Christmas Vacation

We're home and recovering from Christmas.  No trip is really complete until a few people have gotten sick and have to spend days laying around watching TV. The trip as a whole was so full of blogable material that it's hard to know where to begin.....

We loaded enough electronic devices to power a Dallas suburb into our van.  I'm not sure exactly how I managed to make it through family trips as a kid without a tablet, a gaming system and a phone, but the concept is terrifying to my children. Or maybe it's just that my parents had more tolerance for hearing,  "are we there yet?" "I'm hungry", "I need to go potty", "I pooped", "tell him to stop touching me!".  My mother scoffed when we first bought a car with a built in dvd player.  She regaled us with stories of how they read and sang across country.  I noticed that her van now sports three TV screens and a movie for the trip across town.  No matter.  The kids loved it and all wanted to pile in with Nana.

My amazing husband bought me a new phone before we left.  It's fancy and I love it.  Which means I'm super panicked about dropping or losing it. Which also means I do both more often.

Our first night in Arkansas, we gathered at my sister's house. 14 children, 7 adults.  We were horribly outnumbered. The kids spent time marking out territory and testing boundaries. Yes.  That toy is hers.  No you may not pee outside.  We're in town.  Oh, yeah.  It's dark.  Go ahead.  Yes.  You need to eat your nachos. At least half of it.  Fine.  One bite. Just go play with your cousins. You can fill up on cookies later.  And play they did.  14 children have an astounding scope of imagination. Later, they put on a nativity vignette with Christmas caroling. It included one of our adoptive hopefuls who owned his part by baaaing out his lines and crawling around on all fours for a good part of the rest of the night. 

David's sister, Rachel came with us. She slept on the couch in the living room of the house that was graciously loaned to us. As it turns out, my children far preferred to wake her for their travel insomnia than knock on my door.  Score! Everyone should take a teenager on family vacations. She got to deal with nose bleeds, sleep walking, thirsty kids, sniffles, and that one child who  believes travel is an excellent excuse to start getting up at 4am. I got to catch a cold and spend my time trying to keep my entire brain from leaking out my nose.

We took the kids to a nature museum on Friday.  They ran and played, enjoying the snakes and displays and a fishing game. We took a picnic lunch outside. The boys ducked around the trees and fed bits of their lunch to the geese in the pond. Then Devin waddled out from behind a tree. Yep. It was poop. The upside of it was that it put us in just the right place, once I'd cleaned him up, to watch volunteers feed a mouse to the rattlesnake. Later, I heard that Y and Drew had been hoping the mouse might escape. It was cuter than the snake, and therefore the snake was evil.

Later, in a move I blame entirely on cold meds, I found myself  leaning against a red Firebird that was parked next to my bus in the McDonald's parking lot. Yes. We took the kids to Mc D's. In freezing temperatures, my little cavemen needed to wreck havoc in somewhere built for it. I needed ice cream mixed with m&ms. Everyone wins. I leaned on the driver's side door while chatting with my parents for about 10 minutes only to find out the teenager in the driver's seat was apparently texting about the whole experience. I apologized profusely to the girl who simply rolled her eyes and turned back to her phone.   Defeated, I crawled into the bus for a quick getaway. After spending ten minutes polishing her window with my backside, she could at least have tossed me a quarter. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I looked back to find her pantomimng the story to a load of her friends who'd pulled up beside her.  They laughed riotously at my expense.  Smiling, I waved heartily as we passed by.   Yes.  It was me!  I sat on your car.   The crazy lady with a bus full of kids and her brain stuffed into a dozen kleenexes in her pocket.

By the way, they lady who took this picture really had an eye for.....placement. First picture in a long time of 'us girls' and I have a deer hat. I love family photos.

Transportation

No matter how often we do it, I'm always amazed at how much work it takes to  transport children anywhere. And before you ask,  I'll explain. To travel is the act to going from one place to another. It's what we did before we had kids. Throw a couple things in the car and go.   Transporting, on the other hand, is a system or means of conveying people and/or goods from place to place by means of a vehicle, aircraft, or ship.  Yes. I got the definitions from a dictionary.
By the time we have packed 36 pairs of socks, 16 sets of pajamas, 27 pairs of shoes, 25 pairs of pants, 45 shirts, an orchards worth of apples, a flat of water bottles, extra bedding, books, toys, our own coffee maker (yes, we're that dedicated to our morning caffeine fix), gifts and the assortment of miscellany that must go with us these days, we definitely fall within the category of transportation. No way about it, we're hauling goods.
I'm not sure what it is about preparing to travel that drives children and animals crazy. Days before suitcases even come out of hiding they begin climbing the walls in anticipation of the hours soon to be spent buckled down into their seats. The animals are just starting their empty house party early.  The children are determined to leave their mark before we go. Just in case the animals forget who's job it usually is to wreck havoc. Legos get spread hither and yon, creating a charming minefield for chores I'm trying to accomplish. Chuy has twice actually made it into the playdoh before getting caught and eaten several bites.  I'm sure we'll be dealing with multi-colored poop soon. Tony decided to help me pack by spreading the stacks of clothing I had on the couch around the living room floor.
I have lists to help me stay organized when I pack. I write down the things I need to remember. It would be more helpful if I actually remembered to reference the list as I pack.  We made it Arkansas with no socks or underwear for David, no copies of family pictures, and a couple of gifts left behind. It could be worse. We didn't leave any children behind. Yet. No one had a massive poop on the road. No one threw up.  Gosh! What an uneventful trip!
The blue bus transported our crew well. We took out a bench to make room for everything and the kitchen sink that we had packed. I consequently found myself wedged between Chuy and Devin 's carseats. Not a place created for large bums.  I let Rachel sit in front so that I could nap and manage the heathen. Yeah, right.  The trip actually went amazingly well. Bathroom stops were the most fun. There's nothing like watching someone's jaw drop as they count 7 kids coming out of a car.  Classic. 

We wish you a flu free Christmas!

In this season of family gatherings and gift giving, there's nothing that gives more than the flu. We travel hundreds of miles to share new germs with all our loved ones. Just to make sure they don't miss out on the fun.

I'm not sure if it's the flu or not, but I've got a second child down with fever. Drew started it and seems to be on the mend today, so maybe it will go quickly through and be done. Though that's not normally how we like to do things in a big family. Big families are all about experiencing life to the fullest. We're not content with getting an illness just once. We like to work through just one or two people at a time so that we can give it back to the first ones a few weeks later.  Flu. The gift that keeps on giving.

My general reaction to  anyone getting sick is to make chicken soup.  There’s nothing more soothing than a nice, warm chicken soup when you’re sick.  It doesn’t matter what ails you.  Chicken soup makes it better.  I’ll even eat it out of a can.  Or the little dry packets with noodles.  Or on a train, or in the rain.  With a fox and in my socks!.....Sorry.  Mommy moment there.  There’s only one problem with chicken soup.  I am the only one in my family who likes it.   Nevertheless, I made chicken soup today.  I cut up butternut squash, celery and onions and sauteed them with cubed chicken.  Chuy climbed up on a chair by the counter to, “help you” as he says.  Which means he ate three slices of butternut squash and one and a half sticks of chopped celery as I processed it.  I let him help me make breakfast the other day and he ate half a bell pepper before I could get it in the pan to cook.  He sure does love to help.   Maybe I do chop extra little pieces for him so that he can keep busy with eating instead of going all shogun with my knives.  It’s a good tradeoff.  

I still had the problem of my family not wanting what I cooked.  I can’t stand people not liking my food.  It’s not that I get offended.  I just want to make food that people want to eat.  So if there’s something they don’t like, I take is as a personal challenge to find a way to fix it so they will.  This time, I added curry seasoning and coconut milk.  Chicken curry soup.  Big hit!  Danae ate two bowls, and David mmmed and ahhhed and said it’s been too long since we’ve had curry.  Not only did it satisfy my deep seated need for chicken soup, but it cleared our sinuses as well!  Win, win! I’ll definitely be eating the leftovers for lunch.

I hope we make it through the end of the year without serious illness and that this is just a quick passing thing.  We’ve got family that we want to see and friends we want to party with. By the way, party means something entirely different once you’re married with children.  I may have to write a post on that someday.  

Dirty Jobs

For the weak of stomach, I'm going to warn you now. This post is just gross. In fact.....for the weak of stomach, my blog may not be for you. I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time up to my elbows in poop, pee and other amorphous disgustingness I will refer to as sludge. Dirty Jobs has nothing on me.
We used to call them the tornado twins. Then Chuy became mobile. Now we vascilate between the Tornado Trio and Huey, Duey, and Luey. I told David today that we could add one more and call them the four horsemen of the poopocolypse. Either way, they were at It again this week. No sooner had we arrived at the playground, then Devin pooped in his pants. Just a little,  and he was so very apologetic and thankful for help. I left the rest of the kids with Cortney while I went to clean him up. See what happens when you hang out with me? You get to be in the fun stories.
Cortney became suspicious of Tony and called him over to confess. "Are you poopy?"
"No," Tony lied as his stench felled several birds overhead and provided a natural buffer zone that kids instinctively skirted. Cortney decided to check for herself.  Which, in retrospect must be like checking the level of the swamp by wading into it. You might learn what you need to know, but in the end you'll be covered in.....sludge and wishing you had some boiling water handy.
Tony blew out all sides of his pull up.  No matter that I've spent a couple days trying to coax him into pooping in the potty. Warm baths. Promises of candyland raining down on his happy little head if he would just poop in the potty. Nope. He waited until all I had around me was a public restroom and a stack of criminally undersized baby wipes. Cortney met me at the bathroom door with Tony just as I was letting Devin out. 
Really, I think all public restooms ought to fit one stall with a hand held shower head and an industrial sized floor drain. It would decrease the amount of little girls who had to walk by our spectacle going, But mommy! He's naked!" Yeah. It was one of those poops. Stripped down to his birthday suit and cheerfully greeting all who came by to visit him in the bathroom.
"Hi! I Tony!  I pooped!" I did the best I could and turned him back out on the unsuspecting public.
The next couple hours passed tolerably well. We ran some errands, switching out who went in for their stuff so we could leave kids in the car. Best way to shop with kids ever. In the pre-Chistmas crush, its so easy for little ones to disappear in racks of clothing and spend years knocking about Narnia before you ever find them again.
The unfortunate thing about errands is that they always take longer than you think they will. By the time we were done, we were running late for our evening Bible study. Time to book it home. About halfway there, that ominous ding sounded, warning of an impending lack of gas. I glanced at the fuel gauge to see that it was on empty. Not near. On. My palms began to sweat. I dropped Cortney off and headed immediately to the gas station. No small surprise, but every single child needed to go potty when we got there.  We were 5 minutes late. Not bad. If I could swing by the house and get David, we'd be ok.
There's something you have to understand about the proximity of the gas station to my house. If I stand at the end of my driveway, I can see the gas station. It is close enough that Danae and Drew occasionally get to ride their bikes there for an afternoon treat. In the amount of time it takes to read this, you can walk there and back again. In the amount of time it took to drive it, Chuy had filled and exceeded his diaper so much it was oozing down his legs and all over his car seat. The stench wafting from him was singeing my nose hairs and making my eyes water. We had to stop and hose down the baby. Giving up all pretense of being on time, I got out and dealt with more poop.
If poop was all I dealt with this week I would have been grateful.  But it wasn't. This takes a great deal of humility to write, but I've been dealing with a roach problem lately. Not in the kitchen, mostly but every so often I find one elsewhere. Waiting for me in the shower. Hiding under a discarded sock. Crawling across my arm at 2am. Yeah. That one left me awake and paranoid for hours. Also, it's not the little house roaches. It's the great big texas-sized,  you-can-rope-and-ride-them kind. I've scrubbed and sprayed and been held back only by the wisdom of my husband from seriously poisoning the whole family in my attempts to be thoroughly rid of them. Then I discovered the feed box.
Just outside our door we have a large deck box to hold animal food, guinea pig shavings and assorted items that need to be kept out of the weather. A cow masquerading as a puppy I used to have chewed it up. It has apparently not been as weather tight as it's supposed to be.  The children haven't done a great job of keeping it cleaned out. While looking for something yesterday (I forget what, now in the horror of the details to follow) I discovered the mother of all roach nests. Right outside my front door. They had established their own government and were preparing for full scale invasion of foreign lands. In other words, my house.
I drafted Drew for the job. But he couldn't do it alone. Together we shoveled the most foul smelling muck and roach housing I have ever dealt with. I've sprayed and cleaned and showered. But I still feel dirty. Ugh. Maybe the experience will help him think to keep his feed area clean. I really hope it will sound the death toll for the nasty critters.

Big blue bus

The Chevy Express 15 passenger van is my dream car. I mean, who isn't attracted to those sleek lines and amazing maneuverability? Said no one ever. Nope. The reason you succumb to those 4 rows of cloth benches and manual seat adjusters is one thing. Kids. Lots of them.
We've always loved to travel. One reason for that is the ability to have less interrupted conversation. At home, conversations go something like this:
David,  over morning coffee, "Hey, honey. I was thinking we should -"
Random child, "Moooooom! Tony hit me!"
Me, "hold that thought." Spank Tony,  resolve a sharing issue, change a filthy diaper, feed hungry children, get David to put babies down for naps, then send him to run the errands that only a crazy person would take kids to do, move over a load of laundry, solve the world shattering crisis Danae is currently dealing with, tell Drew to take out the trash, notice he looks like he hasn't had a shower since his latest mudbath, send him to shower, fix snack for now awake babies, clean kitchen, make supper, feed the hordes, bathe babies, change another poopy diaper (what was the point of the bath?), jammies and bedtime.  "Ok, Dear. What was it you were saying?"
David, "I think we should take a road trip. "
In the car, we have a captive audience. Conversation flows a little more smoothly. David, "You know, I think we should adopt more kids."
Random wail from the backseat.
Me, "Turn the music up, honey, we can still hear them. Yes. We definitely need more kids. Look how many seats in this van are still empty!"
In truth, the kids think the van is the coolest thing ever. Its a roving social club.  They're making up awesome names for it and thinking of all the friends they can take places now.  I'm excited to be able to spread carseats out and not have to that tilt-buckle thing. It's daunting, though, for other people. "Do you have to have a CDL to drive that thing?" My hairdresser asked me.  For the record no. No you don't.  You may need an industrial sized thermos of extra strength coffee, the economy pack of dramamine and several professional opinions that you're not as crazy as you feel. But a regular licence is fine.
I ended up with a late night trip to walmart a few days ago. Something happened that I hadn't expected.   A thirty-something year old woman with short, sporty hair pushed her cart down the row ahead of me. She stopped to unload at the 15 passenger van that had parked caddy-corner to me. I caught her eye in passing and she noticed me stop at our van. Like two English speaking people in a foreign country, we had an instant connection. Yeah. I'm a van owner too. Welcome to the small group of crazy people with too many kids to drive a cute car.

Of Drewboy and Dreams

It's a rare occurrence in the winter. But the weather is decent and my children have all disappeared outside to play. After all, how can chores and school compete with the allure of dragons, castles, and maidens in distress? Since we only have one maiden in the family, I think Chuy is often substituted for another. Downside of being the youngest. So here I sit in the quiet for a minute, writing some thoughts.
We took Danae, Drew, and Rachel to see The Hobbit 2 a few nights ago. As images of spiders and dragons popped off the screen (3D is fun), I got the rare opportunity to hold my son's hand. It's not that he's unaffectionate or embarrassed of his mom. I'm just usually surrounded by little hands that need holding. Little demands. Little squabbles. My big boy lives in a world all his own. He is surrounded by super heroes, lego people, mario, transformers, puppy dogs, kitty cats and a myriad of other imaginary creatures who need him to save the world. He's a lot like I was as a kid. Except my playmates were fairies, princesses, evil step mothers, enchantments, unicorns and handsome princes.
Drew's imaginary scope is incredible. Apparently even in his sleep. While camping this last year, I got to experience several of his dreams second hand. He would talk, shout and walk in his sleep. One night, while I was up getting a drink, he sat up, looked at me and exclaimed, "That is a COOL picture!" It's not uncommon for him to wander into the living room, an hour after he's fallen asleep, seemingly awake and very urgent about whatever he's doing.
"Why are you up son?"
Fidget. "Well. I was. Uh. I mean." Fidget. Point randomly at something. "Uh......uh..."
"Go back to bed, son"
"Oh. Ok"
He comes by it naturally. David and I were both sleepwalkers. I actually remember being upset that my parents didn't understand how important it was for me to clean the upstairs bathroom one night. It took some work for them to get me back to bed. 
One night, or more likely the wee small hours, David shook me awake.
"Hey.....Hey. I need to talk to you. I'm just really concerned about our house. We're just not doing a very good job of taking care of it."
Shaking my sleep addled brain awake, I stared at him. How dare he wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me I'm not doing my job?! I mean.....sure. With two babies, the house wasn't perfect. But, really?!? And, yes. In case you were wondering. I do take everything personally at two o'clock in the morning.
"WHAT?" I replied, ready for a fight.
David started, looked at me blearily and said, "oh." He laid down, rolled over, and began snoring softly.
I laid awake for another hour arguing with him in my head.
All that to say, there are so many ways my Drewboy is a chip off the old block. I treasure my time with him because I know it's growing short. I'm going to wake up tomorrow and he'll be grown and gone. I need to find more opportunities to hold his hand while I still can.

Laws of Parenting

Motherhood is a different experience for every woman who goes through it.  It even changes each time you add a child to the family. Yet some things have remained constant these last few years:

If you were up for two hours in the middle of last night, your children will be up at least an hour earlier than necessary. 

If you need to get up and be somewhere early, you'll have to drag them out of bed kicking and screaming. 

If it can be blamed on a sibling, it will be. (Devin once tried to convince me that Tony had snuck up and pooped in his pants.)

Your children view  your time in the bathroom or on the phone as your personal declaration of boredom. And they will do their best to liven up your life.

It's not real family picture unless someone is crying, dirty, bruised or fighting. And the best pictures involve all four.

If above can't be managed, there's always the option of sharpie art on the face. It has to be the face to be special. 

Walls call to children like the Sistine chapel called to Michelangelo. 

Pizza spells I love you.

No matter how many pens disappear into the depths of your purse, when it comes time to sign a check you will be able to find two crayons and a chewed on sharpie. 

Those pens will reappear in the laundry. Probably with your favorite church sweater or your husband's new white shirt.

If there is mud available within a 40 yard radius, the children will find it.

The younger the child, the more of him will be covered in mud. Chuy came home today (yes. I know it's Sunday) covered in enough mud to adobe a small hut. 

 

 

The poopocolypse

This week has been rough. Getting back into the swing of life after holidays and vacations is always rough. My 3 littles punish me for being gone. After being gone 5 days, I was barely greeted and promptly ignored at first. Then came the tag teaming. Days of constant "stop hitting him!" "Don't touch that!" "If you lick him again, I will spank you!" (Yes. I actually said that.) Nap time has been too short and bed time too late. Laundry piles up and the kitchen resembles a war zone. But I'm ok with that.
I don't remember exactly when we first established survival mode in our home, but it's been a sanity saver. Every parent has times like these. Whether they have one child or twelve.  When I realize its time for survival mode, my priorities change. I focus on simplicity. Keep the kitchen manageable and do laundry. Sometimes that means we use a lot of paper plates and eat a lot of sandwiches and mac n cheese. Or that there are several piles of laundry waiting to be folded on the couch. That's ok. We're surviving.
Today, life finally clicked over a bit and we've managed to get the house clean, some school done and constructive play with the littles. It's been a blessing. There's a lot more to be done. I'll take it one day at a time.
On the funny side....I've dealt with way more than my fair share of poop lately. Here's one of several stories that I've been meaning to write:
Poop Armageddon
  I should have known it would be one of those days when I arose to the cat hacking up her first hairball on the living room rug. Blithely,  I went about preparing breakfast for the ravening hordes and sending David off to grocery shop with Danae and Devin. I will admit I laughed when I got a text from David.
  " Well, I sent Devin with Danae to look at toys and he pooped his pants. Danae took him to the bathroom herself before calling me so I can't get to him."
By the way. Never laugh at someone else's hilariously difficult situation. You will pay for it.
Lunch time came around, and i started my cherished pot of afternoon coffee. I poured a cup and began the wait for it to turn from scalding to mearly hot.  I cut a generous slice of brownie to go with it. Chuy came to me with his afternoon "nasty".  Waddling as if his diaper held a toxic corrosive,  he wimpered and began to proclaim, "nasty mama! Nasty!" And it was.  The pervasive leak required nothing less than a full hose down. To the bathroom we went Well, I sent Devin with Danae to look at toys and he pooped his pants. Danae took him to the bathroom herself before calling me so I can't get to him. .
Still in high spirits (after all, my coffee should be ready by the time i was done), I cleaned chuy up and decided to run a bath for him to play in. Tony came by and wanted to join up. No problem. They began to splash and play as I got a text from David.
"Do we have any yogurt?"
A quick check revealed we did. And provided Tony just enough time to begin hollering my name.
Chuy, "Momma! NASTY!"
I rounded the corner to find tony had laid some floaters in the tub. Great. Fish them out. Flush them down. Drain, hose down, rerun some water. Chuy was ready to get out anyway. I took him to the couch to dry off.
"MOMMA"
I sighed and finished fastening Chuy's diaper. Guess Tony didn't want to keep playing after all. My coffee could wait another minute. I popped back into the bathroom to find the Chernobyl of toddler poop. In the water. On the walls. Over the side of the tub. And Tony standing there saying, "I pooped, Mom! I get a candy now?"
Smothering my gag reflex and wishing I had a hazmat suit, I waded into the mess and began disaster relief measures.   About half way through,  one of my other kids came dashing through,  demanding a bathroom. I directed them around the corner to Danae's bathroom. Five minutes later, they returned to tell me that her toilet was clogged.
"And I had diarrhea. "
I had nothing to say. Staring at the freshly bleached boys bathroom, and unwilling to bring my treasured coffee into another contaminates zone, I headed for Danae's bathroom.  In the time it took to plunge the toilet, my two resourceful toddlers had taken my brownie and most of the rest of the pan of brownies and spread them from the kitchen, through the livingroom, down the hallway and into their bedroom.  They cheerfully set about dusting their room with dark chocolate crumbs and tucking brownie bites into little nooks for later.  It took me the better part of 30 minutes  to clean. The babies went to bed immediately thereafter.
Finally having a moment, I headed to the bathroom myself. Only to find my dog peeing on my sitting room floor.
The only thing I could think was, "I've got to write this story. You can't make up stuff like this!" I settled down to cold coffee and brownie crumbs and watched a movie instead.