The Hold Up

Sometimes I get something stuck in my head that I want to put on the blog and when I can't figure out how to do it, I have a major toddler meltdown and ignore my blog.  Very mature, I know. 

Aunt Daphne made this fantastic DVD of Gujei Kathy's very fun dinner party complete with captions and music and I WANT to put it on the blog.  However, I can NOT figure out how to do that so I guess I can NOT do it.

We are week 6 of summer.  Although just last week it felt like time was flying, this week it feels like time came to an abrupt stop.  We're all bored.  Lots of friends are gone this week.  The neighbors didn't invite us to go swimming with them last night even though my three sweaty children stood just outside their fence staring at them swim while I started mowing the lawn. (I would have made them stop staring, but in their defense the neighbors invited them to swim twice last week without the staring).  Sunday night I had a headache/stomachache and my son had a sleepover.  NOT a good combination.  Last night my son had a headache and refused to admit that he could be TIRED.  I don't know where he gets that.  When I told him I understood how he felt because I had felt that way the night before, he asked me what I did to make it better.  My response:  "I laid down for a while and yelled at people".  He didn't even smile.

A friend said that we are only about halfway through summer yesterday and I honestly felt bummed.  I know that summer is short and I should soak up every minute, but there was a lot of whining yesterday and I'm running out of ideas to stop it.

Daddy's on another Texas-bound plane.  We do have stuff to do.  Sarah's squeezing in one last play date with her bff before she (Grace) goes off to visit her aunt for a few days.  Her brother is already on a trip with his grandparents.  Hannah's bff is staying with her grandparents this week too.  Notice a trend?  Just reminders that our grandparents are far, far away.  Although one set will be here in two weeks and the other will be here in a month, that is little consolation to these little guys right now.  Max is getting a haircut.  See?  Jam packed schedule.  I think the real problem is that we were so busy these last five weeks that we forgot how to just be still.  We'll work on that.

I've stopped using the blog as a venting spot lately because I do have eventual plans to print much of it as memory books for the kids.  I've even thought about going back to our picture archives and posting a few things from Nathan's babyhood that were pre-blog.  I was much better those first two or three years about writing things down on the calendars and baby books that are now untouched and un-updated in the basement.  I did go through the boxes and sort them into three separate ones a few weeks ago.  It mostly made me feel sad for Sarah that her baby book is almost entirely blank.  I know the blog is a sort of replacement, but most baby books don't include spots for rants about how mommy is about to lose her mind and needs a break from baby.  Not the ones I've found anyway.

So I've been going through old posts that I find less baby bookish and turning them into drafts.  The same place this one will go when I'm ready to print, I suppose.  I wouldn't mind the kids reading about the less than pleasant parts of our daily life at some point.  I mean, they know.  They live here.  I do feel like there has to be some editing though.  Usually these posts are just the feelings of the moment and they pass.  These posts are therapeutic to me, but I realize that may not be the case for my children then they are older.  Well, I guess at least they'll have some sort of hand out for their therapists should they end up like these 20 somethings in the article my friends have been posting in blogs and on facebook about how parents these days make kids so happy that they don't know how to handle day to day disappointments of real life.  I'm fairly certain that as parents we are way too real for them to end up like that, but sometimes I catch myself trying too hard to fix everything. 

Due to reading the horrific story about an 8 year old boy walking home in Brooklyn and a recent e-mail from our home owner's association about a suspicious vehicle with suspicious persons watching children in our neighborhood, I am feeling much less confident about letting the kids continue to have some of the freedom I've given this summer.  A couple of weeks ago, I let Nathan ride his bike to his friend's house in the neighborhood.  He came back three times to ask directions.  I was just beginning to question that decision when I learned that he made it safely.  I know he was nervous, but he was also proud that he did it by himself.  I don't know that I'm comfortable letting him do it again now.  Now that we got that e-mail.  The suspicious person might have been watching when he rode his bike a few weeks ago, but I didn't know.  Now that I know, it feels very irresponsible to let him go again.  It is such a messed up world, but that isn't new.  The constant bombardment with information and bad news is what is new.  The tendency for people to look the other way and mind our own business is new.  I have to say that I am not always on the look out for suspicious persons.  I'm not sure I would notice if anyone was watching children in the neighborhood.  But today as I jogged along behind my kids riding their bikes through the neighborhood, I was watching and thinking about it.  I know I need reminders to be aware and I've used these reminders as chances to talk to my kids about what to do in case of _________ moments, but it sucks.  Just five minutes of the Detroit news is a reminder that we live in a nice little suburban bubble and I should be very thankful for the safety I've taken for granted.  It is also a reminder to pray and pray and pray.

So although it may not always be apparent from the blog, life is still real here.  According to the ENT we visited a few weeks ago, our youngest has significant hearing loss due to fluid on her ears and will be scheduled for adenoid removal and tubes.  We decided to wait until after summer's over to keep her from missing out of 3 weeks of swimming.  That would be torture for this one.  We're waiting to hear back on the ENT's travel schedule and then to match it up with our Daddy's travel schedule in September.  Challenging.

Another unpleasant reality this summer is the tick bite and subsequent illness Joe has been dealing with for weeks now.  He's living with a third round of antibiotics, pain that won't go away and really scary google searches.  For a very active, traveling, busy man, the prescription of rest doesn't really work.  Again we just pray.

Be still and know... Psalm 46:10