Do you remember that Ron Howard movie, "Parenthood" from the late 80's? I loved that movie when I was a kid. Loved it loved it, loved it. I saw it when I was about 15 and I just knew that I wanted my life to be like that. Not the whole child seeing a psychiatrist, younger brother with a gambling problem or the pregnant teenage daughter craziness, but the general craziness of family. My favorite scene is the opening one, where the family leaves the baseball game. Kids are dragging, souvenirs are falling. Everyone piles into the mini-van and the mother is strapping everyone into car seats and the parents look tired and haggard and overwhelmed, but they look happy. Even then I knew I wanted that. I wanted a nice house and a husband and kids and chaos. Practices and games, dinners and homework, school plays and parent teacher conferences. I wanted to be a mom. I know it sounds very 50's of me, but in actuality it really was my main goal. And now I have it. The chaos and the craziness and the exhaustion, and the happiness. The happiness of being a parent.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 17
Sunday, October 4
Contentment Smells Like A Meatloaf
What a nice weekend we had around here. Not busy, just nice. As you may know we have been going and going for what seems like 25 weekends in a row, and although I had a great time away with my cousins and last weekend at Storyland was a blast, it was nice to just do much of nothing. It felt even better after the hectic week we had (aren't they all?) and me not feeling that well for most of it. I still have a hacky cough and a bit of a cold, but just being able to be home, it felt wonderful. Jack ended up having a soccer game yesterday morning, despite the rain, but even that was OK. I am proud to tell you that he was the only one on his team to make a goal. Sure, he may have made it to the wrong goal and inadvertently given a point to the other team, but we didn't focus on that fact. Coming home, wet and cold, to a nice warm house felt so unbelievably cozy. Dennis started a fire. We all put on our sweats and settled in for the day. The best part was that it wasn't even noon yet! I went through clothes, organized stuff (one of my favorite past times), the kids played together for hours, Dennis took a nap on the couch in front of the fire. I watched all FOUR hours of the Lifetime t.v. movie Maneater, in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY. We had egg sandwiches for dinner. Today Jack had his first CCD class for Reconciliation (that's when you learn about forgiveness and confession for us Catholics) and we went to mass together. We met Dennis and Abbey for breakfast out and then came home to put out pumpkins and fall decorations. Dennis fixed the tractor with pieces he pulled out of this old bike we had laying around (yes, he is quite Macgyver-y that way), the kids played around and even put rocks around Max's grave site and added more flowers. For dinner I made the first meatloaf of the season, with corn on the cob and mashed potatoes. And now, at a mere 7:13 the kids are bathed and in Jammie's and watching a little t.v. before bed, and I'm just, blogging. It feels good. I don't know, there's just something about the crisp fall air and the smell of meatloaf that makes me feel content.
Tuesday, July 14
Like A Warm Blanket
Since I can remember we have always spent a week of our summer vacation with my entire family. I'm talking aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, family friends. Until I was 12 we would go to the same place every year, North Haven Maine. This was a tiny tiny island off the coast of Maine way up. We used to leave our house at midnight (so exciting when you are a kid to drive in the dead of night) and drive all night. My dad would have to take a nap that day to "get ready" and our little Subaru would be PACKED to the gills with stuff crammed everywhere for our week away. Since there was no grocery store on the island we would have to bring ALL of our food with us, along with anything else we would possibly need for the week. Thinking about that now seems ridiculous. I can't imagine having to pack not only our clothes and stuff for a week away, but all the food too? And the booze? Did they pack 30 packs of Bud Light in the car? I can't remember, but it must have been there somewhere. At least there was vodka and manhattan mix, thats for sure. I can barely get away with packing for a weekend away without bringing 4 giant bags. But off we would go in the middle of the night, stopping every year at LL Bean (open 24 hours for some odd reason) to gaze at the giant fish tank while wearing our pajamas. We would arrive at the ferry station 2 days later (OK, so I guess it was about 6 hours but to us kids it seemed like a very long drive, and we were probably sleeping most of the way so it must have seemed like a week to the parents).
After a 5 hour ferry ride (again, my memory may be stretching the length of this trip as well) we arrived on the island and drove the 3 minute drive across to the other side to our cute as a button cove. 3 cottages in a semi circle around a quiet rocky ocean cove. Our place was named "Aunt Annies" and was an old 2 story house that I'm sure was haunted by the ghost of Aunt Annie herself. Her body may actually have resided in the lumpy couch. My cousins got the awesome place on the water called the "Anchorage" and when the tide was in the water was directly under the porch off the galley (that's a kitchen for all you non-nautical people). It had a bunk room with 18 bunk beds (again, there may have been around 4 but when you are 6 years old everything seems HUGE). My great aunt and uncle's place was basically 2 trailer type rectangle structures pushed together. The first had the deck and kitchen and the second had the bedrooms and bathroom. It was so cool, you had to actually leave the bedroom and walk outside and around to the front to get into the kitchen. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it though. Everything smelled like the sea air and we would have to wear lots of sweatshirts and collect starfish and dry them out on the rocks. We would find sea glass and go out in the row boat and swim in the freezing cold 45 degree water. We would dig for clams and my uncle would cook steamers and chowdah and the adults would have cocktail hour starting every day at 2. My cousin Colleen and I would find out who was eating the best dinner at what cottage and eat there. We slept in the bunk room, at haunted Aunt Annies, in the back beds of the rectangle trailer with all the old magazines. There was no t.v., no phone. We listened to our Fisher Price radio and put on shows for ourselves. I always felt safe and loved wherever I went in that cove, and vacations spent there make up my most precious childhood memories.
Fast forward 20 some odd years ahead and what do you find? We are STILL vacationing together. Some things have changed. We no longer go to our dear North Haven (I heard Aunt Annies actually sunk and collapsed right into the marsh behind it) and we have since lost our beloved Uncle Dick, but we do go to our cottages on the lake. Our places are a little more spread out now (although with the way our group has grown that is not exactly a bad thing). We now add our own spouses to the crew, as well as all the kids we've gone on to birth. This year on the Fourth of July there were 26 of us, all decked out in these super cool matching teal tee-shirts.
After a 5 hour ferry ride (again, my memory may be stretching the length of this trip as well) we arrived on the island and drove the 3 minute drive across to the other side to our cute as a button cove. 3 cottages in a semi circle around a quiet rocky ocean cove. Our place was named "Aunt Annies" and was an old 2 story house that I'm sure was haunted by the ghost of Aunt Annie herself. Her body may actually have resided in the lumpy couch. My cousins got the awesome place on the water called the "Anchorage" and when the tide was in the water was directly under the porch off the galley (that's a kitchen for all you non-nautical people). It had a bunk room with 18 bunk beds (again, there may have been around 4 but when you are 6 years old everything seems HUGE). My great aunt and uncle's place was basically 2 trailer type rectangle structures pushed together. The first had the deck and kitchen and the second had the bedrooms and bathroom. It was so cool, you had to actually leave the bedroom and walk outside and around to the front to get into the kitchen. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it though. Everything smelled like the sea air and we would have to wear lots of sweatshirts and collect starfish and dry them out on the rocks. We would find sea glass and go out in the row boat and swim in the freezing cold 45 degree water. We would dig for clams and my uncle would cook steamers and chowdah and the adults would have cocktail hour starting every day at 2. My cousin Colleen and I would find out who was eating the best dinner at what cottage and eat there. We slept in the bunk room, at haunted Aunt Annies, in the back beds of the rectangle trailer with all the old magazines. There was no t.v., no phone. We listened to our Fisher Price radio and put on shows for ourselves. I always felt safe and loved wherever I went in that cove, and vacations spent there make up my most precious childhood memories.
Fast forward 20 some odd years ahead and what do you find? We are STILL vacationing together. Some things have changed. We no longer go to our dear North Haven (I heard Aunt Annies actually sunk and collapsed right into the marsh behind it) and we have since lost our beloved Uncle Dick, but we do go to our cottages on the lake. Our places are a little more spread out now (although with the way our group has grown that is not exactly a bad thing). We now add our own spouses to the crew, as well as all the kids we've gone on to birth. This year on the Fourth of July there were 26 of us, all decked out in these super cool matching teal tee-shirts.
The best thing about our week away is that I still feel the exact same way I felt when I was a little kid. Like being wrapped in a warm blanket for a week I am completely safe, loved and protected. I love that for one week we all stop our regular lives and come together to just be together. I love that Jack and Abbey will grow up having their very own memories of their wonderful vacation weeks with their cousins, their aunts and uncles. I love that we all still get along well enough to actually want to spend a week together. We are a big close family, and I truly believe the reason we are still a close family is our commitment to having these yearly vacations together. These vacations together lead to holidays together lead to birthday parties together lead to Sunday dinners together lead to, well, lead full circle back to family.
Monday, June 1
Extra Coffee Please
I am feeling exhausted this morning. Exhausted in the way that I could very well put my head down on my desk and slip into a deep sleep. I'm on my second cup of coffee and hoping that I will jolt awake sometime soon. I'm not sure why. We had a good weekend, busy in a productive "wow we got a lot of shit done this weekend" way but not over booked with parties and gala's that had us out until all hours of the night or anything. I hope I'm not coming down with anything weird. One of my glands seems a little swollen but I'm pretty sure that it might just be a bug bite. Maybe I stayed up too late watching "Maneater" on Lifetime last night.
In all our weekend was actually very productive. The kids both went over to a friends house for a couple of hours Saturday afternoon for a double playdate. I didn't even know those existed but man do I love them. Dennis and I scampered off to Walmart, feeling like a young childless couple as we bought a new mower, assorted yard items and various car accessories. We even stopped at the flower stand to get a few plants and flowers. All alone. I know, we were wild. It was so weird. I even mowed the lawn later in the day. Up until this point I had never used a lawnmower. (Is that odd?) The push one we had was so old and decrepit that it took superhuman strength to pull start it, and then fine tuning to keep it going. It finally died and we were forced to go and buy an inexpensive light mower. Dennis started it and began to mow, and then turned it off to see if I could start it. Of course I could because I am woman hear me roar, right? After about 1 minute though I realized that I was a fool and should have pretended I couldn't start it, because this means that now I will have to mow. Then I discovered that I liked mowing. It reminded me of vacuuming which I actually do enjoy. Back and forth, back and forth, I like that you can see the progress you are making as you go. What was once an untidy patch of yard that looked like it belonged next to an abandoned lot is now nice and clean. Voila'! When I thought more about how light the new lawnmower was another brilliant idea slipped into my mind. "Jack" I yelled. "Come and see if you can push this lawnmower." He came and yes indeedy, he could push it. Turns out he likes to mow too. I am wondering if this is OK. Can a 7 year old mow the lawn? There aren't any child-labor laws against this kind of chore for a child of this age, are there? Abbey cleverly took this opportunity to chase whoever was mowing around shooting them with the water gun. Just "giving you some cooled off water mommy." Anyway, Jack mowed and I mowed and now that I think of it Dennis barely mowed. Actually, looking back I now see him leaning against the shed with a wicked sneer having himself a little chuckle. "Ha ha ha, my plan is working perfectly. The new light lawnmower will be the answer to all of my evil schemes. Ha ha ha." (insert evil laugh here) In his defense he did do all the planting (my thumb is far from green), put down new grass patches, changed the oil/fluids, etc. in the cars, put new wipers on the van and fixed my broken blinker. He even hung new plant hangers and on Sunday took the kids for a hike while I stayed home ALONE for over 2 hours. If we are keeping track (which I'm not because what kind of mother does that, right) I am up to almost 5 hours of child-free time this weekend.
So I guess what I am saying is that I shouldn't be so tired. But I am. Maybe it was Jack's damn bird homework. He (meaning us) had to watch for birds, check off the ones he saw and then write a small little 5 sentence report on 1 bird. He had over a week to do this and we did look for birds everywhere we went but hardly saw any. Even on his hike with his father he only saw 1. Our yard, neighborhood and town seems a bit lacking in the bird department, I think it has something to do with all the predatory animals we have milling about. But finally we managed to spot 7 different types of birds and after baseball last night I nudged, helped, cajoled and begged him to finish up the report part. I have heard a rumor that his teacher might (please be true, please be true) be done giving out homework for the year, leaving the last month to be homework free. I really hope this is true, because I am so sick of homework. But damn, if I can't handle first grade homework, we are screwed.
In all our weekend was actually very productive. The kids both went over to a friends house for a couple of hours Saturday afternoon for a double playdate. I didn't even know those existed but man do I love them. Dennis and I scampered off to Walmart, feeling like a young childless couple as we bought a new mower, assorted yard items and various car accessories. We even stopped at the flower stand to get a few plants and flowers. All alone. I know, we were wild. It was so weird. I even mowed the lawn later in the day. Up until this point I had never used a lawnmower. (Is that odd?) The push one we had was so old and decrepit that it took superhuman strength to pull start it, and then fine tuning to keep it going. It finally died and we were forced to go and buy an inexpensive light mower. Dennis started it and began to mow, and then turned it off to see if I could start it. Of course I could because I am woman hear me roar, right? After about 1 minute though I realized that I was a fool and should have pretended I couldn't start it, because this means that now I will have to mow. Then I discovered that I liked mowing. It reminded me of vacuuming which I actually do enjoy. Back and forth, back and forth, I like that you can see the progress you are making as you go. What was once an untidy patch of yard that looked like it belonged next to an abandoned lot is now nice and clean. Voila'! When I thought more about how light the new lawnmower was another brilliant idea slipped into my mind. "Jack" I yelled. "Come and see if you can push this lawnmower." He came and yes indeedy, he could push it. Turns out he likes to mow too. I am wondering if this is OK. Can a 7 year old mow the lawn? There aren't any child-labor laws against this kind of chore for a child of this age, are there? Abbey cleverly took this opportunity to chase whoever was mowing around shooting them with the water gun. Just "giving you some cooled off water mommy." Anyway, Jack mowed and I mowed and now that I think of it Dennis barely mowed. Actually, looking back I now see him leaning against the shed with a wicked sneer having himself a little chuckle. "Ha ha ha, my plan is working perfectly. The new light lawnmower will be the answer to all of my evil schemes. Ha ha ha." (insert evil laugh here) In his defense he did do all the planting (my thumb is far from green), put down new grass patches, changed the oil/fluids, etc. in the cars, put new wipers on the van and fixed my broken blinker. He even hung new plant hangers and on Sunday took the kids for a hike while I stayed home ALONE for over 2 hours. If we are keeping track (which I'm not because what kind of mother does that, right) I am up to almost 5 hours of child-free time this weekend.
So I guess what I am saying is that I shouldn't be so tired. But I am. Maybe it was Jack's damn bird homework. He (meaning us) had to watch for birds, check off the ones he saw and then write a small little 5 sentence report on 1 bird. He had over a week to do this and we did look for birds everywhere we went but hardly saw any. Even on his hike with his father he only saw 1. Our yard, neighborhood and town seems a bit lacking in the bird department, I think it has something to do with all the predatory animals we have milling about. But finally we managed to spot 7 different types of birds and after baseball last night I nudged, helped, cajoled and begged him to finish up the report part. I have heard a rumor that his teacher might (please be true, please be true) be done giving out homework for the year, leaving the last month to be homework free. I really hope this is true, because I am so sick of homework. But damn, if I can't handle first grade homework, we are screwed.
Friday, May 22
A Camping We Will Go
Just in case this title misled anyone I should explain that when I say camping, I actually mean staying in my parents trailer with electricity, running water, AC, t.v., and a lovely if somewhat teeny tiny bathroom. Tomorrow we are off for the Memorial Day weekend,and we are very excited. It has been about 8 months since we were there and we have all missed it, especially the kids. Memorial Day is supposed to mark the beginning of summer, but with another 5 weeks of school left for Jack, it still doesn't feel too summery. Getting away to the trailer will really make me feel like summer is starting. I also get to start wearing open toed shoes to work, so woo hoo to that! The ability to wear sandals just breaks my work wardrobe choices wide open. I'm just happy that campground time is here, the time when we can head into the woods for family fun and togetherness. And you do understand that by togetherness I mean 7 people sharing one aforementioned teeny tiny bathroom?
Sunday, July 13
Family F.U.N.
Back home from the campground! We had a fantastic vacation which cannot possibly be summed up with one simple post. All I can say is 20 family members plus 1 cottage plus 2 trailers plus 3 bathrooms equals 1 hell of a good time. I am finally alone and able to sit down at the computer, Dennis having taken the kids swimming at his sisters because they did not spend nearly enough time in the water this week. Here is what went down over the past 7 days.
Adults = 14
Children = 6
Generations in attendance = 4
Beds = not nearly enough
Fights with my husband = 2
Campfires = 10
Hot dogs = many
Marshmallows toasted = 22 at least
Falls = 2 (b.t.w., neither were done by children)
Go Carts on the track inhabited by us = 9
Nice dinners out without children = 1
Margarita's = 6
Approximate beers consumed = 180 (whoa, we might have a problem)
Smirnoff Ice's = 24
Boxes of wine (so, we like boxed wine!) = 4
Glasses broken = 1
Hours spent swimming in the lake = 35
Dives off the dock = dozens
Blocked ears by this writer = 1 (going on 8 days now)
Rainstorms = 3
Puddles jumped in = 8
Bug bites received = 127
Bottles of sunscreen = 1
Pitchers of lemonade drunk = 13
Fights over the ridiculous X-box = 7
Fish caught = 16
Quiet = None
Pages read in my book = 1.5
Loads of laundry done since I've been home = 6
Walks around the lake done by me & Colleen = 1.5
Walks around the lake done by those of us who really walk = 6
Times my children had soap touch their bodies = 1
Pedicures = 4
New trailers bought = 1
My score in mini-golf where I kicked ass = 49
Little boys named Jack who learned how to swim = 1
Spending 168 hours straight with your entire family = priceless
Phew . . . I am ready to head back to work tomorrow exhausted. I love vacation and I love the campground, and it goes without saying that I LOVE my crazy family, but I am always happy to return home. I have this thing where I have to clean my house from top to bottom before we go anywhere, which my husband finds ridiculous but I find necessary. I just love coming home to a nice clean house, and since we have only been home now for a day it still hasn't had a chance to get really messed up again. I especially love my floors, my nice clean floors. Spending 7 days in a cottage where the floor is constantly gritty with sand & pine needles, I relish in the fact that I can walk without having stuff stuck to the bottom of my feet. Now I am off to make something to cook in my oven because if I have one more thing cooked on the grill right now I may puke.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
