Summer 2014: Spit Up, Sisters, and Something Resembling Sanity

The other day Amanda joked about the entry she would write for the inevitable "How was your summer" post in her second grade journal.

Possible Journal Entry Titles:

Summer 2014:  The One with All the Diapers.
or
Summer 2014:  TV doesn't fry your brain after all.
or
Summer 2014:  "Amanda!  Bring me a burp rag!"
or
Summer 2014:  SOMEBODY GET THAT KID A PACIFIER!!

Here are some choice entries she's considering:

"I woke up and made my own breakfast every day because mom slept late.  She says she had to get up in the middle of the night and feed the babies and pump breast milk, but I never heard her so who knows if that's really true."

"I went to the pool maybe five times all summer.  And on one of those times I threw up."

"I went on only two vacations, first to Yogi Bear Park with my cousins during Memorial Day weekend, which was BY FAR the best thing I did all summer.  Mom and Dad and the babies stayed home.  Second, we went to Clear Lake for two nights for my cousin's wedding.  Clear Lake doesn't even really count as a vacation, but we stayed in a hotel so I guess it does."

"I got to go to gymnastics camp, but then got strep throat after the second day so missed the rest of the week."

"Basically this was the most boring summer of my entire life."

My dear dramatic daughter makes some valid points.  Having two babies to take care of has amounted to what some might, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, call house arrest. But we did have some fun.  Here are some of my highlights:

• Introducing Amanda and Elizabeth to Ramona Quimby.  Several late nights spent reading Ramona Quimby age 8 had the three of us girls doubled over laughing until we cried.

• Sending Amanda to her very first volleyball camp.  She liked it!

 

• Finding joy in the kitchen again.  About two hours into summer vacation, I hit my NickJr. limit.  (Yes, we already had the TV on two hours into the first day of summer.  Did I mention I have four kids?  Don't judge me.)  So we did something remarkable:  changed the channel.  I introduced my kids to two non-cartoon channels:  The Food Network and HGTV.  And they liked it!  The Food Network rekindled my love of cooking and got the girls interested in eating real food!  

     Homemade cinnamon swirl bread.  Isn't it beautiful?


We even had a Chopped party with some of our very game, and very culinarily talented relatives.   Chopped is a competition show on the Food Network involving mystery baskets, time limits, and lots of dramatic commercial breaks.

A few Chopped party pics:

                          As for HGTV, you ought to hear Elizabeth walk you through a kitchen remodel or talk you through the relative merits of remodeling your old house versus cutting your losses and moving to a newer home outside of your current neighborhood.

• Finding pleasure in the little things.  An afternoon of shopping for school uniforms?  Girls' day out!  Trip to Costco with me and all four kids?  OLYMPIC FLIPPIN' EVENT.

Yes that's a ginormous box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  I am not ashamed.

• Watching my girls take such good care of their brothers.  Amanda and Elizabeth made this summer so much easier for me than it would have been with just two babies alone.  They helped me out with everything from distracting the baby who is hungry but needs to wait to eat, to feeding hungry babies, to making them laugh like crazy, to burping, to pacifying, to running all over the house finding this or that, to entertaining me.  School starting is in many ways not a welcome development for me.  They sure do love these boys, and these boys love their sisters so much they are not going to know what to do when they're gone all day.