Goshen Fair, 2009

Last Thursday night we took the kids to the Goshen Fair. A tiny, small town, relatively filthy but fun little fair. Luke is tall enough to ride the rides, and I still am not sure who enjoyed it more, Luke, or Nate and I. Watching him go round and round on the rides while laughing and waving to everyone (we still call him the Mayor) Nate and I were cracking up. We ate dinner there, had ice cream (disaster was quickly averted when Luke's scoop fell to the ground in a soggy PLOP and we grabbed Jules cone and threw half of hers onto his cone), rode the rides, saw all of the farm animals (the kids love, LOVE cows) and then packed some hot, sticky kids back into the car and off to bed.

We went up to the Burg where Carolyn was kind enough to watch the kids so that we could play in a memorial tournament for Uncle Rick, who passed away two years ago. We had a great time seeing family and friends and were lucky enough to win the tournament! We loved the opportunity to remember Uncle Rick, who we miss greatly. We came home exhausted on Saturday afternoon. This traveling thing is great, but MAN being away every weekend with Nate gone most every week is tiring. The pace of life just feels a bit too fast right now. Summer is slipping away from me and it is making me sad. I have caught myself thinking wistfully about the NFL, and giant vats of food cooked on Sundays, and friends and fires and jeans and pumpkins.......then I chastise myself as I know that winter follows close behind. We are trying to get to the pool several times a week, and are loving going to the farm and getting our produce, play dates at the park, and have two weeks at the beach coming up. I fully intend to milk every moment of sunshine and warmth out of August, so that I will look back upon this summer with no regrets.

Goodbye July!

Adios, July. I cannot believe that tomorrow August begins ~ which means that September is coming right up. Which means that Luke is starting pre-school really soon.

I just went through all of his pre-school stuff and wrote it all down on my calendar ~ meetings, holidays, "Muffins with Mom" mornings and "Doughnuts with Dad" mornings ~ and I started crying ~ NOT just because I prefer doughnuts to muffins, but because I am not really ready or willing to accept the idea that my kids are growing up this fast.

July, I am sad to see you go. We loved one another well, though, so onto August we go.

Dirty Dawgs

This is the end result of an entire day of playing outside. I actually had to fill the tub, drain it, and refill it to wash the kids as the water got so disgusting. We had a great play group this morning, and I learned that there is absolutely nothing funnier than putting a sliding board into a kiddy pool ~ The hilariaty was contagious watching the kids slide wet and slippery and squealing into the quickly filthy water. We came home for their naps, then I took the kids for a run (pushing 76 lbs of children in a 30some lb stroller is WORK, let me tell you) then spent the rest of the afternoon at the park right behind our house. I made my first batch of popsicles, which I gave to the kids after stripping them naked. Popsicle stickiness mixed with a mulch toss between Luke and Jules resulted in these pictures. Notice that my son is not put off by a little dirt, and swooped right in for a kiss on his sticky mulch encrusted sister.

I'm having a hard time finding balance lately. It's hard to find the right mix of doing for your kids, and doing for your house, doing for your husband, and doing for yourself. I seem to have weeks where all we do are play dates every morning, which is both awesome and terrible for me ~ awesome because I am with my girlfriends and the kids are playing with other kids, but terrible because I have learned that if I don't go to the gym in the AM, I don't go. I seem to have weeks where I to the gym every day except play group day, but then at the end of the week find I am missing my friends terribly. So I go on a play date frenzy, meeting up with someone every morning somewhere (park, playground, moon bounce, Please Touch Museum, Zoo etc) and don't get to the gym at all except to use the pool with the kids. It's always such a work in progress. My new goal is to try to map out gym mornings and play date mornings at the beginning of each week, so that I mix things up better. Summer is in full swing, and I love the freedom of being outside all the time. I am trying not to dread the fall, as it is my favorite season, but lurking stealthily behind fall is the dreaded winter, of colds, and jackets, and too much time inside.

In other news, Luke has officially embraced "I" and "my/mine/me". Up until now he only talked about himself in the third person (you know, like TO)~ "Luke want that", or "Luke likes that". Every day new phrases tumble out of his mouth. Little gems like:

~ But Mama, I don't like dat one big bug! (a spider)
~ Yeah, me too! (which still makes me laugh every time he says it)
~ My finger is in Julia's yogurt Mama!
~ Oh my gosh, its rainin Mama!

The oh my gosh thing also immediately made me laugh out loud. My baby is using slang. He is already endlessly entertaining, I can't wait to see what this fully conversational little person has to say.

Childhood

Is awesome. My kids remind me how much pure joy is to be found in the simple wonders of a river and a sunshiney day.

A Perfect Day

Some days are just perfect.

Yesterday was SO not one of them. Yesterday was the "return from three weeks of being away" day. Filled with food shopping, house cleaning, laundry, and a fun (if exhausting) pick up at our CSA.....it was just one of those often time necessary days when I found myself saying "NO" more times than I wanted to. I fell into bed thoroughly exhausted last night, and feeling as though while I did what I had to do, I didn't enjoy it (or my kids) as much as I hope to.

Today was an entirely different story. Luke climbed into my bed at 6:30 for a "Mama I love you" fest, and Jules slept till almost 8, when I woke her as we had to be out of the house by 9. We headed down to a fabulous place that we had never been to before, the Smith Memorial Playground in Philly. What a fantastic place. So clean, such great toys, such beautiful weather, and such fun times with seven of my friends and their 11? ish kids. We played all morning, and then had a picnic lunch in the shade on a lovely lawn filled with children. The kids loved the toys as much as I enjoyed the companionship of my girlfriends, and they fell into the car tired and warm and happy at 12:30. They fell asleep immediately on the ride home, transferred seamlessly into their bed/crib, and slept soundly until I had to wake them at almost 3:30 when I realized that I was due at the pool in 5 minutes to meet my friends and their kids. I had cooked dinner while they were sleeping so that we could stay there until 5 or later. We hurried out the door to find the upper pool in a "Code Brown" (Yes, a floater), so we played at the downstairs outdoor waterpark/pool until 4:15 when we went up to our usual pool. They played happily until it was time to go, came home for an already cooked dinner, and fell into bed soundly right on schedule. Some days it just feels so easy. Of course, it is impossible to have days like today without the trials and tedium of yesterday, so I suppose that I have to be thankful for all of the days.

We did have one scare at the playground today as one of Luke's best buddies had one of those horrific "time stands still things move as though underwater" falls down a giant flight of stone steps. On what was probably a 25 step staircase, the little guy jumped with both feet from one step to another when only about 4 steps from the top. His inertia carried him forward, and I can say, that for all of its horror, it was an AMAZING display of athleticism as the little guy stayed on his feet, in an uncontrolled but foot first run until about the fourth step from the bottom, when inertia finally won, and he tumbled face first onto the ground. I saw it happening, and screamed, as did a few of my friends, and we all ran towards him as he tumbled, but could not get to him quite in time. It SO reminded me of Luke's fall off of the beach house steps last summer, and his landing on a brick sidewalk. Luckily the sweet little guy escaped relatively unscathed barring some scrapes and likely bruises considering the dramatic nature of the fall, and myself and my friends probably shed as many tears as he did as we watched him recover.

I hate how "accidents" are truly just that. Little shining moments of joy where everything is just SO right, and everyone is happy, and healthy, and whole, and then, LIKE THAT, in a horrible moment, everything is different. As stated, this had no horrific results. But I feel sure I will dream of that darling awesome little guy who I love dancing way too fast and entirely out of control down those steep stone steps tonight. I have said it before and I will say it again, Motherhood is not for the feint of heart. These little ones own us, and own us completely. I would fall from a thousand staircases to stop a little one from having to endure it (despite the fact that their rotund rubbery little bodies would likely recover from it much better than my old self would!). Seeing a little one hurt, or be afraid, is simply too much to bear.....yet bear it we do.

I wake up every day grateful for healthy kids, and go to sleep each night feeling the same way. To focus too much on the "What could happen" is to drive yourself insane. To never think about it at all is simple denial.

The kids are in bed and the house is clean (another by-product of the kids and I being out of the house all day). Thank God for little R being fine, and for all of the hideous things that did NOT happen today, AND for all of the wonderful things that did happen today.

I hugged my babies more tightly tonight.

Age of Aquarius

So Luke is a swimmer now. The kid seems to love the water. We spent a good chunk of Friday and Saturday at/in the pool (its been in the 90's around here, awful for May/early June) . His whole body just relaxes and he was laughing out loud as we were lifting him up and down in the water ~ I love it. The pic is from the pool on Saturday. We are officially drinking the ACAC Kool Aide around here , I love the gym. Its so nice to have such a safe, entertaining, clean place staffed with such wonderful people to drop Luke off at while I work out. I went with the baby on Friday, and both Nate and I went on Saturday. Becca and I took a Yoga class while Nate worked out, then we all went out to the pool and ended up having lunch there. We managed to spend just about all of the past 3 days outside, whether at the pool, walking around WC Friday night, or at the Phillies game on Saturday night. I could not resist the opportunity to take Luke to BOOOO for Barry Bonds, as the Giants were in town. Barry did not have a home run, but he gave a ball a great ride and ended up with a double. He also had an error in the outfield which resulted in a run for the Phillies. The Phils won 5-2. At one point the whole outfield was chanting "You do Steriods" at Bonds......welcome to Philly, baby. He can now say that he got to see Bonds play the season that that fraud defiled one of Baseball's sacred records. Luke wore his Chase Utley jersey and could not have been any easier at the game. He sat in our laps, drank a bottle of EBM, and worked hard at actually shoving BOTH hands into his drooly little mouth. We got home and put him to bed around 10 (which was later than his usual 8.30 bedtime) and he slept till 6.45, ate, and is still sleeping upstairs in his crib now. Have I mentioned that having a kid who is so wonderfully easy with his sleeping is simply fab? He lets me get a full night of sleep every night, which makes this whole motherhood thing a lot easier. I can't imagine being up several times a night for months at a time, it must really wear you down. Luke is a bit dangerous, as I know that it would be rare for our next baby to be as easy as him.......and I'm so spoiled as a Mother to an easy baby that I worry that I would not know what do with a more demanding one! What if I didnt like it as much?