Eating Words

A few years ago, my sister gave our kids a book called "The Incredible Book Eating Boy".  It's a fantastic, adorable story about a little guy who eats books instead of food, and discovers...well, you should really just read it. *wink*  Anyhoo, he eats books.  Lots of books.

(The Incredible Book Eating Boy, by Oliver Jeffers)

Lately, I've been thinking about eating words.  

The other day at our home school co-op, I had a meandering discussion with a few other moms.  As our babies crawled around the floor or slept in our arms, we talked about our other children and their shenanigans. Someone mentioned the fact that two of her children -put together- might wear a whole outfit around the house: one in just pants, and the other in just a shirt...and she could care less. (We all giggled and nodded agreement.)  Then we proceeded to discuss the joys of getting and keeping children neatly dressed, and how all of us have given up the struggle.  It's just not a battle worth fighting. 

"Before I had kids," said me, "I used to see people out and about with their bedraggled children and think to myself, 'I will NEVER let my kids out of the house looking like that!'  And now...my only requirement is that they pick clothing without noticeable holes."

Those words from my youth have been chewed and swallowed.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that they are fully digested by now.

I think we're all aware that the certainty of our youth slowly disappears as we age and experience life. However, during each phase we tend to come to the conclusion that we are SO much wiser than we were before.  We risk superlatives in our speech and let loose our judgement on generations that are not yet our own, and condemn thoughts and actions that we couldn't possibly understand from our limited vantage point.

In elementary school, I worked pretty hard to be the best.  I was really well behaved, I did all my projects all the way, read extra books, kept my desk extra special neat and tidy, and loooooved my teacher.  Mrs. Haught was so awesome, and I made sure that she knew that.  I was also pretty sure I was her pet, even if I wasn't. But...next to my amazingly clean desk, donned in "thank you" cards and glory, was the desk of a messy little boy.

His space was catastrophic.  Papers were lost for months, and pencils held captive beneath the bedlam that occupied the belly of his school desk.  One day he couldn't find a worksheet, and I volunteered to stay in with him at recess to help him clean out the desk and find it.  This was not an act of mercy. It was the ploy of one who was unsatisfied with the way her neighbor's space was negatively effecting the property value of her own. I remember telling my mother after school that afternoon that I would never let my things be that messy. Never.

*gulp* Moving on...

see? peaceful sisters.

My childhood home was one of peace and order. My dad loves to clean (or was just trained to like it by his mother), and both parents are quiet(ish) people. Two kids, both girls.  That's all. We had the occasional sister fights, but in general, things were silent and there was no risk of bodily harm.  Potty humor was confined to the bathroom. Literally. And most importantly, there was nothing gross. 

This same boy that challenged my notion of proper desk etiquette also blew me away with his uncanny ability to be a lethal combination of crazy, gross, and extra special crazy.  He wasn't the only boy who did this to me, since -because I had no brothers- I had no concept of what little boys were supposed to be like. I only knew that this dude was nuts.  He was able to fart, talk about poop, pick his nose, make fun of girls, and break school rules all in one sentence. I vowed I would NEVER share a space with someone so hideous as him. Eww. Never.

That, folks, is my wonderful third child. (Be sure to turn on the sound to get the full effect.)

-Words eaten.-

Last night, he did that^ for 10 straight minutes while my husband and I laughed until we cried.  I have not only eaten my words, they actually tasted good going down. I am amazed, and slightly jealous of his armpit farting ability. Wow.

In high school, I knew everything. And by everything, I mean that the emotional universe and understanding of life and its purpose were completely within my grasp.  You could tell me nothing new, unless you were also in high school and possessed the same innate understanding of existence...in which case, you were permitted to speak. I'm pretty sure that I don't have room to write all the words I've eaten from that period of my life. Some of my assumptions were more embarrassing than others, but the ones I regret the most were my conclusions about other people and their actions.  

I would never act like her. 

I would never date a guy like that. 

I will never want to be around my parents.

College was a whole new realm of misunderstanding. For the first time in my life, I felt pretty stupid. The liberal arts education tore me down to a basic scaffolding of thought and rebuilt me in a manner that suited an atmosphere of learning with an open mind. This sounds like a good thing.  It pulled many of my assumptions out of their holes by their underwear. After much kicking and screaming, they gave up the fight and were eaten, only to be replaced with more postulations of a very different kind. 

I won't be dependent upon anyone.

I don't need God.

My abilities will carry me through life.

High intelligence is superior to all other things.

Following your desires is a good thing, no matter which direction they lead.

Eaten... every last one.

Since then, with marriage, child bearing, child rearing, and life in general, I've had my fair share of misguided superlatives:

I will follow a career path in music.

I couldn't possibly be a stay at home mom.

I will never have an epidural during childbirth.

I will never turn into my mother.

Homeschooling is ridiculous, and only weird people do it.

I will never use cloth diapers.

I will always make my baby food from scratch.

I will never give my children sugar.

I will never use disposable diapers again.

McDonalds is off the menu.

It goes on and on, back and forth. Over and over I speak something, only to realize down the road that -though that may have been true for that moment in time- it was not an eternal truth. 

There are some words that I never intend to eat. I will always love my children (even when I disagree with their choices or actions). I will never leave my husband except in death. I love and follow a great God that hasn't abandoned me, even when I've been severely misguided in my assumptions, and never will.

Everything else? Well, I've decided that from now on, I will do my best to make statements that don't preclude my need to change, learn and grow. I'm certainly wiser than I was a decade ago, but (God willing) I have so many of those left to live. I sincerely hope that 20 years from now, I'll look back at my 33 yr old self and chuckle at the foolishness and misguided thoughts. But between now and then, I have no doubt that I'll be feasting on my own words, and getting full on the goodness -and craziness- of life lived into wisdom.

Transparency

I was walking around our house the other day, muttering to myself under my breath, cursing each and every object I tripped over.  Nothing was where it was supposed to be.  I had cleaned one spot of the house over five times that morning, and it had been stealthily re-mucked...again.  AGAIN!  Seriously, if I could make money off my children's ability to make messes, I would be blogging from a lounge chair somewhere in the Caribbean.

After about an hour of brooding over the mess, slamming cabinet doors, and snapping at my children, I took a deep breath and asked myself a question:

Why am I doing this?  Nothing is ruined because my house is messy, so why the intense stress to maintain a certain standard?

So I sat down for a few minutes and read a Parents magazine while the world continued to fall apart in my living room... and as I went through that magazine it hit me. The last page was this beautiful advertisement for a mattress set from a big Swedish store that rhymes with Eyepeeya.

Do you see it?  It's just a mattress.  But the bed is made, even though she's still sleeping in it, and the window is clean, and it's sunny outside.  And her closet is organized, and her husband is holding presents. She's got kids blowing confetti at her, for goodness sake...and why?  Because she has a new mattress from Eyepeeya!  Yaaaay!

Now, I know (consciously) that this is an advertisement.  This is a set, not a real home.  It took hours, and many people to make it happen. That is fake sunlight shining on fake trees.  In fact, that might just be a fake dog. I bet they make those. Those presents are empty, and after this photo shoot, every single one of those models went back to their own homes that are most likely not nearly as well kept as this picture.  I KNOW this.  In my brain.

But advertising is really good at doing what it does.  Something inside me is absolutely convinced that because I saw it in a magazine, it is NORMAL.  I believe, subconsciously, that I am the only one with a messy house and imperfect furniture. Everyone else has it together, except me. 

Bam.

We are constantly bombarded with things like this.  Things that tell us how we should dress, what car we should drive, how much we should weigh, what our house should look like, what kind of toothpaste we should use, and what kind of toilet paper will help us feel the least human when we poop (a pretty quilting pattern makes it SO much less so).

Why the puppy? Where does puppy softness come into play around one's butt? Eww.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum.  We have given up the hope that we can win this war against advertisement, so in order to feel like we've got it together, what do we do? 

REALITY T.V.   (Double Bam.)

How does a show like Hoarders become popular?  What about Extreme Cheapskates?  We want to see people mess up more, be uglier, get dirtier, make more mistakes, and live in worse poverty and more scandal than we do.  

It's a beautiful tirade.  I know.  And I think that most people are already aware of this vicious cycle that we've created, and all take part in.  But it's a terrible cycle, and it completely lacks one thing:

TRANSPARENCY

Transparent:  adjective \tran(t)s-ˈper-ənt\

: able to be seen through

: easy to notice or understand

: honest and open : not secretive

Here's the meat of it, folks.  I think that what you need (and I what I need as well), is a lot of that ^.

So I'm going to start.  The other day, after reading that stupid magazine, and coming to these conclusions, I walked around our house with a camera.  

I didn't move anything.  I didn't add any filters.  I just documented.

the living room. this is actually pretty clean. our couch is really old, and the stuffing is coming out of the arms and all three cushions need to be covered with sheets in order to stay together. and yes, those are legos on the floor with my baby.  judge away.

this is my kitchen counter even before breakfast dishes.  you should see it at the end of the day.

this is the other half of the kitchen. nothing really gets put away...but my kids don't care.

um. yeah. this room is my favorite. those are axes on our mantel.  we don't do candles, we do lumberjack. a suitcase from a trip two weeks ago, clothes half folded, coats thrown everywhere. squishy pumpkins from last fall. need I go on?...

 the basement playroom/boys room from one angle.  there are shelves to put things on, but the kids seem to like it better when it's all dumped on the floor.  I have washed my hands of it, and close the door when I leave so I don't have to see it.

...And from another angle.  How did wood get there, you ask?  yeah, dunno. 

a pink room that I've tried to teach her to clean, but she likes it this way

One of the bathrooms: notice the lack of quilted paper.  

What you don't see here is our bedroom, (which is full of piles of clean laundry that will most likely never make it to a drawer)...and the master bathroom.  There are some things that one just should NOT share in photo form...but I will tell you that even when our toilet is flushed it looks like still it needs to be, and that the shower walls and floor are often orange. (shame)

Your home may be cleaner than mine...or it might be messier.  You may have a bit more time to put towards the maintenance of your space, or it might be higher on your priority list...or it might be lower.  But it doesn't really matter, does it? 

I'm not advocating the mis-use of the things we are blessed with.  We should absolutely take care of things as best as we are able.  But that's just it...as best WE can. Not our neighbors, not the guy on TV, not our grandmother or best friend.  

Me, and You...in our own situations, within the ability, time and grace that we've been given.

But there's more.

If we do this so often with our physical lives; judging the state of our homes and our possessions against all those around us, how much more often do we do it with that which is infinitely more important?

Those pictures are of my home, in it's most normal state.  It's kind-of bold, I know, because most people don't show that on a public forum. But would you be ready for more than that? What if I were willing to show you pictures of me in the same state?  Not my physical form, but ME?  

The me that yells at my children.

The me that loathes the successes of classmates and friends.

The me that desires recognition for pretty much anything.

The me that stuffs emotion down to her toes in hopes that it won't need to be addressed.

The me that wants to be in control, no matter what the cost.

The me that looks around the house and fumes discontent...

And the me that looks at the list above, and the things that I just can't type there...and weeps.

We all have a list like that.  Things that we struggle with, and are sinking deeply into day after day. Things that we are afraid to share, even with those closest to us.  Greed, Lust, Hatred, Apathy...

All. of. us.

Each day we fight these battles in secret.  Sometimes they surface in conversation, but we quickly back peddle for fear of judgement, and then tuck those struggles even further down. 

But what if we were transparent?  

Knowing that we all fall short, that we are all struggling...that is a beautiful thing.  The walls can come down, the masks can come off, and we can stand beside each other in our battles, instead of battling against one another.

We were never meant to fight alone. And once we are able to take that bold step towards transparency, we will find that we are surrounded -not by the enemy- but by Grace.

Waiting for The Next Best Thing (Part 2)

We arrived home after that glorious week, and were promptly dumped straight back into real life. Instead of a nice s-l-o-w immersion, we were greeted by a messy apartment (which was boxed up for moving the NEXT week), and four kids that weren't into the whole concept of, "Hey, sitting down and being quiet is the most funnest thing to do in the whole wide world!!" ...Yeah, not so much.

That beautiful bottle of wine got packed in with all the kitchen stuff.  I remember wrapping the bright pink, transparent goodness in brown paper before setting it in the laundry basket that would be its carriage to a new and bigger home.  Hoorah!  We were finally moving out of family housing at U of M and into a house, with a yard, and a fence, and a garage, and a neighborhood.  I almost felt like a grown-up.

Once we were settled into the house (which really means the beds were up, and we could find the toothpaste), I thought to myself, "This here is cause for celebration!  How about that bottle of wine?"  But it was too close in time.  We needed to save it for something special...down the road.  So, I unpacked the wine and set it up on top of the microwave so that we would remember we had it. (Like I could really forget we had a bottle of wine we're supposed to drink.  Seriously.)

August arrived and I got a part-time job co-leading the kids program at our church.  I hadn't worked outside of the house since our first child was born.  I remember feeling so excited that adults wanted to be around me...that they recognized an ability set of mine that didn't revolve around poop and laundry. (Shocking, I know.)  Add to that the slight increase in spending money per month, and we had something to celebrate! Yes? ...No.  We were too busy.  Having a job was really hard, especially while still teaching 2 of my 4 kids at home.  No celebration, just survival.

Then came October.  The month of doom.  I had marked the date on the calendar, "Adam hears back about the grant".  We counted down the days, praying that it would fund. That we could stay in Ann Arbor...that we could actually start saving for a home of our own...that we could stop relying on federal and family assistance to make ends meet.  Something to show us that the past seven years of our lives wouldn't be counted as lost.

*sigh*

I think if we had opened that bottle of wine in October, we wouldn't have tasted the summer in it at all. It still would have had its sparkly pink appeal, but it would have been a bitter reminder that the beauty of that week away was just that, a lone week in an ocean of months and months of striving and failing. Our hearts were so heavy with grief.  Even now, looking back from over a year of healing, I write all of this, and that hopelessness is trying to seep back in and steal today's joy.  Yikes. Moving on...

Right after Thanksgiving, we found out I was pregnant with our fifth child.  We had talked about the possibility of having more kids down the road, when things were secure, and we had more space and more income. But this -now- was not our plan. There were tears and worries.  I cried for at least an hour one evening over the absolute impossibility of adding the cost of diapers to our already strapped monthly budget. I was pregnant and hormonal...it was rough.  But eventually we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and carried on into winter. Without wine.

During those cold and gloomy months, we made some tough decisions.  After spending over a decade of his life studying and working in science, Adam decided to leave it behind for the sake of our family. Again, more tears and angst, and again...more bootstraps.  There were a whole lot of mouths to feed, cause I was eating ...a lot (me and the growing boys around our table), and so on we went.

In February, Adam interviewed for a data management position in a health analytics company.  I remember that morning we sent him out the door, dressed in the only jacket and tie he owned...the same one he wore to defend his dissertation.  The sun was so bright and warm, and even though winter was still looming over us -ready to bite with more storm and bitter fury- it was the most hopeful I had felt in months. The interview went well.  The second interview went even better, and ended in an offer.

We had reason to celebrate!
But I was still pregnant. *oh bother*

Slowly but surely, the bottle of wine on the microwave became more and more buried; by bills, jars, cards, legos, and all things that needed a home up off the counter.  After a few months of being hidden, I think that both Adam and I had forgotten there was a celebration to be had.

There was a hot summer and a big belly, then there was August.  And Sam.  He was a week late, but cooked to perfection. Grandparents came quickly north to meet this beautiful new addition.

He was not our plan. 

But we could not have planned so well as this. 

Certainly, this was our best reason to celebrate yet.  A beautiful, healthy boy. An easy birth, and four big sibs who were thrilled beyond reason to have this little guy join our family.  But by now, that bottle of wine was stuffed so far under our tiredness and the noise of a screaming baby, it didn't even cross our minds.  

There have been so many reasons to celebrate since his birth last August: two weddings, major holidays, birthdays, successful work days, great days of parenting and loving and living.  

Finally, on Friday night, we noticed the top of the bottle peeking out from behind the kitchen chaos.  Adam suggested that now was as good a time as any. We had gotten the kids to bed...and any parent would know THAT is worth celebrating.  So I dusted off the bottle, and we opened it up.  And this is what we saw--

The beautiful transparent pink had turned into a murky, ugly, dark brown.  We had waited so long for the next best thing to celebrate, that our wine had lost some of what had made it our favorite in the first place. It still had the taste of country-picked strawberries, but it had acquired a backwards bitterness that was not originally there.  All that waiting...all those excuses...that, and the fact that I had something precious and didn't protect it from the one thing that would destroy it even faster than time: sunlight.

As we sat there drinking it in the darkness of our finally quiet house, we couldn't actually see the wine, so I don't think our celebration was dampened one bit.  In fact, I can say for certain that it was a perfect ending to the day.  But it got me thinking...

How often am I unwilling to celebrate a victory, or a blessing, or a day well lived because I'm waiting for the next best thing?  How often do I allow discontentment to seep into my joy and turn it murky and brown, leaving me with a bitter aftertaste instead of sweet rest?

Today was long, full of sick kids, and generally un-enjoyable.  But I spent that time in my warm home, with my beautiful family that grows more beautiful each moment. I have one glass of wine left in that bottle, and I don't intend to leave it there any longer.  

Here's to celebrating the blessings of today.

Waiting for The Next Best Thing (Part 1)

First things first.  I have to be transparent and tell you that it turns out I kinda lied in my last post.
It wasn't my fault.  That blame goes to my tradition breaking husband, Adam..

On the way home from picking him up from work, then stopping at Costco, then stopping at Walgreens for a prescription, with five tired, hungry kids in the car...my man quietly states that he has one more place to stop. So he turns the car away from home and drives back into town.  Through the evening traffic, with definite purpose.

A while back, Adam had received a gift certificate for his bike commuting awesomeness and had saved that sucker for a snowy day.  He parked the car, and ran in to the shop behind us.  The kids in the back are craning their necks and wondering why we've stopped *again*, but I know.  The waiting is almost unbearable. So. Excited.

He walks back out a few minutes later and hands me a creation of beauty.  Steaming, frothy, sugary...and all mine. Let me tell you friends, that was the best cup of coffee. Ever.  Happy Valentine's Day to me.

Okay, got that off my chest.

Now on to the meaty stuff that will be the subject of this post and the next: Waiting.

This is a story about a bottle of wine.  (Sort-of.)

To tell this story properly, I need to back up a few years.  A long, long time ago, when we were but newly married young parents with stars in our eyes, we came to the University of Michigan so that Adam could pursue a PhD in biosciences.  After four years of hard work and sacrifice, he got his degree in immunology and moved on to a post-doctoral position that we hoped would lead to a faculty position down the road. Key words being, "we hoped."

In 2012, two years into this post-doc, we celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary.  After a decade of marriage and four kids, we felt some time away was in order.  Adam tried to make plans in secret, but since I do our finances each month -once the check cleared for the cabin reservation- the cat was out of the bag. Poor guy.  He really tried.  We were going back to where it all began: the honeymoon cabin in Cook Forest, PA. *sigh*

The weeks leading up to this break were some of the most stressful of our marriage lives.  Adam was in the middle of writing a grant that, if it were to fund, would allow him that path to success that we had been praying for.  There was so much sickness and warfare in our lives during that time that -even looking back- I'm amazed that we came out whole. And there was my best friend in the middle of it, trying desperately to battle through, while still producing his best writing ever, knowing that he must finish by the 10th of June so that we could LEAVE.  No pressure. *eye twitch*

But he did finish.  And we did leave.  Our children happily settled in with their grandparents, we drove off into the Allegheny mountains, and back in time.

It was a glorious week.  Adam was still sick for the first few days, unable to enjoy food...but such a trooper. In spite of his ailments, we canoed, hiked, and did all the things that we remembered loving on our first adventure together.  But this time we did it with a little life tucked under our belts, and so much more gratitude for the beauty and preciousness of silence and rest.

At the end of the week, on our way out of the forest, we stopped by a local winery.  We tasted many, and bought a few.  Our favorite of which was a strawberry wine.  We'll save this, we promised, for a celebration...a special occasion.  

And so, we tucked it away.

Say it with Dishes

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Once the kids were in bed this evening I turned my tired gaze towards my equally exhausted husband and announced that I had done absolutely nothing for him.  No card. Nothing.

He kind of stared at me for a moment, and I honestly wasn't sure whether he had heard me or not, because after swimming in a few seconds of silence, he went on as if I hadn't said anything.  

I can't tell you what his silence meant (11 years of marriage only allows for so much clairvoyance)...but I can tell you historically how we roll.  Most birthdays and holidays are met with little fanfare between the two of us.  We wake up, wish each other happy things and then go about the day.  No gifts, and usually no cards. That's it.

Now, before you start to judge...  We give our kids gifts.  They aren't all lying around the tree on Christmas morning sobbing for lack of celebration, and their birthdays are loads of fun.  I feel very blessed to be able to love on my kids with a gift or two.

But us grown-ups?  Not so much.

Earlier in our marriage, we tried a lot harder to give just the right gifts.  Our first Christmas together was delightful. My husband was still in college, and I was working a job with Americorps (i.e. volunteering with a W2).  That year I made a total of 9,000 dollars.  I look back at the ledger I kept that year, and every single month we went further into debt.  The misguided gift giving at Christmas didn't help our cause.  I received a pair of hiking boots, and he got two strange containers in which to organize his fly tying materials.  One gift, a hope of activities done together, and the other a not-so-subtle hint that his hobby was taking over the guest room and must be.contained. (There, I said it. I totally didn't realize at the time that I was being so subversive.  Oh well...live and learn.)  We both received our gifts gracefully, but I think that both of us wondered if we would get better at it.

Once children came along, the finance of gift giving certainly didn't get any easier...and it was met with the reality of very little spare time in which to shop.  So really, since 2004... 

We are odd birds.  I know.  We watch couples around us who are extravagant gift givers, and can't wrap our heads around it, because it's just so foreign to us.  Would we give each other more if we had the funds or the time?  

I don't really know.

But this is where we are now, and we've come to a realization together:  

Every single day we give each other gifts.

-I wake up earlier with a baby one morning and make sure his cup of coffee is waiting when he comes down. 

-He makes himself breakfast before work the next day, but adds an extra 2 eggs to the pan so that he can make me some as well...then gives me the best ones because he knows that I'll appreciate it.

-He does the dishes, and pulls in every single mobile child to help with the job, while I sit on the couch and just breathe.  Literally, just breathe. *heaven*

-He asks to go out with the guys, and I say yes.  All the time, as often as I possibly can, I say yes.

-After a long day with the kids, he'll push me out the door with a few bucks and make sure I go to a coffee shop and take a few moments to just breathe. And drink coffee. *heaven bathed in coffee*

I could keep going, but I think you get the picture.  

Every morning when we wake up, we have the opportunity to put someone else's needs and desires before our own.   To hold our tongue when we're frustrated. To give someone the benefit of the doubt. To clean up someone else's mess without complaining. To actually listen to their desires and musings that hold no interest for us, whatsoever. To use our words to encourage and build them up over, and over, and over... To come alongside them in every way possible, sharing their burdens and joys alike.

Tomorrow when I wake up, there will be no great hurrah over the "day of love."  I will share my day with a wonderful man, who will give to me all that he can of himself, just like he did today.  That is a wonderful gift.

The Un-favored Month

"Many hands make light work."  This is true.  And when I feel like doing a good job being a mom and preparing my children for the real world, our kids help with pretty much everything.  14 hands can get a lot done in a very short time.  It's a lot of hands.  However, those little hands are connected to bodies with more energy than I am able to comprehend with my immense brain.  All put together, they could pull Paul Bunyan backwards across Minnesota on any given day, and they have no problem wearing me out before noon. Needless to say, these small bodies -confined to sunless, tiny spaces over a few months time- do not make my work light...or pleasant...or possible.  

Despite the fact that it has the fewest number of days, February is always the longest month of this confinement. December is just delightful with all the anticipation. January has the residue of holidays, and March has the naive and misplaced hope of spring.  

February has Valentine's Day.  

That's like giving your middle child the last sip of your coke after all the other kids have had their turn, and all that's left is carbonated, caramel colored spit.  

...Poor, middle-month February....

And here we are.  Treading water in the dregs left behind by all the favored months.

As I type, my children are lined up in front of Netflix, arguing about which show to watch. One child is making strange squealing noises (not the baby, oddly enough), another is giving unsolicited advice to the squealer, one is demanding the remote control, another is sucking her thumb and rolling her eyes at the general state of things, and the baby is overdue for his nap...and wet.  Oops.

So, how do we cope?  Well, we don't always sit in front of a screen...but they certainly crave it constantly, and would become fully consumed by it if I allowed.  Some days I can force them outside into the cold.  Other days, even grocery shopping provides a reprieve from the confines of a stale house. And let me tell you, after the chaos of navigating THAT labyrinth with five kids, trying to stick to the list and avoid a tantrum in the cereal aisle, these four walls feel like a haven.

This February, however, there was hope.  My parents decided that their Christmas gift to the family would be a weekend away.  A respite in the dead of winter. A shelter from the storm.  A beacon of... {okay, I'm done}. So off we went.  A hotel with a pool, no cooking, a long awaited movie, and a circus.  Extra hands to help with -and love on- our dear, completely insane children.

What an amazingly well-timed gift.

Was it a crazy weekend? Yes.  Did my kids have too much sugar?  Probably. 

Are they currently in withdrawal from all the stimulation?  Oh yeah.  

But wow.  It was so. much. fun.

There are still 18 days left until I can begin dreaming of spring.  I am fully aware that February will still try to torment us with more snow and sub-zero temps and perhaps a stomach bug or two. But my tank is full, and as the Lego Movie so brilliantly proclaims... 

Everything is awesome!