Messy Summer's End

     Summer is hard for most moms.  Too many people are living in this house for too many hours a day.  Too many small humans are requiring too many things from this momma.  Too many times I am yelling or crying because of the many things I have to do.  I am counting down the days until my older two to go back to school.  It's six days! Literally I am looking forward to only have one destructive toddler at home.  I am relaxing with the thought of only having to make two lunches instead of four.  I am hoping for a nap time that will no longer be disrupted by sisters playing loudly. It's 6 days!  However, I'm still sad about my older two going to school and I’m allowed to feel both happy and sad at the same time.  My toddler has all the feelings so I think I'm allowed too.

      Stress is the main feeling the summer gives me.  I have a 3rd grader, a kindergarten, and a two year old.  The result of this is a variety of juggling since they are all in different stages.  My arms are tired from all the juggling that I have been doing this summer.  It seems like all summer there was always at least one of my three girls upset everyday.  If my 5 year old was happy with the activity my toddler was not.  If we did something my toddler loved, my 8 year old thought it was boring baby stuff.  On rare occasions the stars would align and everyone would be happy for a few fleeting moments of peace.  Otherwise summer is a stressful juggling act.

       Joy is also a prominent feeling of summer for this momma.  I love having all my ducks home.  Between all the stress, planning, and meals (seriously so much food making) I love spending every hour of every day with my girls.  I love all the extra hugs, snuggles, girl talk, dance parties, and hose fights that come with summer time.  My girls have always given me so much joy at all their stages.  This year my 8 year old was finally tall enough to ride the big slides at our local water park.  She stood in the line and hesitantly walked up all the steps to the top of a two story slide.  I nervously waited at the bottom with both her little sisters.  As she emerged from the yellow tube we all cheered while she swam over to us.  I said "How was it?"  She somberly said "That was totally worth  three years of waiting."  I think that she has done all the slides about a million times this summer and still finds joy in every trip.

     Sadness in our house always comes in waves.  At the beginning of the summer there was a lot of sadness. My girls are starting a brand new school in less than a week.  It is in the same school district but they just built a brand new school and our family was redistributed to the new school.  My kindergartner is sad because her preschool teacher is not going to her new school.  She had the same teacher for two years and this brand new school with a brand new teacher is a lot for her to process.  My third grader is sad because some of her friends are staying at her old school.  I am sad because soon I won't get to see their beautiful faces every hour of every day.  They will be off having fun and doing activities without their Mom.

     End of summer emotions are hard.  Beginning of school emotions are hard.  I am allowed to feel relieved that my kids are going back to school.  I am allowed to feel anxious about all their new experiences.  I am allowed to feel sad that I don't get to see them all the time.  As moms we tend to feel things with our children.  I think an empathy switch flips once someone gets a child.  Elizabeth Stone once said "Making the decision to have a child...is to decided forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."  When my girls go off to school, I have no idea what they are doing all day.  I just hope they know no matter what happens at school they will always be returning to a safe place. They will always be coming to a home surrounded by people who love them.  They will always be supported in this house that we have made.  My girls will be missed all day long by me and my toddler.  However, make sure they don't come home until school is dismissed. 

Messy Stains

     

     My kids wear clothes with stains.  That does not mean my kids' clothes are dirty.  That does not mean my kids are not being taken care of.  That does not mean my kids are sickly and unhappy.  I have three girls.  We are currently on our third round of hand me downs.  Each item of kid clothing has been worn hundreds of times before.  Stains are bound to happen with all that wear and tear.  Lots of stains including shirt collars, pant knees, shirt sleeves, pant legs, and everything in-between.  I used to care about getting out the stains but not anymore.

    Most of my life is taken up by laundry.  Everyday I do at least one load of laundry which does not include folding and putting away the clothes.  My husband usually does his own laundry which takes at least one person off my plate.  However, I am still only one human doing the laundry for four humans.  The five year old is learning to put her own clothes away but that sometimes takes up more of my time than if I was to put her own clothes away.  The worst part is the three tiny humans change clothes a number of times during the day.  My girls either wear one favorite outfit for three days in a row or wear six outfits in 24 hours.  With all those outfits there are a lot of stains that happen.  Especially with their favorite outfits they love to wear.

      My girls get every type of stains.  If there is a stain type I am sure my kids have gotten it.  They are very talented in that respect.  Eating ketchup turns into a bloody red stain.  Doing cartwheels results in green grass stains.  Ham sandwiches always cause a yellow mustard stain.  No matter how many times I yell "Use a napkin!" my kids choose to use everything except a napkin.  Every part of their shirts and pants are constantly covered after each meal.  Most of the time this digestive mess comes out in a normal laundry wash but sometimes their clothes emerge from the dryer with a stain.  This occurrence happens way too often for me to sweat about it.

      I used to care about my girls wearing clothes with stains.  I would soak clothes for hours in borax.  I would spray every small dirt spot.  I would scrub deep with a toothbrush until my fingers were prune ridden.  Then I decided to give up and give into a stain wearing life.  Every time I would work for hours to lift a stain my girls would jump in a muddy puddle or climb a tree.  For a while I only let my girls wear the clothes with stains when we were playing outside or doing an extra messy activity.  I even had a special drawer for play clothes.  As more girls were added to our brood the "play clothes drawer" became more full than the nice clothes drawers.  Eventually I was overrun with stains.  I had two options: throw out all the clothes that had stains and spend a massive amount of money buying more or just get used to my girls wearing stains.  I chose to live in a stained world.  It is much more economical and cost affective.

     Living with three feral ladies means stains have become a part of our lives.  There is no amount of soaking, tide sticks, bleach, scrubbing, stain spray, and laundry to lift every amazing stain my girls masterfully acquire.  Additionally I have chosen to spend my time more wisely.  Instead of spending hours soaking stains I want to spend hours soaking in toddler kisses.  Instead of spending energy scrubbing stubborn stains I want to spend energy doing yoga with my five year old.  Instead of spending money replacing stained clothes I want to spend money on date nights with my eight year old.  Therefore my kids will continue to have stains on their clothes and I will continue to choose to live with it.  Normal laundry takes the majority of my time so stupid stains are no longer my concern.  I have better things to do.

Sandy Mess

     My kids love sand.  My husband hates sand.  I do not have strong feelings about sand but I do know that it is insidious.  We are currently vacationing on Silver Lake in Michigan.  That means that there is a beach.  That also means that everything we own is covered in sand.  The kids, camper, car, shoes, clothes, beds, hair, food, and even my morning coffee has traces of sand.  It does not matter how hard I try to rid everything of these tiny particles, they will continue to multiply until our lunch sandwiches are actually made from real sand.  The bright side of this sand takeover is that my kids are having the best time playing in all the dirt and sand.

     My mom and her family have been vacationing at Silver Lake since before she was born.  Every year my grandma and grandpa would load up four girls for a week of fun in the sun with of course sand.  My mom and aunts have always talk about this time fondly.  Silver Lake was kind of like a second home when they were growing up.  They would all look forward to the special summer trip and all the fun that is to be had here.  Riding on the dunes, getting ice cream every night, and playing in the lake were just some of the activities that made them want to keep coming back.  I only have three girls but I am sure that adding one more would have doubled the sand.  I am confident that my mom and her three sisters were covered in sand just like my girls and my grandma probably washed it out of their things for weeks after the trip was over.

     My husband hates sand.  I actually don't think that hate is a strong enough word.  Loathe and detest are probably more accurate.  Even when our first was little he was adamant never to have a sandbox in the backyard.  I think his revolting feelings of sand stems from his bath time duties.  My husband is always the one that gets the girls clean at the end of the day.  Sand makes that task virtually impossible.  No matter how hard you scrub there will always be at least one particle that escapes.  To add insult to injury my girls usually jump right back into the sand at the campsite as soon as they leave the scrubbing area.  In his defense when  you are camping next to a beach the sand is literally everywhere.  Currently we have sand in our beds, the floor of the camper, and our shoes just to name a few.  There is no where to hide.  

     My girls love sand.  They completely love everything about sand.  They love rolling in it, building with it, burying each other in it, and just walking on it.  We could not get them away from the sand if we tried.  Silver lake is right by the Michigan Sand Dunes so if this is your vacation spot you must resolve yourself to a sandy life for the remainder of your stay.  Like most things my little ladies don't notice the mess they just notice the fun.  They put the sand in everything and marvel at the way it conforms to the containers.  They pick up heaping hand fulls and stare in awe has it wiggles through each of their little fingers.  They jump in piles of sand and giggle as it gives way and presses into their chubby toes.   I am pretty sure that my kids would live in a pile of sand if I let them because of the joy it brings them.

     Sand is not forever.  During these sandy vacations I could choose to get irritated by the amount of sand I sweep out of the camper but I choose to see the amount of happiness on my girls faces.  I could choose to yell at my girls to stop bringing sand back in buckets but I choose to see the determination in their tasks.  I could choose to get frustrated by all the extra sand but I choose to see the joy in their sandy activities.  Yes, sand is annoying for all adults.  Yes, I will be cleaning sand out of my house for weeks after this getaway.  Yes, sleeping on sand is not comfortable in any way.  However, I can remember that this new sand ridden lifestyle is not forever.  Soon we will leave this magical place and only a few particles will come with us.  So for a little while longer I can be plagued with sand and stand on the beach to watch the sunset over the dunes.  Besides a little sand is a small price to pay for the fun that is being shared.    

The More the Messier

 

    I have three kids and one of my best friend has five kids.  When we get together, which is often, we have eight kids running around.  We always like to joke that we bring a party wherever we go.  To some people it sounds totally chaotic and to be honest it mostly is chaos.  However, it is the kind of chaos I have grown to love.  Hearing my girls scream with delight when they see all the other kids that they have known since they were toddlers and infants fills my heart with joy.  These two groups of kids have literally grown up together.  There comes a point when it is no longer just friends and it becomes family.  I can confidently say these people are family.       

     Yesterday we decided to have all eight kids to our house for a sleepover.  I haven't decided if I am crazy or awesome.  The party consists of two groups of siblings.  Our family has 3 girls ages 8, 5, and 2.  The other group of siblings has two older boys 9 years old and 7 years old along with triplet 3 year olds which are two girls and a boy.  We have decided to take an old mattress from the basement and set it up in the living room to make a "couch bed".  This is actually something that my husband and I used to do when we lived in my parents basement for a short amount of time.  We put our second hand sectional couch around the outside of the only mattress we had and made a big comfy sleeping and living area.  The kids loved it.  Jumping on the bed and jumping on the couch is part of being kids.  I am pretty sure that "The Floor Is Lava" was definitely played a few times last evening.  

    The best thing about having all these kids here is that everyone is entertained.  This translates to a mom not having to entertain anyone.  While the house may be burning down around me I find solace in the fact that no one is asking me to play with them.  I can sit quietly writing this blog while listening to the giggles and the pandemonium.  Cleaning up the destruction from all the fun is tomorrow's problem.  Times like these are few and precious as a mom.  We are constantly craving just a few minutes of not being pulled or touched.  Moms are needed all day and every day from everyone that lives here.  Dogs, husbands, and children all require our attention, emotion, service, or time.  Therefore I am already more relaxed from this sleepover because of the few moments of peace that it has given me.   

     My wonderful husband has been called away to work late tonight.  He will not be home until after 9pm.  Honestly it is not that upsetting to not have reinforcements.  Having 3 girls that are constantly running around and being crazy is the same amount of chaos as 8 kids running around and being crazy.  There will definitely be a little more mess to clean up tomorrow after the others leave but fun will also go with them.  Summer gives us more time to spend with those families and friends that we don't get to see because of crazy school schedules.  These big kids get to see each other less and less with the business of school and extra activities.  Therefore anytime that we can add extra together time during the long summer days is something that I love to do.  

    I could choose to get stressed out by the extra spills and paper towels being used.  I could choose to get upset by some things that might get broken.  I could choose to get overwhelmed by all the food that has to be made.  However, I choose to embrace and love it all.  The decision to allow this to happen and not sweat about it is better for all the people that are involved.  All the kids are going to have a fun time and I get to relax on the couch while occasionally getting up to feed 8 constantly hungry children. I love the extra chaos.  I love the extra fun.  I love the extra kids.  I don't think I would want 8 kids in my house everyday but I can do anything for 24 hours.  Besides the fun that is had will last a lifetime and that is worth more than any mess that is made in the process.  

Stop Messing with My Stuff

   

     When I was younger there was a lot of times I couldn't find my stuff.  I remember my mother saying "It didn't just get legs and walk away?" Or "Do you think someone came into the house and stole that one thing?"  Now the tables have turned and those two things that my mother accused me of are happening everyday in my life.  Things that I put in a place are suddenly getting little children's legs and walking away.  Tiny thieves are living in my house and stealing the one thing that I am currently looking for.  I am confident that I am not the only parent that is experiencing these strange phenomenons.  I am sure that other people's children are messing with their things.  I am positive I am not the only mom constantly yelling and muttering "Stop messing with my stuff."

     My 5 year old has always had what we have lovingly referred to as nests.  She would find something that she liked around the house and take it to a designated area.  It never mattered what the thing was and there was never a logical reason for her taking any of it.  Sometimes it was make-up, jewelry, hand sanitizer, lotions, hair ties, pencils, and the list goes on and on.  Since she was a toddler she has been hiding these treasures in her nest.  If my husband and I can't find things we still say "Did you check her nests?"  A lot of times the things in her hiding places are completely innocent like toys or rocks.  However, every once in a while she will get in trouble for a lip gloss or a marker that are not her things.  Her actions have me constantly saying "Stop messing with my stuff."

     Every week I buy gogurt for the girls and adult yogurt for me.  It never fails that when I get to the fridge to get my yogurt for lunch some of them have been eaten by other people that live here.  I know that my husband hates yogurt so that only leaves three culprits.  Having gogurt available is a demand from my three girls otherwise there will be a riot.  So why do they insist on eating my yogurt?  I know if I only bought the adult yogurt all they would do is ask for gogurt.  I will just keep letting my kids eat all snacks that I bought just for me, because that is what a mom does.  Every time I go to the fridge to get my food that is no longer there I will say "Stop messing with my stuff."

     My 8 year old is pretty sure that she is a teenager.  We remind her daily that she is not butt she refuses to believe us.  Recently she has been wearing my high heels around the house.  I would like to point out that I don't even wear my high heels anymore.  Sometimes on a date night but those are few and far between.  I have been married for almost 10 years and we are way past the high heel phase.  I am raising three women and I am abundantly aware this is the tip of the clothes exchange iceberg.  Soon all of our closets will be filled with clothes ripe for borrowing.  I am positive  I will again find myself saying "Stop messing with my stuff."  

     For the rest of my life people are going to be messing with my stuff.  I have very few things that will be my own.  Stuff that is reserved for just me is becoming a smaller and smaller list.  I could choose to get upset that nothing is just mine.  However, I chose to look at these ladies of mine and love that they love my stuff.  They want to be like me so they steal my makeup.  They want to eat like me so they steal my yogurt.  They want to look like me when they wear my heels.  I love that they love me so much they want to always steal my stuff.  If I needed everything to stay where I put it I should have never had kids.  Therefore I will choose to see the love behind my little sticky fingered chicks and just keep yelling "STOP MESSING WITH MY STUFF!"