Friday, April 15, 2011

Catching Up

Hey!  Did you miss me?  I've missed you.  What a crazy busy two weeks I've had!  I haven't been able to check in but I've thought about you a lot.  I did sit down a few times to say hello but my attention kept getting hijacked.  How are you?  What's new?

My sister, Erin took her brand new car on it's very first road trip and drove here from Vancouver to spend a week with us.  We had such a great visit.  I feel so blessed that I got to see both my sisters within a month of each other, AND I get to see them again over the May long weekend for our family camping extravaganza.  Erin jumped right into all the chaos and craziness that is our household and was a really good sport about getting up early and doing whatever was on the agenda for that day, including helping me and my team pull off the largest women's event our church has ever had - which just happened to be on the Saturday she was visiting.  You can read about our Fierce and Fabulous event here if you're interested.

Erin was so great about playing with the kids and the whole time she was here Tristan called her "Aunt Friend".  When Ava asked him why he kept calling her that he said, "Because she's my aunt and my friend."  He doesn't call me Mommy Friend!  The morning Erin drove away my kids were sobbing messes of devastation.  Only Sebastian, the littlest one, was able to pull it together to pat Ava gently on the back while, "Shh, shh, shh'ing" her.

Before Erin arrived I had read the first two books of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  I loved them! I was obsessed with them.  (Kristina, thanks for the recommend!) I needed the third book but our library had to order it from another town.  It didn't come in until the middle of the week Erin was here. I was dying to read it but if I'm really into a book I cannot function.  I can't cook, I can't clean up, I can't take care of my kids, I can't shower.  Nothing can be done until I've finished.  It's a good thing I inherited my dad's fast-reader gene.  Knowing this about myself I was waiting until after our event was done and Erin was gone to read the final book.  That day came, I was exhausted from the previous week, had been looking forward to this moment for days, had my cup of tea and my spot on the couch all ready and then I looked at my calendar...  and realized I needed to spend the day prepping for a class I was teaching the next night.  Foiled!  I did my best and got through the day but the minute Hugh walked in the door I started crying.  I had reached my limit.  My brain, my body and my spirit were all completely depleted and I just couldn't focus on my prep, couldn't think about making dinner, couldn't stop crying.  My wonderful, wonderful husband ran me a bath and told me to cocoon.  He went on to make dinner, play with the kids and put them to bed while I laid in the tub, on the couch and then in bed.  I ended up blitzing through the final book during those hours, went to bed early and woke up feeling like life was worth living again.

I had a great idea for a blog post this past Wednesday but after checking my email and catching up on a few things I put the computer away, decided not to blog or clean bathrooms or tackle my mountain of laundry and went for a long adventure walk with my kids who have only had my left-over, distracted attention for the past two weeks.  They biked and I pushed Sebastian in a stroller and the wind at our backs was so strong the kids literally didn't have to pedal to move.  Fun right?  So much fun.  So much laughing. On the way there.  And then we had to turn around and come home.  The kids literally had to grit their teeth while pedaling to get their bikes to move.  Sebastian was terrified of the wind and he kept trying to climb his way up the back of the stroller to get to me while crying and yelling, "it's going to take me away, it's going to take me away!" And I kept yelling (wind like that is loud), "ISN'T THIS AN ADVENTURE!"  It's amazing what hot chocolate and marshmallows can fix.

So here we are about to start the weekend.  YAY!  I love the weekend.  Saturdays always feel so magical to me, like anything is possible.   It's a project weekend for us.  I'm going to help Hugh build a playhouse/structure for the kids.  We talked about building a playhouse for the kids during the winter.  When we sat down a few weeks ago to finalize our plans I realized we both had very different ideas of what a playhouse is.  I was picturing doors and windows and window boxes where they could plant flowers.  Hugh was picturing the park.  We're basically going for the park idea with an expanded floor size and ceiling height.  I'm still thinking I'll be able to put curtains up somewhere and I should be able to get flower boxes that can attach to the railing and most importantly (to me) I'll still be able to paint it!

What are you doing this weekend?

2 comments:

  1. The best part of this whole blog was that Hugh ran a bath for you and then let you escape.
    My heart warmed at the thought. What a nice gesture!

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  2. The link won't work for me!~ ARG! Can you e-mail it to me????

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