Peace and Quiet

We survived Thanksgiving. In addition to my big family, we've also added four spouses and so far, six grandkids. (No more from this household, rest assured!) To say that it's a bit crowded at family gatherings is an understatement. Luckily we get along well enough to tolerate each other for 4+ days. At one point the cousins were running like crazy through the house and SHRIEKING. What is it with girls screaming?! It drives me insane and I'm used to it. Unlike the dogs in the surrounding four counties and my dad. I went into the living room after the madness had gone to sleep and apologized for all the noise. His answer wasn't at all what I expected: "Well, they aren't hurting anything. You wouldn't believe how quiet it will be on Sunday." It's another one of life's ironies. I don't know how many times I've said, "What I wouldn't give for a moment of PEACE around here!" and our parents have all the peace in the world now--and it's too quiet. :( The girls will be gone in about fifteen years. Which is nothing compared to the (hopefully) 30ish years we'll have later. I often remind R that he'll miss all the toys under his feet 24/7 but once again, it's hard to appreciate it at the time.

So during this holiday season, I'm going to try to appreciate the daily FLEETING moments that drive me insane:

1. EVERY morning at 6:15 I hear an elephant running through the house, the bathroom door is flung open, and a little face appears at the shower door, wiping steam away: "What you doing, Mom?" Hmmm, same thing I was doing yesterday at this time without any privacy. She then plops down on a rug and watches the show. Thank goodness she's only two and not old enough to ask too many questions about what she and Sassy did to my body.

2. I've also found that I'm either going to have an audience while I'm doing my business in the bathroom or endure a constant, "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom," on the other side of the door. I'm not sure which is worse.

3. I have ZERO time to myself on my commute to work. One is dropped off at daycare and two minutes later, I'm getting out of the car with the other one who spends about five minutes at my work before the bus picks her up. Now this could be great quality time but it's usually spent listening to never-ending stories about princesses and cupcakes and constant fighting over whose turn it is to talk. I'd just like a turn to listen to the radio.

5. I now know why my dad was so cranky in the evenings. He didn't have DVR. It is impossible to watch anything with kids. I feel like our TV is on permanent pause and two hours later, the time is up and we still aren't ready to watch it.

6. My parents always had a "circle" in the house that was great fun growing up. We have one too. And it's apparently still fun decades later to run through rooms, chase each other and scream like wild animals. Maybe we should have sold our house after all. . .

7. I sound really selfish saying this next one because it would have been a vacation for my mom to grocery shop with two kids, but wow, I would love to have one trip ALONE. Actually, it's usually not too bad. But I just had surgery and I can't lift Stinkus into a cart. It's ugly. I don't think Sassy's fingers ever left the cart when she was little. Stinkus is lucky to be in the same AISLE as the cart. I wasn't sure whether to be nervous that someone would take her or grateful if someone did. Just kidding. Kind of. :) Man, I was worn out. Again, I used to laugh at parents who put their kids on leashes. . .

I have to remember that someday, in the not-so-distant future, grocery shopping and car rides will feel lonely. I'll miss that little Peeping Tom who greets me in the morning and wants to climb in the shower so I can "hemi-hemi!" Someday there will be nothing on TV and all the time in the world to watch it because there are no toys to pick up. And I don't want to be sad about it. I want to enjoy all the chaos now and send my girls off to live the rest of their lives--and then enjoy the rest of our life together. What's really sad is I'm going to look even worse in the shower. . .

Fortunes

I've always loved fortune cookies. Well at least the fortunes inside. I'm not convinced that anyone actually eats the cookie. . . Some are amusing, some thought provoking, some frighteningly intuitive. As with lots of things, kids have given me a new perspective on fortune cookies and there's a whole new reason they're fun: I get a huge kick out of Sassy. She has become the fortune cookie expert who emphatically declares “That's not a fortune!” when someone gets a less than desirable peek into the future. Oh, the irony when our last visit to a Chinese restaurant resulted in Sassy getting: “Have a nice day.” HAHA! I laughed SO hard as she pouted and scowled. She's right. That's SO not a fortune.

I've been carrying one around in my wallet for a while now: “You will be fortunate in every way.” I loved it. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It might be one of my favorite holidays. There's no extra pomp and circumstance. No exchanging presents, no dying eggs, no shooting off fireworks. Just family and food. LOTS of food. “I should have worn elastic” amounts of food. And of course, giving thanks. Something we should honestly do all year long. It's nice though to set aside a day to acknowledge how blessed we are—because at times, it can be hard to remember on the other 364. I know that I often forget—when my molehills are growing into mountains and life's curveballs keep coming. Unfortunately it's easy to let life's tragedies and hard-knocks overshadow the many blessings. So I love this fortune. It's been a nice reminder every time I open my wallet that I AM fortunate to be living this life. Even when I'm opening my wallet at the pump to fork over $3 a gallon. Which sadly would be “cheap”. . .

And how cool is this. . . the other night while Sassy was sulking about her fortune and doing her best to NOT “have a nice day,” I cracked open my fortune cookie: “You will be fortunate in every way.” Now, maybe getting two of the same fortunes says we eat at this particular Chinese restaurant a little too much. Maybe there are thousands of people walking around with the same mass-produced fortune tucked in their wallets. But I like to think that I was destined to have that fortune—and it's only fitting that I have multiple ones. Just like our blessings. :)

Happy Thanksgiving! And have a nice day. HA!

Hallo-Mean

This year, we had a mermaid, a pumpkin, and two "mean" parents. No masks necessary.

This parenting thing is hard work. Or maybe I put too much pressure on myself. I'm no expert by any means so I often find myself questioning my decisions: wondering how something will affect these little people we're raising or how it will come back to bite me in the years to come.

Last Halloween, we had an absolute blast. We went with some of our best friends to a nearby (rich) neighborhood and went door-to-door filling our buckets until they were too heavy for little hands to carry. The streets were filled with trick-or-treaters, as my friend put it, "like something out of a movie." The quintessential Halloween. It was a great time.

Which made things difficult when Halloween rolled around this year. We struggled with what to do. Was it more important to have fun or more important to do the "right" thing and only go to homes we know? Would we forever ruin Halloween if we didn't let our kids go back and experience the perfect Halloween?

Well, after much discussion, we decided to make our children hate us and only go to homes we know. No, we didn't go to as many places as last year and no, we didn't get as much candy, and yes, it was a huge pain getting in and out of carseats at each stop. (No door-to-door in our "neighborhood" out in the boonies.) But we discovered some hidden blessings in being the "mean" parents. We introduced ourselves to some new neighbors that we've been meaning to meet; Halloween gave us an excuse to stop. We got to visit with our neighbors who have been married for 60+ years and never have trick-or-treaters. Doug exclaimed, "We were hoping you'd stop! I told Gail to get some candy!" I know the girls made their night.



We got the "special" treatment at Sassy's librarian's house--who happens to be my dear friend--because we got to go IN and visit unlike all the other trick-or-treaters on the porch.



Another friend was SO excited that we were coming. She and her teenage daughter never have trick-or-treaters. I don't know what was cuter, seeing the girls walk up her steps, or seeing Michelle rush back in the house and stage the scene. "Oh, who could it be? Ohhhh, trick or treaters!"



Sassy did complain a few times that she didn't get as much candy but I told her to look again: her bucket was full of love. Not sure she bought that one.

But my heart was full. It's hard to move away from family and friends, especially after you have kids. But then you find people who love you, and love your kids, and become your family away from home. And I hope that after a few years, THIS will become our quintessential Halloween. I guess if it makes me the mean parent by taking my kids to see people who love them, then I'm guilty as charged.