Something about watching all my men walking together as if setting off for an adventure that makes my knees go all soft & my heart go pitter-patter.  I love these guys.  Wrestling at all hours, purple nurples inside of quiet nursing & all the choas they bring, I love.  I just love them.

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Yesterday my oldest wanted to help with the laundry.  He wanted to wash a load of laundry.  Yes, my son wanted to do work.  Not just work but laundry.  I should have seen this as an omen of impending doom. However, I was blindsided by the idea of clean towels.

Down to the basement, into the laundry room we went.  He had the towels loaded into the washer & I showed him how to measure out the soap & start the load.  We discussed how the washer works & that it would beep when the load was done.

About 20 minutes later, 20 minutes too soon for a large load of towels on the cycle it was set to fully be complete, I heard “Mom, it’s done! It’s weird I didn’t hear it beep.”

My response “What??”  I was starting dinner, cleaning the kitchen & trying to vacuum up a sea of crumbs someone managed to track on the living room rug.  Of course I was doing this ALL.AT.THE.SAME.TIME.  Because I’m a Mom that’s what we DO! And the sound of my son saying “I didn’t hear it beep.” stopped me dead in my tracks.  Chills ran down my spine.  If he didn’t hear it beep & it had been only 20 minutes that meant…

I jolted to the stairs. Hoping that maybe I was wrong.  Maybe I lost track of time.  Maybe there was hope.   No, sadly I did not lose track of time. All hope was lost. I mean really the lack of any beep cemented that there was no loss of time.

My son greeted me on the stairs. “It’s really weird Mom when I opened it water went everywhere. I mean it’s everywhere.”

And my heart sunk.  Down the stairs I went. Dead woman walking. Knowing that a mess greeted me around the corner.

Yes, he was right. Water went EVERYWHERE! Turns out the load was NOT done as I already knew.  Someone stopped it, someone else then decided it was a good idea to open the door HALF WAY through.  Someone is lucky that I love them very much, very, very much.

I walked around the corner to see a small flood & to hear behind “Wow, that’s a big mess.”  Really, Ya Think???

Remind me again that if a child of mine wants to help with laundry some disaster akin to the great flood of biblical proportions may greet me at the end of the journey.

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We spent the rest of our family vacation off Lake Michigan, in a small town a drive outside Traverse City.  I love being there.  The Lake Michigan is beautiful.  I mean absolutely beautiful. I took this picture out my window while driving right before the sun began to set.  Beautiful.

There is nothing like waking up to a breeze in the trees & a lake view.  I’m having withdraws right now as I write this.  Our dream is to save up, pay down & move. I know, I know.  Everyone has THAT dream.  Blah, blah, blah dream.  Easy to dream when you are only visiting, right?

Although…Hubby has wanted to move into this area since he was a kid & has been trying to talk me into it FOREVER!!!!  I’m no longer in school, he is done with school,  the land would be nice, we could figure out a more communal work/live space.  Ahh…dreams.  When we got home we did sit down & work through a budget for a long-term plan.  Of course like all talk it would need to have action, we’ll see if we stay motivated enough to make it a reality.

What was most fun about this whole trip was that we, long before kids, started off in this same place (literally our first vacation was to the same place), 13 YEARS AGO!!  WE once stood on this very spot on this strip of beach back when we were still young, naive & thought “what if.”  Now we have our children standing & exploring with us.  They ALL had so much fun!!  Especially seeing the water & the sand off Lake Michigan.  Except D-man he liked looking at it but he wasn’t so sure about walking in the sand, given he just figured out walking a few months ago.

It was a really nice time.  Skipping rocks, sitting by the bon fire roasting marshmallows & eating s’mores, and just being.  Hubby has had a lot going on at work & so I think the rest did him good.  He looked refreshed.  I felt refreshed even if there were still some stressful moments.  Because you know the usual “He’s looking at me”  & all THAT drama does NOT go on vacation it comes with you.  Still it was REALLY. NICE.  I mean REALLY. NICE.  And now I’m back to having withdraws again.

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We took a family vacation up to the Northern Michigan region.  It’s something that is a Southeastern Michigan rite of passage. You go “Up North” which can really be anywhere in the State there is water and you are at least 3 hours away from the city.  I’d gone as a kid a couple times, Hubby many times more (he has extended family they’d visit) & now we’ve taken many trips together both before & after kids.

Let me tell you, I never dreamed when we we’d travel sans kids that we’d be traveling around the area with 4 kids under 7 in tow. Knowing at least two of those kids is on the autism spectrum & traveling becomes something akin to a three ring circus.  I’m pretty sure that my “before kids” self would have looked at you with a certain panicked awe, the same panicked awe that you’d see cross my face  if someone was to tell me the Second Coming was tomorrow.  Because while I believe I was hoping for a little more time before meeting my maker.  I mean I HAVE THINGS TO DO GOD!  It’s sort of the same thing when I think about being 31 (almost 32) with gray hair, wrinkles crinkling around my & 4 kids packed into a mini-van for some family fun.  There’s a panicked awe that sets in on a trip like this.

Still I can easily say hands down that it’s beautiful there.  I mean truly beautiful, like I want to run up and have someone adopt me so I can wake up & see lake views every day.  The kids also kept talking about how beautiful it was to sit and watch the water.

The first day we stopped off in Mackinac on our way to spend some time outside Traverse City.  The Mackinac Bridge there was once one of the longest bridges in the world it has since fallen into the top 20.  But looking at it I could see that I’m standing on the edge of what I thought life would be like, what life is like & what it could be.

I felt my Hubby’s hand hit the small of my back. That soft touch that I want to melt into.  While we stood there watching the kids point in joy at the sight of a big bridge I knew that we’ve been edging toward somewhere together.  While it, that elusive it, sometimes tosses us around, battering us, making us feel lost perhaps as if the passing storm is never-ending  it can also bring us a quiet peace filling us with the warming joy of sun bouncing off the waves rolling toward the shore.  A bridge that when fog hits looks like it is going nowhere but in reality is a bridge to somewhere.

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We have made an effort in our family to teach our children at a young age how to use real tools. I wrote about the recent at-home workshop my Hubby did with the kids, after getting wood kits from Home Depot one Saturday.  A few people commented & asked me questions by email about how we worked on doing this as a family.  Because they were interested in exploring more “real” items with their kids but weren’t sure how to start.  Given panic can easily set in watching young children work with any tools.  As parents we are hop­ing that over time they will learn how impor­tant these tools are & how to use them safely.   There is nothing like the joy as a parent of hearing a child exclaim “I did it!” while working on a project along side Mom or Dad it made my heart sing to see the kids all working together & Hubby proudly helping each of them.  However, in teaching them about tool usage we have set some ground rules.

1.  An adult must always be in charge.

In our house this is usually Dad.  He has more patience than I do for tools , I tend to worry too much about what “might” happen, while he enjoys the moment while keeping safety front & center.  He also enjoys working with the children teaching them how to build or fix things.  I’m there to act as a support in all areas of teaching with these projects, but this tends to be an area that he excels in patience & doesn’t want to chew his arm off in fear of someone getting injured.  Not that I want to, except that I might want to.

2.  Dangerous tools are off limits.

While that nail gun or large saw may be tempting to a child it’s important to have those tools put up.  Any tool that requires more skill, physical power, and knowledge to use than a child has should be kept up & away.  Learning should be fun & safe.  This means that we also have our tools, even those that are safe to use with an adult, locked away when not in use.

3. Must hold tools properly and know how to place hands.

Swinging a hammer in the air is not acceptable.  Putting your hands in the way of a tool is not safe.  Teaching children how to hold tools when moving them from one place to another, hold to hold the tools when they are in use & how to put them away properly is important.  We constantly teach and reinforce safety rules.  They may not always do it exactly right, as you can see even with my own kids it’s close & better than them going all willy-nilly flinging tools in the air.  Again all the fun is lost in the activity and learning process if someone gets hurt.

4.  Protect your eyes & body.

Wear protective eye gear, don’t wear loose clothing & protect feet from the possibility of a falling tool.   This is part of creating a safe workspace.  Getting a shirt-sleeve caught could lead to an injury, this means proper dress across the board. Understanding how to care for one’s own body helps to understand what’s needed to be safe when working with tools.

5. Adjust the workspace for children.

This means lowering the table & if necessary clamping down the pieces being worked on.  Also, if you have a child who cannot hold a full sized hammer buy a smaller hammer, this goes for other tools.  Start with smaller tools & softer pieces of  wood, like pine, for children who are nailing items in.

We have found pieces of wood, at home kits, and other small tasks on larger projects have helped the kids all learn how to use tools safely.

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The other weekend my husband took our daughter on an errand with him. He was getting some parts to fix the lawn mower, while at the local Home Depot he saw that they had a kid’s workshop going on.  He and Mamacita walked past it, the woman working it offered to give them aprons & he picked up kits at the store for the kids to make at home.

Mamacita worked hard with her hammer.  Yes, the kids used real hammers & real nails. We are hoping that over time they will learn how important these tools are & how to use them safely.   It was great to see them working with their Daddy.   He is so patient at these projects with them.  Even when she exclaimed, after everyone else was done & she was still working on her kit that she was going to do it “ALL BY MYSELF!” he was patient guiding her on how she could do just that.

He and Mr. J played a tough game.   I am pretty sure our oldest changed the rules every 5 minutes.  We have to work on the whole concept of rules.  For a kid that loves rules you’d think he’d stick to them on a game.  And listening to Hubby laughing while playing this ever changing game made me smile.

I also got to see Mr. G proudly show off his own soccer game to his little brother.   D-man was impressed that the ball could be rolled across the box with a spin of a guy.  While Mr. G kept telling me “Momma, I made this.”  The kid was beaming,  I mean just beaming with pride.

I think this was a great idea for a day’s activity. While doing it at Home Depot wouldn’t have worked that day, given Hubby found out that it was workshop day while at the store, making our own at home workshop was a lot of fun. Seeing how well the kids worked together & with Hubby was so awesome.  Really, really awesome.  I was in awe of how beautiful they all worked as a team even while building their individual projects.   Also, the kids have been setting up “workshops” since that day with toys they “repair” with “toy tools” wearing their aprons as a team, which is really a wonderful sight to see.

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I was listening to the boys talk one day.

The oldest “No, you don’t have any girl parts only boy parts.  You’re a boy. Boys have boy parts, girls have girl parts.”

The younger brother by 18 months “Well, if I only have boy parts did they grow on me?”

Oldest looks perplexed, that look like he wants to know the answer, wants his younger brother to think he knows all the answers but really he has no idea.  I often feel that look across my own face when I struggle to answer one of their questions.

My oldest after pausing slowly answers “Yah, I guess.  Where else did they come from? You grow it when you are in your Mommy’s tummy.”

Without missing a beat…

“If ours grew in our Mommy’s tummy, then did Mommy’s penis fall off when she came out of Nana’s tummy?”

And that is the start of biology & anatomy 101 at our house.

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Do you ever get the feeling you on a journey that is leading you to somewhere but have no idea where? I feel like there’s something around the corner but I am not sure what that is or what the next step should be. Like I’m standing on the edge of going somewhere.   I have been trying to figure this out since the start of the year.  I still don’t know, which is crazy because I swear a few weeks ago I thought I KNEW.

I feel like there are so many things that are in flux right this minute.

I thought we had figured out school for the kids next year, only to realize we still don’t know what we are going to do.  I thought we had a plan of action for getting ahead, only to realize life happens and when it does your plan changes.  I thought I was going to be an academic all my life, only to realize moving a family across country in a job market that doesn’t lend itself to helping secure one job let alone two isn’t going to happen.

Oh, Heck!!  I thought I’d just now be finding a husband that I’d fall madly in love with & settling down, only to have found him when I was a freshman in college & now I look out over our four beautiful children.

And the list could on from there, but I will spare you ever single “I thought” because you all do have lives and I could really suck you in for days, maybe even weeks with what I thought would happen but hasn’t.

So, um, yea, I thought a lot of things, only to realize that what I had laid out before me is changing but now we’re getting ready to embrace summer soon and STILL I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING!!

In fact, now that I think about it nothing has turned out exactly like I’ve ever thought it would & maybe I’ve never known what I’m doing.  That’s not a bad thing, I wouldn’t trade the love I have all around me for the world,  just leaves me now wondering what’s next?

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We took the 3 elder children to a Detroit Tigers game. We all have a love of our home team.  Hubby is that guy who walks around wearing Detroit gear no matter where he is in the country.   We went because  it was a birthday present for our oldest.  It’s all he told us he wanted for his birthday, to see a game with his family.  D-man stayed back with Grandma because the game was during his nap time & turns out it was probably better that way since it was wet out.

But in spite of the sprinkling rain, my oldest told us it was the BEST. BIRTHDAY. EVER!!!! I mean what could be better?  Daddy took a 1/2 day & your family surprised you with tickets to see your favorite team.  While there he feasted on a hot dog, saw a game that didn’t include a win for our team but lots of laughter, road the merry-go-round (one of its seats is pictured above) & lots of birthday wishes.

There was also the nicest group of people who sat behind us, I mean they were all really so nice.  One of the women went out of her way to ask a player for a baseball to give to my son for his birthday.  He had tried to  get a foul ball that came in our area, but it bounced away & someone else got it.  He was a little bummed but then was vigilant to try to get another one.  Of course another ball never came to him.

Yet, at the end of the game the woman came up with the baseball for him.  She had told me she was going to get it & that she’d asked one of the players who was practicing near our area after he missed the foul ball.  He looked like he was going to burst from excitement over having a REAL. TIGERS. BASEBALL!!! I can’t begin to say how awesome that was & how she helped make my kid’s day.  I know a baseball might not mean but to a lot of people but to this kid it means a lot, and to his parents it was an act of true kindness.

At night they all cuddled with the little Paws (the Mascot) finger puppets that came in the kid’s meals we got them.  And I know they call it Comerica Park. Yes, like everywhere in our society the naming rights were sold.  I am going to sell rights to the next kid.

Wait, did I say next? Um, yea that would mean we’d have to make a next.  Hmmm…maybe selling naming rights isn’t the best idea now that I think about it.

Anyway…Even though the old Tigers stadium has been fallen to demolition, it will always be the stadium of my childhood.  Complete with memories of eating one too many peanuts & spending the night thinking I WOULD NEVER EAT ANOTHER PEANUT AGAIN!  But even if the stadium of my youth is gone, I’m happy to share the stadium of my children’s youth with them.

It’s through their eyes that everything is new again. Sharing these new memories & being roped into saying Yes to future birthday gatherings at the stadium because it was a pretty sweet day.  I also can’t believe he is another year older but I’m so happy that he had a great birthday.  No make that the BEST.BIRTHDAY.EVER!!!! I know that Hubby & I can’t wait to share many more with him.

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Remember this adorable face? Yea, well he is not that adorable when he is angry.  In fact, he is anything adorable.  He becomes a “head throwing, fist throwing, anything lying around in near distance throwing” baby.

Case in point.

The other night he woke up.  Hubby got D-man up from his side of the room, brought him to bed with us.  Basically the same as any other night.  Except it was really hot, I mean like a humid furnace in the 9th circle of hell kind of hot.

And D-man wasn’t in the mood for the same as any other night routine.

He didn’t want to nurse.  Instead he wanted his juice.  “JUUUUUUUUUUUCE”  At the top of his lungs to be exact.  He knows very few words.  Juice & Cracker are two he has down pat.  Except cracker is for any food item & comes out more like “CRAAAAAAACKKKKKKERRRRR” complete with a gimme hand.  And so at the adamant desire for his “JUUUUUUUUUUUCE”  Hubby went to go grab the cup while I attempted to calm D-man down.

Yea, that didn’t go so well.

Instead my raging baby decided to grab my hair.  Ok, fine.  I can handle that, but apparently I was off my baby game.  I blame the fact that it was late & hot.  Because he then managed to headbutt me, directly into my right eye.   I wondered at that moment if he understood that I GAVE BIRTH TO HIM!!  HOW DARE HE!!

And oh the sound of his head coming into full contact with my eye & eye socket caused Hubby to think that my eye socket may have been broken.  I’m being completely serious on that statement.  That is how awful the sound was & the ensuing crying on my behalf.   (What?  You’ve never had a baby take out your eye & cried like a baby yourself?  Trust me, if it had been you, you’d have cried too.)

D-man on the other hand was all smiles once he had his “JUUUUUUUUUUUCE”  & was back to his usual smiley self.  Me on the other hand, well, I’m sporting a black eye.  One that causes people stop and ask in “OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYE!” with no subtly at all.  Then I have to explain that the cute baby I have is hot tempered & if he wants his “JUUUUUUUUUUUCE”  you better have it for him or be faster on the head bob before he gets ya.

Because let me tell you, it’s embarrassing to tell people you lost to a baby.

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