Mother's Day Mixed Bag

I look forward to Mother's Day all year long.  Unlike other holidays, I am not in charge of making the magic happen.   Normally,  I embrace the idea of "nothing" for Mother's Day.  That is to say I want to do nothing, be responsible for nothing -- no getting kids dressed, no food prep, no talking to children unless I choose to do so, no responsibility.

In keeping with living my own personal truth, of keeping motherhood real.  I share my mixed bag mother's day experience.

First, the Mother's Day Pre-Func.  In order to be able to properly enjoy my "day off," I spent Saturday doing the following:

• washing bedding for all 5 people plus one additional load of laundry
• fold 3+ loads of laundry
• make 5 beds with all the newly clean bedding
• meal plan and grocery shop for the week
• visit with the teen I'm a companion to
• Visit my parents, bring them their mail and my mom a birthday/mother's day card.  My dad had a heart attack this week (he's okay, got another stent) and my mom is still recovering from knee surgery so my siblings and I are keeping an eye on them.  At my parents I vacuum and help them wash their bedding.
• make kids clean their rooms
• grade two sets of math tests
• rsvp for two kid birthday parties and other family calendaring stuff

Today, Mother's Day

6:15 am         A small child (Robin) climbs into bed, excited for the day.

6:30 am         Another child (Eileen) comes into the room, trying to explain and get me to open a mother's day present.  I proclaim to be asleep.  She and Robin begin playing and squealing in the room.  Dave gets up and takes them downstairs.

8:00 am         Breakfast in bed -- croissant, coffee, bacon, and fiber pills.  I open presents. Personalized magnets (pretty cool) and a newspaper about me from Eileen.  She declares that I am good at my job and she likes it when I take her to the Family Fun Center.  Robin gave me a potted plant.  I'm surprised it's still alive since it's been wrapped in tissue paper for 3 days. 

Linus wins this round.  He created a treasure hunt.  He even used good handwriting!

Apparently, I'm very bad at clues.  I tried Google photos, my Youtube, his Youtube.  I was completely wrong.  I needed the big ipad (we have a smaller ipad as well).  He made me a great video.  Take note of his eyes and where he is looking when he says to look for the yellow "scube."

Linus' Mother's Day Treasure Hunt

Inside a yellow box where we keep DVDs.  I found my present, a cute little book made out of paper bags.  I liked the feature that allowed it to hold slips of paper in addition to the glued-on pages.  Linus seems to have the 1980s confused with the 1880s....

I finished out my morning with another cup of coffee, reading the most recent issue of Mathematics in the Middle School, and watching last night's SNL with Amy Schumer.

Normally, at this point I would be headed out to a 90 minute massage.  I decided this year I would actually spend my special day with my kids.  With the weather predicted to be sunny and in the 80s I thought a trip to Northwest Trek would be perfect -- picnic, outdoors, entertaining.

What was I thinking!?!?!

Linus was not in the mood to cooperate in any form.  If you have ever spent time with a moody, stubborn child, then you know what this might look like.  After a "fun" 20 minutes, we were all in the car.  Eileen whined the entire car ride.  Robin did his part by using potty language.

 Arriving at Northwest Trek did not help things.  The Zipline Obstacle Course was not open for the season yet.  This was inexcusable.  Linus demanded we go home and refused to stay with the group, including having his picture taken.

Fed up, I took Eileen and Robin off to explore Northwest Trek, leaving Linus to pout.  We had a lovely time.  Linus eventually changed his mind.  He and Dave managed to make it on the tram behind us.  After the tram ride, no one wanted to do what I wanted.  Eileen and Robin just wanted to play in the the stream at the playground (it IS a really cool playground and stream), however I came for the outdoors and animals.  I may have been more than a little annoyed.

We drove home.  I napped in the car which definitely improved my mood.  We dined at Diamond Knot Brewery.  I recently discovered Moscow Mules.  Paired with an Thai Peanut Asian Salad, I was feeling very international and much less grumpy.  The kids were in better moods too.

Back home I let know Dave know he was in charge of getting the kids bathed and to bed.  I reminded him the garbage needed to be taken to the street.  Then I retired to my room for the evening.

I know my family loves me.  The hardest thing about being a mom sometimes is that you can feel so under-appreciated.  You give everything of yourself to make your family healthy and happy.  I think the key is to recognize the good things when they happen, even if they don't happen when you want them to.  I adore Robin's snuggles and egg hatching.  It's hard to remember how much I love the snuggles when they happen at 6 am (or earlier).  Linus obviously put a lot of thought into my Mother's Day present.  I'm lucky to have creative, capable children.  Kids can't be expected to be perfect.   It's my job to help them learn how to use a non-whiny voice and regulate their moods.  That's part of being a parent.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.  I see you.  I appreciate you.  I know how hard you "mom" all day long.  I will never pretend that this is an easy vocation.  Just don't judge me next year when I skip the family bonding and head straight to the spa.

From the Mouths of Babes in April

Eileen:  Today is April Fools Day and the day Jesus is risen.  One of the happiest days of all.

Robin:  I will give you a Reeses pieces because you have been so patient for one.

Eileen to Robin:  You can read in your head.  That's called self talk.

Robin:  My kisses are magic.  Now close your eyes.  (Kisses my eyelids) See? Magic!


Sometimes you come upon a scene....

Spring Break Road Trip

Go on a road trip.  It will be fun.  Give the kids an experience from the good old days.  They can see part of the country, random road side attractions.  It is so much cheaper than buying plane tickets.

These are things that went through my head when Dave and I decided to take a road trip over spring break.  Usually we do nothing.  In that sense, my kids get a classic spring break experience --abject boredom, chores, rain.  With Dave's new job, he gets paid time off (woo-hoo!).  Being a novel, new experience, we decided to take advantage.  I moved a few appointments around and bam! we could take a road trip.

The plan was simple.  Feed the kids dinner, bathe them, put them in jammies and drive south at 6 pm.  Drive through the night and eat breakfast in Monterey, California.  We packed lots of snacks, a Boogie Board LCD writer for each kid,  Kindles loaded with new books from the library, a 14 hour audiobook (Inkheart by Cornelia Funke) downloaded onto audible.  Missing: ipads, dvds, any sort of gaming device.
                                       
                                         Optimistic about the adventure ahead.

We lucked out and had pretty much zero traffic through Seattle (weird), Tacoma (weirder), and Fort Lewis (unheard of!).  I fell asleep just outside Portland.  I woke up when Dave asked me to see if there was gas nearby.  I looked at the gauge and saw this......

Not cool Dave.

We were in the middle of nowhere, sort of near Drain and Cottage Grove, Oregon.  Nearest gas was 10 miles. I tried not to panic.  The first gas station we found had the store open, but pumps turned off.  The attendant told us to try a ways up the road.  Prayers and fumes got us safely to a gas station.  I saw the distance to empty read zero.  I hope to never see that again.

Newly gassed up, I took over driving.  Mount Shasta is quite beautiful in the moonlight at 3 am.  The kids actually did a pretty good job sleeping.  The kids had their first Denny's breakfast experience somewhere outside San Francisco.

We made it to Monterey later in the morning.  Eileen was excited about all the sand dunes.
We spent the majority of our day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It lived up to the hype.  It was definitely worth the price (it was not cheap).  Everyone's favorite parts of the aquarium were the blue ocean exhibit with the sea turtle, the jellyfish exhibit, and the area where the tides could wash over you.

      They actually willingly posed for this photo.  Only 1 looking into the camera.

      Linus has loved sitting in alcoves of aquariums since he was an infant.

Due to the late planning of our trip, we weren't able to stay in a cheap motel, or even mid-priced motel.  We ended up at an airbnb cottage in Pacific Grove.  I loved its location--walking distance to small grocery store, coffee shops, restaurants, and the beach.  Another bonus?  No tv.  The kids read so much on this trip.

Eileen and I went adventuring before dinner.  A cool thing in this area is the miles and miles of running/biking trail along the water.  It's totally the kind of thing that would be fun to do as a date sans children.

The next day we ventured out to Carmel.  It turns out that Carmel is designed to look like a Bavarian village but is mostly just art stores and wine shops (not ideal for kids).  Instead we drove a little further to the Carmel Mission Basillica.  Linus was very impressed.  I wasn't sure what kids would think of touring a church, but they really liked it.

We did the 17 mile scenic drive through Pebble Beach and ended up at Carmel Beach.  These kids were ready for beach time.  We saw some puffins out on a rock.

After a long day at the beach, complete with sunburns, we hit the hay and woke up to drive to Fresno.  The coast had been relatively cool upper 50s, low 60s.  I was looking forward to slightly warmer weather as well as seeing our friends, Katie and Chris, and the chance to meet their new daughters.

In Fresno we went for a walk at a wildlife refuge.  The kids complained about the walk, but once we got to the river, they didn't want to leave.

After our hike, we met up with Katie and Chris at a playground and met the girls.  They are so cute.  Linus was smitten with the 3 year old (who I admit was a bundle of joy and love).

We stayed at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Fresno.
    Side Bar.  The Comfort Inn rocks. Seriously.  I've never stayed at one before.  The rooms were nice.  The complimentary breakfast was really impressive.  The pool clean.  The whole place was just really well put together.  We stayed at another one Salem.  We were equally happy and that time the room had 3 queens, meaning we had a room to ourselves and there was still a sleeper sofa.  The cost was only $147.  We will be staying there again.  I used a website for large families to find places to stay.  On the other end of the spectrum...do not stay at Super 8.  I repeat, do not stay at Super 8.  It was gross, gross, gross, and seriously lacking (including enough beds, blankets, or pillows) despite what our reservation said.

Here is me relaxing at the Comfort Inn during the complimentary happy hour while Dave took the kids swimming at the indoor pool.  Did I mention they filled my glass to the top?

It was great to learn the kids could handle sharing a bed (as long as a pillow separated them down the middle) and that we could all successfully sleep in the same room. Robin got pretty snuggly.

Heading north from Fresno we took a detour through the college town of Chico.  It is a seriously cute town.  Inside an amazing toy store is the National Yo Yo Museum.

We stayed a night in Medford in order to visit the Oregon Vortex.  It is a 45 minute tour.  I learned that the presentation doesn't really change.  After 5 minutes it's just the same thing over and over again.  I was not buying the notion that everything is caused by a refraction of light.  It was still fun.

We surprised the kids when we pulled off the freeway in Salem to visit Enchanted Forest.  They awoke from naps to find themselves outside a castle.  The whole place is pretty amazing.  It's like 1960s Disneyland meets Never Never Land from Tacoma in the 1980s.

Robin shook with excitement.  We pretty much had the place to ourselves due to the rain.  There were no lines.  I was impressed by Robin's bravery on the roller coasters (that he may or may not have been quite tall enough for, it was debatable).

We made it home midday Sunday.  There was still 6 minutes left in Inkheart.  I still don't know how the book ends!

Lest you believe things were all blissful and perfect.....the kids fought nonstop.  They could not keep their hands off one another.  At one point Linus went Three Stooges on Eileen and poked her in the eyes with two fingers.  There was biting, screaming, and lots of backtalk.  It was crazy making.  The kids lost all screens and digital technology (except their Kindle readers) for a month and Linus for an additional week.

After one day, Linus wrote a long thoughtful apology where he recommended his siblings be punished for one week and he for two.  Since he gave himself a reasonable yet harsher punishment I agreed.  The first day back (Monday) was rough.  Tuesday was better.  Now Wednesday, things seem to have righted themselves.  Linus keeps trying to trick us into giving him screen time.  Sorry buddy.  We know what you are up to and it ain't gonna happen.

In conclusion, the road trip went as expected and slightly better than expected.  I'm glad we did it.  I'm sad we couldn't squeeze in the Redwoods and the Trees of Mystery.  No one puked which was a surprise or wet their pants.  It makes the idea of another road trip seem plausible although I'm in no hurry to do it again right away.  I'm really glad we left the screens behind.

Easter

Easter was one week ago and I'm only now getting around to blogging about it.  Life has been very very busy -- lots of grading, getting ready to take 6th grade to environmental ed for a week, prepping a spring break road trip, as well as excitedly waiting for the birth of a baby (not mine obviously).  With so much going on Easter was a much smaller celebration.

We dyed eggs.  I didn't end up doing a hunt with them and we only ate about 4.  It's about the experience right?

I didn't buy Linus an Easter outfit.  He ends up fighting about it anyway no matter what I buy even if he chose it.  Robin excitedly picked out his shirt and I just paired it with a pair of pants he already had.  I bought Eileen's dress on a whim from GAP and was excited when it only cost $5.  There are no pictures of them in their outfits all together.  It was that kind of morning.  We are lucky we made it to church.  Linus still balked when I said no sweatpants.  Robin's behavior at mass was horrible.  Normally, he does pretty well.  I was pretty mortified by the time mass was over. The other two were fine and actually listened for most of it.

The Easter Bunny brought copious amounts of chocolate.  The kids each got something small (worth about $10).  Robin loved his present, a Pikachu hooded towel.

After church I made a nice brunch for just the 5 of us instead of hosting a larger brunch. We still set a table, plated the food on serving dishes, used the good china, and there were mimosas for the adults.  Later in the afternoon we attended a large Easter egg hunt hosted by someone from our parish.
                                               
                                                              On his way to the hunt

The pelting winds and rains made things pretty miserable.  We bailed early.  By the time we were back in the car, the temperature had dropped 10 degrees from when we first left the house.  Brrr.
Back home we got cozy and watched the Easter Bunny is Coming to Town. 

My sister, Sally, and her partner, Gino came over in the evening and announced their engagement!  I'm so excited for the both of them.  While they took Linus and bought chocolate and flowers for my mom who is recovering from knee surgery, the rest of us ate ceasar salad for dinner.  Dessert was apple dump cake a la mode (one of Linus' favorites).

Easter was simple and low key.  Knowing we were leaving for a trip the next day made it easy to dial it back.  It won't go down as my favorite Easter although I did get the best Easter basket ever for myself.  Hopefully, next year  we will strike a better balance of reverence, fun, and good behavior.

From the Mouths of Babes in March

Dave:  Last one is a rotten egg.
Robin: Hey!  I'm the only Robin egg.

Linus:  I get to choose the flowers because I'm the best at it.   (Buying flowers at hospital for Grandma after knee surgery)

Robin:  I need my guitar.  Where's my guitar?

Cell Phone Rescue Mission

I swear I don't know what is happening to me.  I am becoming so absent minded.  Friday I just could not seem to remember my cell phone.  I left my phone at home when I went to work.  That evening I drove Linus and two classmates all the way to West Seattle for a basketball game.  It was cool to see to be back at my first teaching gig, Our Lady of Guadalupe.  The gym didn't exist back then.  It was a great game.  The boys have improved significantly since the first game.

Linus and I met up with some of the team back in Shoreline for pizza.  Once inside the restaurant I reached for my phone to text Dave and let him know the plan.  I realized my phone was not in my purse.  Checked the car. Nope. Shoooooooot.

I decided to enjoy my pizza and cider and not fret for the moment.  I got home and Dave suggested using the Find my phone android app.   It worked great!  We figured out my phone was still in West Seattle, but no longer at the gym.  I correctly guessed that the gym manager had found it.  I sent a message to my phone screen to call Dave's cell phone number.  A nice man named Mark called less than 2 minutes later.

We were able to figure out I could get my phone back Saturday afternoon.  Thank goodness I didn't have a ton of plans!  Nothing like a trip to the far reaches of West Seattle from Lake Forest Park.  Traffic was on our side.  The kids napped in the car. 

I felt so lost without my phone.  I keep notes on my phone that I didn't want to lose, like a list of books I want to read (there's like 20 books).  Having safely retrieved my phone, I took the kids on a little tour of  West Seattle.  "Look kids! There's the sketchy apartment on Delridge your dad and I lived in when we first got married!"

We went to the Junction for cupcakes--it was interesting to see what was still there, what was gone, what was new.  I love the free parking of the Junction.  Ballard could learn a lesson here.  I thought it would be fun to go to Lincoln Park.  I was disappointed to learn that the zipline was gone while the playground undergoes renovation.  Luckily, the beach did not disappoint.

Seattle is the best sometimes.

The kids each found a cool stick they liked.  We skipped rocks, hopped along driftwood, and had a grand time.  Once we got to the pool, we headed up the trail. Robin did great although his lack of balance was nerve wracking.  The kids loved hiking trails, identifying plants.

Eileen discovered this tree root and declared it a "snake eating an elephant."

While I'd rather not lose my phone again, I wouldn't mind another day trip to West Seattle.  It's a pretty great place.

Budding Young Paleontologists

These days it seems rare that we have a weekend afternoon that isn't already filled with something --sports, birthday parties, stuff.  I entrusted Linus to come up with something to do today that did not cost too much (he wanted to do iFly) and was something everyone could enjoy.  I was impressed with his Google search skills.  He landed upon Dino Days at the Burke Museum.  Linus was super pumped and quickly roused everyone to get ready and out the door.  I'm pretty sure that if I had suggested it, Linus would have recoiled in disgust.

Parking was terrible.  I had no idea they were building a new Burke Museum.  While I'm happy to hear it, it took us more than 20 minutes to find parking.  The people at the Burke have definitely upped the ante since the last time we attended several years ago.  We headed the online advice and bought tickets ahead of time.  A bingo scavenger hunt was devised to walk you through everything.  Normally, we skip that sort of thing, but the prize was a super cool plastic pith helmet.  It was all the motivation Linus needed.

It was neat this year how you could see real paleontologists at work behind glass and ask them questions.

Linus might not look excited, but it's all an act.

It had been awhile since we had visited the Burke Museum.   I enjoyed seeing the kids remember parts of exhibits and still get excited about the fossils. 

Young paleontologists at work.

Backwards hugs!

After we'd visited everything, Linus and Eileen wanted to go back to where real scientific illustrators were at work.  They got to try their own hand at it.

Dino Days was a big success.  No one had a melt down.  Everyone had fun.  Linus told me he thought he would make a good paleontologist some day.  I agree.