The kids trotted off to school yesterday. They don't look back or cry or probably even miss me all day. They just jump in with both feet and come home bursting with their highs and lows. While they plunge forward, living in the moment, I'm caught in the "looking back" web.
I stared at our last summer campfire the other night and resolved that next summer we will have them every week. I will have a mountain of firewood and a lifetime supply of those nasty marshmallows that the kids like to get stuck in their hair. I'll relax and enjoy these four amazing blondies all summer. I'll have summer lists every morning and wake them up at 8:30 so they can do three chores with me and we can all play the rest of the day. We will make a giant sandbox. We will repair the trampoline. We will have a better garden and hopefully it won't get hailed on. We will go to the pool three times per week and Kait will have my undivided attention until she can sail across the pool like a swan. Nick will master bobbing and Hazel will be in a floatation swimsuit so she doesn't die. Eden will have a friend move in with us for the summer so she is happy to go to the pool. You may notice by my detailed pool planning that the "community swimming pool" was a little less than joyous for our family much to my chagrin". Jody will spend every Saturday morning at the bike park with the kids and every summer night at the BMX track with them. We will go camping at least 4 times. I will read them four chapter books that I haven't gotten them to read on their own yet. It will be epic. After a year of parenting a child in school I once wrote a blog about how I was going to do school perfectly to a tee the next year. Now that I've tried that for five years, I'm pretty sure it's time to move on and set a more attainable goal. Like, living and playing and laughing and giving.
On another note, to people considering a large family I have a little anecdotes that you will probably have plenty of stories to rival through the course of parenting. Something about having lots of kids just increases the likelihood of disgusting, funny, wonderful, horrible and or shocking stories. It's like putting four bullets instead of one into a revolver and playing Russian Roulette.
Today I dropped off three very big and smart kids at school and Hazel and I headed for the mountains. After about an hour she got fussy. I handed her my phone and she got fussier. Suddenly she started saying "uh uh uh" and I looked in the mirror and she was holding my phone out to me. I was surprised because she actually thinks it's her phone and never shares it with me willingly. As I pulled into a parking lot, I took the phone and realized it was covered in vomit. I turned it off, took the case off cleaned it with wipes and then surveyed the rest of the damage. Haze was half hysterical and had vomit down her shirt and all over her skirt. Really, I have to say I could write a vomit book. My family vomits more than any family in the world. We crossed the street to Osh Kosh in Silverthorne and I stripped her naked in the parking lot and got the diaper bag. What I discovered was dismaying though not surprising with my track record. I had wipes, four swim diapers, a week old yogurt tube never opened, bug spray, an apple, some shoes and one single solitary real diaper. No clothes. We went shopping. I swear, the things a girl will do for new clothes. Long story short, I lucked out and got home before needing another diaper and I'd like to say I learned my lesson but we all know the truth.
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