so at least I was familiar with using propane.

The first problem was that she had brought the wrong sized propane. The Webber grill used the long, skinny cannister, and we had the short, fat one. We finally decided that shouldn't make much difference, and we used the short cannisters.

When it was time to start dinner, Bridget had to go home to check on her daughters who were sick (how great of her to follow through with her committment even after her own Brownie got sick!). Sandy came to help me with dinner. We read the directions for lighting the grill, which indicated we needed to take the lid off first. We dutifully complied, and I put my hand on the handle as shown. I pushed the ignition button. BLAM! Flames shot out the side of the grill onto my arm and toward the tent (er, sleeping shelter). I FELT the flames hit my skin and scorch off my arm hair. Fortunately, the contact was so brief, I didn't get burned. Just hair removal. I could smell the burnt hair too. In reality, the biggest problem this presented was that I now had one hairy arm and one smooth arm. At the time, however, we all stood around with our mouths open and took two steps back from the grill. I shut it off immediately.

After the shock wore off, we pondered our second problem. The "explosion" could have been caused by the wrong sized container of propane. It also could have been caused by the pans that were on top of the grill (the directions had said remove the lid; maybe these pans acted like a lid). The problem is that we didn't know which caused the arm scorch, and we were afraid to try again. Why don't direcitons tell WHY we aren't supposed to do things! Wouldn't it have been nice if Webber had said, "if you have a lid or pan on top of the grill during ignition, your face might melt off" or "if you use the wrong size of propane you could end up needing to buy a new tent while firefighters calm your hyperventilating Brownie troop."

Thankfully, I brought my trusty Coleman stove and we used that. However, we didn't have enough time to do the pot pie due to our pyrotechnic show and its ensuing confusion . We ended up making a casserole. It was still yummy, but it didn't win the competition. That honor went to "Natural Gas Chili" made by a troop who may have sucked up a little too much by giving their dish its own theme song (you might imagine some of the lyrics).

After we prepared and eaten our casserole, I found out some distasteful news. As per competition rules, the girls had to do most of the cooking and prep work. The girls took turns chopping the chicken, but one girl did the most chopping. This girl had arrived a little late to the campsite, because she needed to get cleaned up after swimming in the lake (or so I thought). It turns out she needed to change clothes and get cleaned up after having a bout of diarrhea. She was chopping the chicken! The chicken we fed to everyone there! I don't think anyone would disagree with me if I say that a third grader, who has just changed her clothes due to a fecal mishap, should not be chopping chicken.

Despite these minor blunders , I am glad I went with my daughter. She was on cloud nine when she found out I was one of the camping moms. She kept bragging to her brothers that she and mommy were going camping without them. "Without them" is probably what she relished most. Steve and I have realized over the course of parenthood so far, that our kids need to encounter occasions of "only childness." Luckily for us, it happens naturally due to the different activities our kids are involved in. So, if I ever have another opportunity to provide my child with a stint of "only childness" such as camping alone with mom, "on my honor" I will try to capture it, chicken shit and free arm hair removal withstanding.

Kids Love this Place

As part of our summer vacation this year, we visited Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. We had gone there two years before, and the kids loved it. It was last on our trip, so we were worried we'd be able to fit it in. The delight on our children's faces says it all. It should have been a priority!

There is a creek to get dirty in.
The footprints blow away in minutes- nature's Etch-a-Sketch.


It is like part desert, part beach, part flying.

Growing up Grandly

My little boy is growing up. He hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon with his Daddy on our vacation last week. They stayed at Phantom Ranch at the bottom and, after a $50 breakfast, hiked back up. When the food has to be taken down by mule, it's gonna cost ya.

They took all their food except the breakfast. They had their handy dandy backpacks with built-in water pouches. At ten, he's a bona fide hiker.

Now, fifth grade starts Monday. Next year it's middle school! I am not one of those moms who celebrate the start of the school year. Instead, I start weighing the merits of homeschooling (still afraid that might end in bloodshed). Still, I don't want to see him go!

He made it through the canyon without me. Next he may climb some peaks with Dad. I'm sure he'll do fine then too. He doesn't need Mommy for everything anymore. Fifth grade is no different, but it's all bittersweet to me. I don't want to watch him hike into the canyon without me; I am still proud of him when he does.

Scrape, Moo, Brush, Jump! (or Things We Did this Weekend)

My husband and I decided to stain our deck floor a dark natural color and our spindles and railing a white color to match the trim on our house. Steve decided he didn't like the white after a good portion of the staining was done. He then went to Lowe's for the millionth time since the project began and got some chemicals to remove the stain. He is seen here scraping off the white, which I thought looked fine, by the way. Yesterday he had to repaint the back of our house from where he accidentally sprayed stain on it. Maybe next weekend, he will actually get to stain the deck for real.

Our three littlest ones are enjoying home improvement and re-improvement at its finest. I think Bubble Boy in the middle must be scratching his head wondering why Daddy is taking perfectly good stain off the deck.

















Friday was Cow Appreciation Day at Chic Fil A. Customers who dress like cows from head to toe receive a free meal. We humiliated ourselves (or at least I was humiliated, but I didn't want to be a "cow-ard"). Our reward was six free meals. Bubble Boy fell asleep in the van, but I propped him up in the stroller and put his mask on him anyway. I wheeled him in the restaurant to get his free kid's meal. It reminded me of a scene from Weekend at Bernie's. I won't pass up a chance to save some "moo-lah"!




The kids cleaned out six months worth of Georgia clay, Goldfish, Lego guy parts, and French fries from the family truckster.












We replaced our old sofa, "Frankenstein's Monster," this weekend. I couldn't sew up the holes in the leather anymore. Until trash day, we will keep it in the garage, where it will be a substitute for one of those "jumpy places."

Bubbles to the Moon

Summer fun is brief here in the south. Yes, we do have a longer summer season, but the actual amount of time we can spend out time without dying of heat exhaustion is brief. Right now, people are jogging and hiking. Kids are playing football in the yard. In mid-July, it will look like a ghost town around here, with people looking out from air-conditioned windows. So we are enjoying summer while we can.

Target shopping the other day, my five-year-old spied the new Bubble Rocket gizmo from Gazillion. We weren't in the toy aisle. I was strategically avoiding that. The gizmo was on an end-cap of sale items. My second son snatched it up and looked at me with his "I am an adorable five-year-old who will only be five once so please indulge my childlike love of fun and curiosity and general five-year-oldishness" face. I wondered how long it would take for the Bubble Rocket to blast me off to crazy land once all the neighborhood kids came stomping along and bubble stomping fights ensued, but I told second son he could have it if he cleaned up the basement. His little chubby hands clutched the box all the way home, bubbly rocket thoughts in his head, no doubt.

Three hours and one clean basement later, we set up the Bubble Rocket in the Georgia heat. We had to move from the driveway to the grass to keep our feet from blistering. The kids had a blast, pardon the pun, but I worried about possible impalements on the rocket launching part.



Bum Rocket Launching

Free Family Film Festival

Every summer the kiddies and I look forward to free movies at the local theaters. Regal Cinemas has the Free Family Film Festival, and the local MNM Theaters has free movies as well. They start at 10 AM, and are older movies for kids and families.

Today we saw The Tale of Despereaux. I took the two neighbor kids, so I had seven kids in all. We got there twenty minutes early, because you have to get there at least that early to get seats, let alone for eight people. I saw a day-care van in the parking lot I was worried we weren't going to get seats, but there were plenty. Usually, you see those little matching shirts filing in, and forget about it. This about the third or fourth movie so far, so it wasn't as packed. You practically have to get there an hour early for the first movie of the season.

I had to take the baby out about one fourth of the way through, so I didn't really get to see the "tale." Baby just wanted to climb the steps which were so nicely lit in the darkness. Sparkly and spaced just right so he could climb down them too without falling on his chubby little face. He kept climbing too far away, so I tried to bribe him with a Sprite to sit on my lap. He slobbered on the straw and pushed it in and out of the lid to make violin-type noises. That entertained him about thirty seconds. I then tried to nurse him to sleep, because it was time for his morning nappy. No way was he going to nurse with the glittering steps and lots of people to look cute for. So we went out to the hall, where we perused the posters of movies to be released. He liked the The Ugly Truth poster. He was probably intrigued by Katherine Heigl's boobs. He let me nurse him after that.

He fell asleep, and we went in for the end of the movie. All the kiddies were still in their seats and hadn't been kidnapped.

From what I did see of the movie, it was suspenseful, and maybe a little too scary for the really young. The graphics were wonderful; it was a beautifully visual film. My daughter loves the story, which I can't speak for since I only saw the beginning and the end. Something about soup, rain, rats, mice, and a princess. Substitute boys for rats and mice, and you have my house on a cold rainy day.

http://www.regmovies.com/nowshowing/familyfilmfestivalschedule.aspx