Skip to main content

Summer in Short


 Summer is cruel.  All I want, is to be outside all day and for it to never end.  I don't feel like I'm asking too much.  Life is just a little sweeter when Ross isn't working away from home and the kids aren't in school.  It's not over yet, and we are still living the good life, but our days are numbered.  I went grocery shopping the other day and saw Halloween decorations.  The writing is on the wall.  

We have been making the most of every day.  My summer school work aspirations have hardly been achieved, but the kids have been learning and experiencing so much.  For example, they have all taken their swimming skills to the next level, and we have learned that Carter is especially fond of the water - so add that to the list of things we have to worry about with her.  

Carter has also shown us that she is very proficient at finding keys to the vehicles, and she knows exactly where they should go once in the vehicle.  I thought we weren't going to worry about hiding the car keys until she was a teenager, but threenager strikes again.  She is our wild and free girl.  Lord help us survive her.  Luckily, her brothers (whom she idolizes) are on our side because it's going to take all four of us to keep her out of trouble.  

The biggest change for our family this summer was purchasing a milk cow.  Everyone said it was a crazy idea, so we decided we should probably give it a try.  Her name is Jolene, and the kids all think we own a famous cow because there's a song written about her.  Someday they are going to understand the meaning behind the "cow song" and realize it was pretty messed up that we all danced around the living room to it.  In the meantime, we are enjoying every aspect of our famous cow and all the creamy milk we can possibly consume.  

Also, Ross would like people to pipe down on what other things they think might be crazy.  He is done with my ideas...for now.  Apparently, four kids, egg laying hens, meat chickens, pigs, and a cow are a lot.  I've heard good things about camels though.  And I think the girls need an upgrade on their ponies, one of them just doesn't look right...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

Bump in the Road

 If your kids aren't annoying you at least occasionally, then they probably aren't doing childhood right.  Ours are winning at childhood.  Actually, we came to the conclusion the other day that if they are annoying you all the time, then you probably aren't doing parenting right.  And when I say "you," I mean "we."   We weren't enjoying our kids recently, and we wondered if that meant other people were also finding them unenjoyable.  It made us finally pause and take a long hard look at what was bugging us about our kids.  We felt like we were in a perpetual state of irritation.  Once we made our list, and it was lengthy, we noticed a theme: attention.  Our kids were begging for our attention with every behavior.  It was annoying, but it was our fault, and it was fixable.   We started putting down phones and brooms and laundry and giving undivided and intentional focus to our kids throughout the day.  It wasn't a huge...

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 ...