Sunset Swim for Two

One of the only disadvantages to having a lot of children is that it’s very difficult to spend quality time with each one. There’s never enough Mommy to go around. Our play is usually group centered instead of individually tailored. Most of my time seems to be spent meeting everyone’s physical needs- clean diapers, clean clothes, full bellies, etc.- which means that less of my time can be spent fulfilling everyone’s emotional needs. As a result, I often sit down after a long, busy day and reflect on how disappointed I am that I wasn’t able to connect with one or more of my kids on a more personal level, even though we were together from sun-up until sun-down.

A mom with this type of problem has to make the most of her opportunities. And that’s just what I did today. While Johnny was in the midst of a three-hour power snooze, Josie and Jamie were boycotting their afternoon naps and I was concocting a secret plan. I knew that, having not had their naps, Josie and Jamie would be due for an early bed time around 6:30 pm, but having taken such a long nap, Johnny wouldn’t be ready for bed until well after 7:00 pm. This would afford me the perfect opportunity for some one-on-one bonding time with my baby. But it gets better…. The thing I had planned to do in the afternoon when all the kids were sleeping was clean the swimming pool, but since there was no coordinated nap, there was also no cleaning. With the early bedtime there would be plenty of daylight left for me to jump in the pool before sunset. I would clean the swimming pool while spending quality time with Johnny. Perfect! This is the way a master multi-tasking mom’s mind works.

I tucked Jamie into bed and gave Josie a kiss good-night then tip-toed out of the room and down the hall. I dressed myself and Johnny in swimsuits and we headed for the pool. This was Johnny’s first real swimming experience. Last summer he was a tiny newborn sleeping soundly in his infant seat, completely oblivious to the rest of the family’s splashing.

 

Oh, how much has changed since then!

I was nervous about how he’d react to the cool water but it was actually the perfect day for a first swim- hot and humid. The refreshing water made Johnny smile. He had no hesitation, no doubts. He loved it! We swam around together for awhile, bobbing up and down and twirling around making waves. Then I lifted him into an innertube and he drifted lazily around the pool, his chubby little arms dangling over the sides, his face plastered with happy contentment.

Johnny lounged in the lapping water while I successfully vacuumed the pool, stopping every now and then to tickle his toes or spin his tube in circles.

When the sun had finally begun to disappear behind the trees I decided it was time to bring our evening swim to an end. Once inside we hopped in the shower together to wash off the chlorine and bugs. Again, I was proud of myself for combining my daily chore of showering with my wanted bonding experience with little Johnny. Skin-on-skin contact is one of the most (if not the most) comforting connection that a mother can have with her child and the assurance of multi-task accomplishment is one of the most (if not the most) rewarding satisfactions that a mother can give herself. What did you do tonight? I cleaned my swimming pool and made a memory with my baby.

You Can Take the Sailor Out of the Parade

You can take the sailor out of the parade, but you can’t take his family out of the crowd.

This time last year James was marching in the annual Ballston Spa Memorial Day parade and the kids and I were camped out on the street, waving our American flags. This year James is sailing the oceans somewhere on the other side of the world in defense of our freedom and still we were camped out on that same street, waving our American flags.

Of course, we had to bring one of Daddy's old dixie cups along, to show our Navy pride.

When a small detachment of sailors marched passed, all decked out in their dress white uniforms, Jamie got really excited and started shouting, “Dada! Dada! Dada!” I have to admit that it brought a tear to my eye.

I could think of no better way to celebrate this holiday weekend than to dress up in our red, white, and blues. If there's one thing this family knows how to do, it's be American through and through!

See, Johnny's already learning how to exercise his first ammendment rights to free speech.

Friends Like These

Growing up, my sister Jessica had a friend named Julie. (I know what you’re probably thinking right now… “Enough with all the Js already!”) Jessie and Julie were inseparable. Wherever one was, the other would be also and if they couldn’t be together then they’d be talking to each other on the phone or writing each other letters to pass in class the next day. Julie spent so much time at our house and participated in our family activities so often that, still to this day, I think of her as my fourth sister. Jessie and Julie had the kind of friendship that other people envied. They shared a million inside jokes and could finish each other’s sentences. Sure, they’d get steaming mad and refuse to speak to each other for days or weeks at a time, but their relationship was so strong that they’d always end up coming back together in the end. Their friendship started when they were only 6 years old and is still going strong 20 years later. Life has thrown everything it’s got at them but still it seems that nothing can tear them apart. Even as adults, though college and marriage led them down different paths- my sister lives in California and Julie lives in Arizona- they make a point to call each other regularly and visit when they can. The two of them could be poster children for the acronym “BFF.”

I never had that as a kid. I was that awkward child on the playground who was too much of a tomboy to be invited to play tea party with all the girls but too much of a girl to be invited to play soccer with all the boys. I spent most of my recesses either sitting at the benches drawing pictures or walking in circles around the yard concocting elaborate stories about what I was going to be when I grew up. Thank God that I had so many siblings to go home to after the school bell rang because otherwise I would have had a depressingly lonely childhood. I was never able to find a friend like Jessie’s Julie. You just don’t find friends like that every day.

That’s how I know that friends like the ones I have now are a once-in-a-lifetime find.

The saying goes that “you don’t know what you’ve got, until it’s gone.” Well, that’s not completely true. If you ask me, I think it should read, “you really appreciate what you’ve got when you know you’re about to lose it.” The time I have left to spend with my friends here in New York is limited and that makes every moment exponentially more special.

On Thursday I met my friends Christine and Colleen and we all caravanned north to Moreau Lake State Park. It’s only about a 30 minute drive but when you’re traveling with seven young children and all their subsequent baggage in tow a half-hour drive from home seems like quite the elaborate excursion. Entrance was free (!), the weather was perfect (!), and almost everyone was in a pleasant mood (!).

I say almost because Josie did spend the first part of playground play sulking and pouting for no good reason. But the group really livened once we set off on an adventure hike.

 

We admired bugs, skipped rocks, found sticks…oh, and collected a nice array of mosquito bites too. Gotta love nature!

Next we claimed a couple of picnic benches and ate lunch together while catching up on all the latest stories from each other’s lives.

Plus there were a few potty breaks inserted in the middle and a smile-filled time with bubble wands tacked onto the end.

That same afternoon I drove myself and my kids to our other friend Kristen’s house (she had to work in the morning so she wasn’t able to join us at the park). She agreed to entertain the kids for me while I started painting a dinosaur mural in her son’s bedroom. I definitely think I got the better deal.

It may sound like a pretty accurate summary of my day, but in actuality there was a lot more to it than that. My friends gave me a few treasured hugs and their happy, glowing faces made me smile. Their presence puts me at ease. They gave me some practical advice on using my baby sling correctly and some psychological advice on living life rightly. We entrusted each other with our deepest frustrations and most exciting joys. They complimented me on my chocolate chip cookies. We basked in the glory of God’s creation and shared in His gift of fellowship. We laughed together. We didn’t cry, but if he had then we would have known that it was okay. I kept an eye on their kids for a couple minutes and they kept an eye on mine and we would all lightheartedly but with an ounce of sincerity agree that that’s the best gift a friend can give. We reminisced about the past and made plans for the future. You see, the things I listed above (playgrounds, nature walks, picnic lunches) are great, but these things here are the marks of true friendship.

Friends like these are a once-in-a-lifetime find. They are the type of BFFs that people covet.  I spent my whole life searching for friends like Christine, Colleen, and Kristen, and now that I’ve found them I don’t intend on letting them go. So ladies, if you’re reading this, you should consider yourself for-warned. I’m not about to let 540 miles- the distance between Ballston Spa, New York and Chesapeake, Virginia- keep us apart. Email, text, Skype, Facebook, road trip….I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure we stay friends….even if it means bugging you in the middle of your nightly bedtime routine because that’s the only time I can be sure you’ll be home. You better believe it (and knowing how well you know me, I’m sure you do). No matter how many new and wonderful things come my way, I could never dream of replacing friends like you.