Midsummer Night

I am eating my Peanut Butter Captain Crunch as various minutiae orbit my mind. The peeling laminate on the drawer, the baby in the photo, the loud washing machine containing the VBS shirts that need to be clean by tomorrow. I should brush my teeth and go to bed, but some nights, like this one, delay me. What is the thing I should be doing instead of sleeping?

I am too tired to think of it. Pull away, brush the teeth. The bed will stop the searching, unless my pillow puts the answer in my head.

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?

11:00 PM

It is eleven o'clock. I need to be asleep. I have to get up early to take the freeloaders to scout camp.

Alas, laundry needs to be folded. Spiderman underwear and Cinderella nighties don't care that I should be in dreamland now.

Lunches need to be made. Bologna sandwiches with two slices of cheese and a smidge of Duke's mayo could care less how tired I am.

I have procrastinated long enough with email, Facebook, and watching fireflies through the window (who also don't care that I have to sleep soon).

Every night my life is punctuated by the arrival eleven o'clock. I feel that dreadful tug of time at its end. Time I want to spend but it is already spent. I must pay the debt of sleep, and sometimes like a child, I avoid it.

ZZZZ

The Girl I Used to Be

I don't want to BE the girl I used to be; I want to HIRE that girl to load my dishwasher.

I used to be organized, with my towels straight and cans lined up a la Sleeping with the Enemy. I used to be on time, showered, and dressed. I used to wear make-up. I used to clean. Now I am not that girl anymore. Now I am a woman with a family, not big by Dugger standards, but sizable. The woman I am now doesn't have time to do the aforementioned things because I am too busy looking for lost Bionicles, fastening Spiderman masks, and making cinnamon play dough. These are things that are more important to me now than cleaning and preening. The woman I am now would rather look for Bionicles than dust bunnies. However, when the kids start naming the dust bunnies, I know I need the girl I used to be.

Sure, I enlist the children to help with the dust bunnies and Mount Laundry. They all have chores, and this is part of parenting. It is good for the kids, but for me it is like an itch in the center of my back that I can't quite reach. It only gets a little scratched. Well, the kids only get the house a little clean.

That's why I want to clone myself, but not my current self. I want the self who doesn't feel guilty about scrubbing, folding, and filing. She doesn't feel guilty because she doesn't have any kids to feed/bathe/read to/teach. She is a clean freak, an organizer from the Martha Stewart school, and she still has time to read and look pretty. She can do all my household errands and chores while I have time to be the woman I am now, a mom.