Skip to main content

Rainy Days

 I may have mentioned once or twice before that our kids are...active.  They have a very large...zest for life.  Sometimes the house cannot contain their energy.  It has rained a lot in the last ten days, and I cannot contain their energy.  

By day two, I encouraged the boys to go outside.  It wasn't raining that hard.  That was all they needed to hear; they were out the door in a flash.  The girls...well, it would mean I'd have to go out with them, and I just wasn't built for cold-weather playground duty.  I'm happy to be in the weather doing stuff, but supervising in the cold is not my cup of tea.  

The girls were not thrilled with my choice.  

The boys, however, took full advantage and dug a pond.  Each.  Each boy dug a pond.  Because we need more holes in places.  When they "struck water!" they came to me with as much enthusiasm as if it had been oil.  I couldn't be mad.  

I was a little mad though when they used their boots to try and bail the water out.  I was also a little mad when they wore those boots in the house, and when they decided to wade barefoot in their ponds, and when they came barefoot into the house after wading in their ponds.  So there is that.   

At one point, they came in for swimsuits.  It was 46 degrees out.  I said no to the swimsuits which made them mad.  So we were even.  But I think I still lost because I ended up having to wash at least two sets of clothes from each of them.  Oh well, at least they were getting some fresh air.  

The girls weren't getting fresh air.  They were sneaking into my baking cabinet and mixing the flour with the sugar and the sugar with the flour.  Never, never turn your back on a quiet toddler.  

At the end of weeks like this, I need just a minute to recoup.  So, I recently started sneaking over to a neighbor's farm just for an hour to pull weeds or dig trenches.  Ross says it sounds boring.  I say it doesn't sound at all, and that's why it's so magical.         

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Advanced Placement

 Not to brag or anything, but I think we are raising some very advanced children.  At two-years-of-age, our girls have already worked out the art of manipulation and deflection.  It's the antithesis of endearing.   They went missing the other day - the girls did.  That's never a good situation.  They were in the house, and I knew they were in the house, but I couldn't see or hear them.  Silence is the loudest alarm system.  Fischer took action and found them both in my bathroom.   "MOM!" I met them in the hall.  Carter was covered in clumps and blobs of hand cream. "Emi did it," was her unsolicited response.   "No," I told her.  "I think you  did it." That night I got ready for bed and pulled out my one "self-care" splurge - my face cream .  It was in my drawer where I always keep it.  The lid was screwed on.  And it was empty, wiped clean.  "EmmmeerrrrrSON!" Guilty.  They were both ...
2 comments
Read more

I Need A Cinderella

 I like to describe our house as very "lived in."  It sounds better than "dirty."  It is dirty.  And messy.  I clean all day long, but you'd never know.  My friend recently told me she hires a house cleaner.  It sounds dreamy, but it wouldn't work for us.  The cleaner would never be able to leave.  She'd never be done.  It's fine.  It's a phase.  Probably.   We were supposed to have guests for dinner the other week.  I know - it's a bold move inviting people over while we are in this stage of life.  Nonetheless, we did.  I was trying to get ahead of the mess while the kids were in bed and cleaned my floors the night before the dinner party.  The day of the dinner, everybody was sick so we had to postpone.   I decided I wasn't going to let a clean floor go to waste.  I was going to enjoy it for at least a weekend.  The challenge, I told myself, was simply to sweep things up after...
1 comment
Read more

Sheltering in Place

In the past three months Corona Virus has more or less turned the world on its head.  I feel almost guilty for not being more stressed or put out by the whole thing.  We have been extremely fortunate. What we thought was a most impractical move on our part, wound up being a huge blessing.  With our two boys and our two newborns, we moved out of our house with no yard in the city limits and into my parents' house in the country while waiting for our new house to be completed.  The weekend we moved "quarantine," "social distancing," and "shelter in place" became the new mantra of our state.   Moving in with my parents meant ten plus acres of play space and two extra able bodied adults to help even out the score with the four kids.  Win for the St. Clair's!  Unfortunately, my parents are beginning to realize they may have made an error in judgement.   Yesterday, Sawyer gave their cat swimming lessons.   Last week th...
1 comment
Read more