Life With Little Kids

I had to take the four little kids for dental cleanings this week (Sebastian, Penelope and Everett –Beatrice is lucky to have no teeth yet.) It went very well but I wanted a margarita by the time it was over with. When I’m out with the kids it is an adventure and test in all kinds of parenting skills and patience. Come to think of it, it’s a test in those things at home too! I'm finding I need to reach down realllly deep for patience lately. The little boys are making me crazy. They are very free spirited. On a side note, Sebastian has been making friends lately! It's wonderful to see him be social!

Penelope warmed my heart and said all kinds of lovely things that made my world perfect and lovely. Unfortunately I can’t remember many of them. But this is one lovely thing she said:

"I know how to take care of babies. Because I know what babies need a lot of, mom. Do you know what they need a lot of?  They need a lot of love."

Last night we went to a church picnic, it was a lot of fun, met really wonderful people, lots to do... but the kids put Ricky and I through the ringer! Sebastian ran away from us 3 times and Everett is impossible to get out of a bounce house (but SO CUTE!), and Ricky and I spilled bright red snow cone all over a little kid that wasn't even ours.

Carrying an umbrella stroller & diaper bag & newborn +5 bags of chips and 5 trays of food while trying to get an angry Sebastian and bored Everett to stay in line and help carry their own stuff is way more impossible than it even sounds.

Poor Ricky enjoyed the picnic, but he was exhausted from work (up at 5am yesterday) and I told him we'd get home around 8:30 and the little kids would be asleep in the car. Well we got home at 9:30, Beatrice cried most the way, and NO little kids were asleep in the car. LOL. That my friends, is life with a gaggle of little kids! I'm still glad we went, but oh man was it an adventurous challenge. I can't wait for the look on my husbands face the next time I tell him we are going anywhere, hahaha.

Gratitude for Staying Home: A letter to my husband about being a stay at home mom and wife

  I never take staying home for granted. I never take the luxury of setting the rhythm for my day for granted. I like both organized chaos and organized non-chaos. I like daily breakfast at 8am sharp, but I also like when the kids trickle down and all eat on their own before 9:30ish. I like 10am coffee after I’ve done three loads of laundry, or after I've done nothing much but hang out with the kids, or after I write a blog post like I am right now. I like never leaving the house unless we want to. I like choosing to prep dinner at 9am, 3pm or 5pm. I like playing Legos and blocks. I like rearranging the living-room furniture for the 5th time this year. I like planning our days around the weather. I like crafts. I like napping with the baby if I need too. I like planning TV and video game time for the kids around their school work, nap time, or other things that work out best. I love organization and routine but I love flexibility too. I'm given the gift of having the schedules I want: meal times, play times, school times, garden time, craft time, and free time. I could have none of this freedom if I worked outside the home. I love living life on my own schedule -and of the schedules of the little people who I live with. The kids make up a lot of what I have to juggle, plan and balance around, but I get to set into motion the routines that work for all of us on any given day of the year. It's a powerful responsibility and I'm honored to be in charge of it. I love my life and I owe it to you, my dear husband, who I fondly remember once telling some of our children, “This house is Mom’s house, I bought it for her.”

 I really appreciate being an at-home mom and just love the way days crash, roll, ripple, flow and peak like an ocean’s waves. Peaceful, playful, loud or wild the kids and I can swim, float or sink...and we do so day-in and day-out because we stay home and follow the rhythm of life. I don’t take it for granted and I show it by being the best I can be (most days!). I enjoy keeping home-cooked food on the table (most days!), up-keeping our home, keeping our kids happy and cared for, and I do it with a smile on my face (most days). I make the bed and get dressed every morning to show gratitude for each beautiful blessed day, unless it happens to be a pajama day. In that case we might all dance around, eat chocolate, and wear pajamas -and I sigh with relief that we are free to do so. Life is crazy and sometimes hard, but it's a free spirited kind of crazy. Thank you, Ricky. I love you.

 

Clean Houses, Bathroom Mishaps, Moms Need to Eat

So I had an awesomely-horrible mishap today. I was gone for a few hours to take Sebastian to the dentist. When I left I told the kids what snacks they could have while I was gone, one being string cheese. Everett (2) cries if he doesn’t get string cheese even though he only takes one bite of it and then sets it down.  When I get home I rush into the bathroom from being gone all morning and as I’m washing my hands I notice string cheese on the counter, one bite taken out.  I instantly know Everett left it there, probably sat it down to use the bathroom and forgot about it. As I take a bite and swallow Charlotte knocks on the door, “Mom I have something to tell you.” I jokingly say, “Is it that I’m eating your cheese stick?”  She exclaims, “Mom are you eating that…? Mom, DON’T EAT THE CHEESE STICK THAT’S IN THERE!" I open the door laughing knowing I'm in trouble. "Oh God did it fall in the toilet?" “No, but Everett peed on it, I forgot to throw it away.” I see the humor, I see how gross and unclassy I am for eating off the bathroom counter. I somewhat deserved what I got. I threw it away and had a drink of water. Never a dull moment.

Now in case you don’t know, moms eat leftovers from their kids all of the time. It’s a thing we do. If we didn’t do this we’d waste 50% of the food we bought at the store. Sometimes we do it out of convenience, other times out of pure hunger, other times to prevent waste (I do it for all three reasons). This is not the first time it’s backfired either. Sometimes you discover that you bite into their half-eaten hairy apple, or drink orange juice with pancake at the bottom. Sometimes you think you’ll finish someone’s cereal and find hidden eggs in it.  It’s a dangerous job, but moms get hungry.  

Tonight I was cleaning up for the billionth time this week and remembered that I loved it when a few weeks ago Charotte (16) said, “I see household tips online for cleaning and organizing and big families... sometimes I read through them and think geez we do all these, or have done them at some point, already.” It cracked me up. It’s true though; I’ve tried and do all kinds of things to make life easier and just making running a large household easier. Sometimes you’ve exhausted all the tricks of the trade and the only thing that helps is good old fashioned hard work and the desire not to live in utter chaos.

I was cleaning the bathroom for the third time in a week (toilet, sink and floor…yes 3 times a WEEK) and thought about that cute sign/door mat that says ‘My house was clean last week, sorry you missed it’

I need one that says ‘My house was clean yesterday, sorry you missed it.' When you have nine people living under one roof, I kid you not, that’s how fast things change around here. 

Many Layers of Sky and Sand

I have a really good habit of sending my children out to play on nice days. Limited school work (or none) on nice days. Just go and play...

Yesterday we played all day. Charlotte and I also worked on sanding an old neat desk we are going to paint this weekend and make new again.

Charlotte sanding

It was Ricky's desk and I've kept the beat up, scratched up ol' thing all these years waiting to make it new again. I started sanding it when Everett was about five months old. That didn't last long. I quickly gave up when the loud sander wasn't compatible with baby. I have lots of projects, like hundreds, I don't finish because a baby won't let me. I also get too tired of doing 10 minute jobs here, 20 minute jobs there during naps. It's tiring trying to sand a desk in 10 minute intervals every other day! But I always keep dreaming up projects and gardening and painting and doing...slowly. I love it. Every year I also daydream of times when I won't have interruptions from young children needing something -and pulling at me to nurse while I'm busy. But when I daydream I don't do so because that's what I really want. I don't really want it to happen at all. As much as I want the freedom to get done what I want to get done when I want to, it doesn't compare to  these moments right here ...



When I'm with my children I breath softer, enjoy more, laugh louder,
play harder, and live more fully through innocent eyes



The sky over my world

nursing in the sky

I enjoyed a day to do what I wanted outside; I enjoy watching the kids and working on a project for me. When Everett wanted me we just laid down right there on the blacktop for a nurse break. When I finish this desk I'll always remember it as one of the last things I did while he was a little baby. On beautiful days under beautiful skies slowly I sand, and nurse, and sand, and nurse... and I'm so content.



The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy - it's all that matters. -Audrey Hepburn

I promise there isn't a day that goes by that I don't appreciate this life.... these kids, my husband, the freedom I'm given, the family I am blessed with, the joy I feel, the magic and love *I* get to hold from my babies and children. I'm so thankful for the time I get to reflect on it now, to photograph it, to write about it...because time is whirling by, but not without me knowing it.

Layla after school day 5, homeschool art & online time...

We had a really nice time at our homeschool playgroup today. We had to leave early to get home for Layla to get off the bus. We all thought it was strange not having Layla with us, she really would have enjoyed today. I was thankful that when she arrived home she didn't look as tired as yesterday evening.

She has a lot of homework. She has spelling and sight words to memorize by Thursday on top of some class work she didn't get done because in her words, "My teacher was too busy to help me so she said for you to help me at home." I kept my growling on the inside. So we had to do two phonics pages and had a small paper school book to read. With Charlotte this was a huge sore spot. In my opinion public schools don't have a good enough teacher to student ratio.  If you ask me kids should do school at school and not at home. In addition, I believe children should have homework very infrequently (besides reading) and I'm pretty much against spelling tests until 3rd grade or later (or when they want to sit for them). Wait! I'm pretty anti test in general (for many kids until older grades, every kid is different though of course). For these reasons and more we homeschool. But seriously, duh, if we liked the system: the homework, the hours, the tests, the sitting, our kids would all be in it. We don't, so they aren't. I asked her if she likes school, she still does. She has P.E. all week, she doesn't know why. I'm sure glad. Kids need to move around.

The first four days I was so glad she said she liked school. I'm already starting to get antsy for her to come home. I'd be much more relaxed if public schools didn't grade everything by tests and a standard. My kids are not standard. My kids are individuals. Boo standard. :(

Other things:

Art

When I signed Layla up for school last week the office ladies were super nice and even really nice about homeschooling. They inquired about what we did for music, art and P.E. I went into a several things we've done for music and P.E. over the years (homeschool band, recorder, piano, soccer, homeschool P.E., gymnastics, dance) but the conversation trailed into a different direction from there. I later realized I didn't touch on art. Art is very important in our house, VERY important! The kids do art everyday. We are also a super crafty family as well. Yesterday Charlotte, Sage and Ethan drew for three or more hours. I know at least the boys were working on the same picture the entire three hours! Ethan has been drawing for a very long time and using tons of tutorials online for years. He has read and done so many of them that he can recite some like an art teacher; I hadn't realized to what extent until yesterday. They boys sat next to each other and Ethan helped Sage step by step to draw a magnificent dragon. They first started with lines and circles, then connected them, then added detail, definition and then finally color. Sage used water color pencils to colorband paint his piece. I was stunned! Listening to Ethan explain everything was amazing! He really knew what he was talking about. Sage made a few alterations here and there to his picture (wanted his wings different) and Ethan supported him with kind remarks and encouragement. When Sage thought he had messed up on part of his picture I helped show him how to hide his mistake; he was so grateful and impressed. :) I cut out about half the stuff they were going to do for the day because they were just enjoying what they were doing so much. They were quiet, learning, engrossed, and happy.

Sebastian

Sebastian (3) just climbed over to Everett (1) rubbed his head and said, "Hi little cutey guy."

I just love that.

Online

I've gone 8 days without logging into facebook! I'm still feeling like facebook would be a distraction to me so I don't really have a lot of desire to log back on yet. I feel less *distracted. It's unfortunate because I do miss some things about it. :( I love the sense of community, keeping up with family, news updates, reading about things that both matter to me and don't matter to me, reading about friends, getting updates about sales, I miss wasting time, Etc. I just don't have the time. I don't know what I would have done having never watched the honey badger video on youtube, Antoine Dodson (I heart him), the only good Mighty Putty parody out there, Chuck Testa's commercial, or read the latest update from lamebook.com. (I just listed the most hilarious stupid guilty pleasures of my life.) And I can still see funny things, read emails, visit all the same websites...I'm just not ready to let the FB stream in my head again.

All I know is that each day ends with me not having time to sew, iron, paint, wash my hair or make pie. (All things I've wanted to do lately.) Everyday since Sunday I've told the kids, "We'll do science tomorrow." Everyday something has come up. I can't fit something into my life that I don't have time for. Not right now.  In eight days time I've been on the computer an average 1 hour per day. That's it. (Mostly blog related!)

Blogging is easy. Hardly anyone reads it and it feels good because I do it for me. Most importantly it's a keepsake I can save.

*What do I mean with my by "less distracted?" I mean more present with my family and my life. I feel like I'm not being pulled away to do or see other things anymore. I feel more focused. Facebook was like leaving the TV on all day and letting it filter in whatever it wanted to, accept worse. It served so many functions: humor, procrastination, socialization, news, education, shopping/sales updates. If I wanted to learn about my friends and family that was fun, but I'd get chatty and comment to everything. If I saw something funny I'd watch it. If I saw a good sale or product I liked I'd then spend time window shopping. I like the fast change. I change activities at home quickly, I'm an avid multitasker and I bore easily. If you watch me sometime, I don't sit still for long. I come from a long line of family members that are busy and piddle around the house constantly. It's what we do. The internet in general provides my brain with a constant stream of newness, facebook just put it all in one place.

Also, I wanted to be sympathetic to every persons stomach flu, ruined dinner plans, stressful day and sick dog. I commented or "liked" on every cute baby, good day, and fun outing. I liked the SOCIAL part. That's kinda the point of SOCIAL networking. It slowly just became too time consuming and distracting for me. So until I'm sure I can get on and off once a day without getting distracted I'm going to keep up with my break, it's so good for me!

Goodnight blogger land...

My life called, it wants my full attention back

My family needs my full attention this week. And the week after, and forever. I decided they did.

I decided in part because facebook is way too distracting for me and I spend way to much time online during week days and nights. Last night I abruptly decided I'd go the rest of the week, Tuesday the 17th through Sunday the 22nd, without logging in once.

My decision was so abrupt that today I asked my hubby to log into my account and let friends and family know they can reach my on email only. I made the decision last night when I got bummed out that I had too many unfinished projects. I went to the basement to look for a can of paint -to start another project- and realized what a mess the basement was becoming again. I had Halloween stuff still piled in a corner waiting to be packed back into bins, Easter eggs lay dumped from a basket, winter clothes were everywhere, and Christmas stuff now blocked all those things. Winter clothes were sticking out of plastic tubs as a sign that pretty much anything we needed from the past 6 months hadn’t made it back into it's neat and tidy mold proof containers. Sometimes I feel so defeated by life. I try so hard and I work so hard towards an organized and tidy home that I get bummed when I see a sloppy lazy mess like that. So last night I started cleaning up the storage corner and repacking everything away. In my frenzy I realized that I can not expect to do everything I do with as many distractions as I seem to have by getting online. I made the decision right there to do the things I really want to do this week instead of numbing my mind on the web.

I use the internet to "check out" during crazy kid weeks and hectic but boring days. My mind numbing outlet is internet consumption, like lots of people do with TV or video games. I spend almost no time watching TV so most of my screen time is the internet. On any given day between about 7am and 11pm I’ll spend 3-5 hours reading facebook related posts. This includes news stories, health stories, funny cartoons, funny websites, watching youtube videos, talking to friends via posts (I don’t chat), reading blogs, and searching for any other interesting things I learn about along the way. That time frame probably applies to email use, Pintrest and maybe even writing some blog posts. (All of which are not huge time sucks for me.) Email is quick for me, Pintrest I’m in and out easily even though I LOVE it, writing blogs I enjoy and are beneficial because they are written for our family. I love writing. I love documenting our life. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t day dream about my kids and their kids’ kids and their kids’ kids reading about our life. (Technically writing is computer usage, not internet usage. It only takes a second of internet to post.)

So, I was pondering over why Facebook is such a time suck for me. The constant changing, constant newness and never ending entertainment pulls me in. It’s like all those projects I start up and eventually finish, but only after I start 15 more at a time. I’m not content. The attention deficit, talkative Aries in me loves the constant change as well as interesting surroundings, people and scenery. I truly want to know what my friends and loved ones are doing, but I also want to know everything else in between. It’s part entertainment that I can get on any given day and at any given time and it’s part procrastination -when I’m just tired of washing 10 loads of laundry throughout the week with a biting, cranky teething baby on my hip I just wanna sit and rebel against it!

Ahh procrastination. How I love thee.

Not really. Procrastination makes me feel yucky. Not only am I not getting something done, that cranky baby is often times a really happy baby.

I stopped to think all this over and asked myself what I was trying to avoid. Sure I get tired of certain things, everyone does no matter what they do or how much they love it. When I avoid things I get concerned that I’m “avoiding life” and/or I’m procrastinating because I’m not happy with my life. In short I had a talk with myself and I’m happy... I love staying home, cooking, baking, keeping house, playing with kids all day, homeschooling, I adore my husband, I love being a mom... I just need to get my priorities straight.

Most important priorities: Husband/ kids, school, house. According to this formula internet should never be the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning.

So I asked myself what I should fill my morning with instead. Coffee. 
I’m kidding (mostly). Seriously though, I came up with things I say I never have time for: exercise, stretching, shower, pedicure, plucking my eyebrows, getting dressed, curling my hair, ironing my apron (yes I just said that -I have this one apron that is so cute but it comes out of the wash looking like crap).

Magically I realized all of those things have to do with … ME. Taking care of myself. What an amazing self discovery!

What I mainly realized is it’s just a bad habit to check facebook and stay on reading things...and then to go back and check it again and again. Just a habit. When do I check it? When I first wake up, after breakfast, when I nurse the baby, before lunch, after lunch, nursing baby again, in the evening for *just a minute*, and at night when everyone is in bed. Each and every time I nurse the baby I stay on for a half hour or more. Instead while I nurse Everett I could be checking the kids’ school papers, reading to the the kids, writing something of real substance (like blogs!), OR laying down with the baby for a moment of being still and quiet. It’s okay to be still and quiet. I'm a go-go-go person, I want constant stimulation it seems like. I may have the brain of a 3 year old.

Today I was on the internet for about 25 minutes total, not including tonight while writing this. Most of that was spent printing up worksheets for the kids. My life feels better already and I have no idea how I could have spared another second of time for anything else today. I didn’t even spend as much time with Penelope and Sebastian as I wanted to. (But we made BIG gingerbread boy cookies together at least.) It was a long, busy day. Dinner was even served late (I made ginger-honey-chicken with broccoli and rice).

I want 3-5 hours of my life back, I have a lot of use for it.

Lots of changes ahead.
This is just the tip of the ice berg though, big change I need to put on paper tomorrow... (no not a baby!)




Follow up to no facebook for 6 days. Posted 1-23-12

When I wrote the first sentence of this blog post I had no idea how true that statement was

"My family needs my full attention this week." 

Soon after that Layla stated public school and with it a whirlwind of events and emotions trickled down. Cutting out facebook from my daily routine is the best thing I've done in a long, long time. It changed my life. My focus was on my household, my husband, my children and my writing and logging of day to day things I like to record for our memories. 

I miss everyone on FB but it's over shadowed by how I miss Layla right now so it makes it easier.

Today is my official day I'm "allowed" to log back on to facebook and I don't desire too. I desire to see my friends, but I don't desire to lose the time. There was a time that Sage, 12, couldn't play video games. It took his attention from too many other things...it made him agitated, and scatterbrained. It made him unhappy more than it made him happy. I saw that pattern with how much I used facebook. It's so good for so many reasons, but it's bad for me for lots too. The only real thing I've decided is that I can't spend any daytime hours logging into it. It's just too time consuming for me because I have the computer at my fingertips all day with homeschool stuff so it's just too easy for me to get on and stay on. 

My husband recently told me he is only checking his work email twice a day. He was in the habit of checking it as emails come in or every half hour... it was really distracting to what he was already doing. This is exactly what I was letting myself do with facebook. If I was checking: the weather, had a recipe to look up, needed to look up a medical question or a history question, if I had a kids school worksheet to print up or a learning site for the kids to log into I did it all while "peeking" at facebook "real quick." Sometimes it was real quick, other times (many times) it wasn't. It was so distracting. 

My life, my focus, my happiness, my routine is 100x better when I do not have that distraction! 

Having a wonderful time

I never stopped to love this view when I lived here. You bet I do now. My first home.

Day 1: Made Christmas candles and rosette cookies with my mom and Grandma Smith. Took mini hike in the desert and had a cactus scavenger hunt.
At 8:30pm we did Polar Bear Club at my dads -a family tradition every 10 years we jump into a 35 degree swimming pool. (omg it was WAY worse than I remember!)

Day 2: Christmas surprises galore ...life changing surprises! I will write more when I can! Amazing!!! Lots of family time, lots of blessings, lots of love.

Day 3 family pictures with 35 people! Tonight off to The Tournament of Kings show at the Excalibur. An amazing live action dinner show with dancing maidens, jousting, fireworks, and eating with your fingers! It's my favorite! I've waited a long time to take our kids! 31 of us are going! Then I want to show the kids the volcano eruption at the Mirage.

Desert hike

Polar Bear Club photo...getting ready to go in, most of us in clothes

Could NOT have planned this photo. I snapped it just the right moment. My dad and my husband lol!
They are getting fired up for Polar Bear Club

Christmas Day My husband and Dad still messing with the COLD pool! Ricky was jumping in the spa (not pictured) between cold pool dips, the kids were enjoying a hot spa dip as well.

Kids X mas morning

Follow up about the life changing surprises Click Here

The Googly Eye

We have lots of these jumbo googly eyes for crafts. Layla came into the kitchen a couple days ago while I was cooking, her hands were over her eyes and she said, "Mom I can see you..." she then stuck out her tongue and a giant googly eye was there. I told her she was very funny. A few minutes had passed and I'm in my cooking groove stirring my food and thinking about what to do next, suddenly I was hit hard with a whapppp sound across my back and side. It really hurt! I spun around and started to say, "WHAT the..." And there she was wide eyed, scared, pointing to her face, and waving her arms frantically. No sound and no air. She was choking. I spun her around and as I got ready to do the Heimlich maneuver I heard a little air slip through her throat, there was a slight wheezing now. She gasped what air she could, she started choking with a small amount of sound. I reassured her, "You are getting it up, I can hear it, keep coughing, I hear sound now, it's ok. Keep doing that..." She started making gagging sounds and I continued to reassure her she was getting it up. "Good! Throw up," I cheered on. She spit up some chocolaty saliva (chocolate covered pretzels was snack that day) and then finally *SPLAT* a big googly eye hit the kitchen floor. My eyes teared up in relief and my sense of humor laughed at the ridiculousness of a googly eye staring back at me in a pile of chocolate drool. Layla's first gasping words were, "I want and rag and drink of water." As we wiped her off and she took a drink I hugged her and told her that was the scariest funniest thing I'd ever seen at one time. We looked over at the googly eye and the puppies had licked up all the chocolate drool and were now sliding the googly eye around the floor with their tongues. We laughed and laughed in a heap of relief.

At the car wash....friendly people and poop tales

So this definitely falls under the category of "life with six kids"

Today after playgroup I stopped by the car wash. We did the drive through tri-color thing and then headed for the DIY car vacuum. I seriously don't think I've vacuumed this van since we got it. It was a horrible mess (took me 4 cycles of paying the vacuum machine .75 to finish it!) So during my vacuuming some of the kids ran around in a nice grassy spot and some kids stayed in the van as I worked. I met eyes with the guy at the vacuum station next to me and I said hi to him. (I say hi to nearly everyone) He was a friendly man in his 40's he said hi back. Inbetween my vacuum shutting off on me he asked, "How many kids you got over there?" [lol] I answered back with one hand, "Five."
He asked, "And one one the way too!?"
I laughed, "Yup, I think we're done now though..."
He then said, "I'd say so! But who am I to talk? I'm one of nine, big families are nice."
When he left he wished me good luck.

I happily continued paying the over priced vacuum that kept shutting off on me. I love when I hear positive things about big families. I also like (most the time not all the time) the attention in public. It does sometimes make me feel self conscious though. I'm afriad people think I'm selfish or irresponsible. Or that I lack the education to use birth control. [lol] Lots of people assume we do it for religious reasons, some people thing we are just plain nuts. We really just love having kids.

Anyway, back to the carwash because the fun part now begins:
Penelope and Sage have been all over the front seat, the windshield wipers are going because Penelope turned them on. A water bottle is spilled all-over the passengers seat, and I'm trying to get the van mats back in place. I head towards Penelope, who is in the drivers seat, to put her in her car seat and I notice she smells. I lay her down and change her. While I'm changing her (and before I can get a new diaper on her) Charlotte moves about in the van climbing seat to seat and fights with Sage, after I holler for her to take a seat she accidentally hits Layla in the lip and Layla bleeds. While I check on things Penelope in the meantime is unattended in the drivers seat diaperless. By the time I get back to Penelope she has pooped more -all over the drivers seat! Thank goodness I had just put a new pack of disposable wet wipes in the van this morning. I used lots. She had it on her leg, feet, butt, seat...

Then after I clean her up (still diaper less) I toss her to the middle of the van so I can clean the seat. By the time I clean the van seat up she has pooped on the van floor. At this point I look around me... is anyone watching this spectacle? Thank goodness no. I'm the only one in the parking lot of the car wash. We load up and I laugh to myself. I also thought to myself what endearing friends and family members have told me before about having all these kids; "If anyone can do it you can."

Thanks. :) They have no idea how meaningful those words are at times like this.
At that point I also realized the garden was not getting worked on this afternoon. There is always tomorrow.