How to survive traveling with kids

Lessons learned on traveling with 5 kids

1.  It doesn't matter whether you come from a family of three or a family of 5 - you're part of the pack and it's survival of the fittest.  Especially when it comes to the last powdered sugar doughnut or the one bathroom in the hotel room.

2.  The amount of annoying everyone in the car is directly dependent upon the size of the car.  The mini van - oh they all got along.  The mini Cooper?  I still think there are scratch marks on the inside of the window.

3.  When traveling with boys you will get used to hearing, "Dude," and "Butt," and "Poop."  When traveling with boys and girls, you MUST get used to hearing "STOP!"

4.  Feet smell.

5.  Don't buy any gum on the trip, it will disappear the minute it enters the car.  The next 15 minutes will be the sounds of wet chomping followed by, "Where can I throw this out, it doesn't have any flavor."  Save the money.

6.  Technology is your friend - in the car to keep children occupied, and in the hotel room to keep you sane.  A computer with iCarly on in the background will give you time to write your blog post.

7.  Make sure you are the first up and into the bathroom, you will thank yourself later with 4 boys rise and wander over to the only bathroom.

8.  Pick a hotel with a breakfast buffet, it will not only save you time in the morning, but will give you peace as you send the heathens down to terrorize the "Piping Hot Breakfast" lady and you can use the bathroom in peace.

9.  Make sure the last stop of the car before the hotel is at the local restaurant that advertises "100+ taps," it will make the hotel stay with 5 kids much easier!

10.  What always starts as a good idea, will never be a good idea - until 5 years later when you are sitting having drinks telling the story and laughing about it.

Great Father's Day Idea!

Father's Day is approaching and most of us know that our Dad's pretty much have everything.  They really don't need another soap on a rope, tie, pen - why not take a moment and create a really special memory for them.  Write them a letter:  here's my example:

Dear Dad:

Happy Father's Day!  Here's my Top Ten List of things that make you great:

1.  Softball - I still can't believe you coached my team for all those years - every single practice - every single game.  Sure, I knew with my coordination my best spot was right field.  You told me to do what I do best and each and every time I hit the ball and it fell in the dirt in front of me - I did what I did best, I beat the throw to first base.  You made me a runner.

2.  Diary - that first diary you gave me for my birthday made an impact on my life.  It was my place to write about all the mean 8th grade girls, and who I wished would kiss me down to how jealous I was when my sister got the EZ Home Baker oven.   You made me a writer.

3.  Summertime - Every single summer down the ocean was special when you'd come for the weekend - 6am mornings of crabbing, fishing (your lucky coins were always in your pocket) -  I'd watch you body surf all day long in the water.  I got pretty good at body surfing - well, except for the one wave that scraped the left side of my face.  You made me go long.

4.  Superbowl parties - you little condo stuffed to the gills with people for our yearly superbowl party.  You didn't care about the look of things, you simply enjoyed spending time with family and a great football game.  You taught me to keep it simple, it's more enjoyable.

5.  Danny Boy - every party always included a request for you to sing Mother Macree or Danny Boy, and you never turned them down.  Party, event, funeral, wake you stood took a deep breath and belted it out.  You taught me they won't remember if you were on tune, just that you sang.

6.  Cadillac Jack - a great testament is when one of your coworkers says, "Jack can sell ice to Eskimos."  You'd take me with you when buying or selling a family car - I got how it was done.  You taught me perserverance.

7.  Christmas - your favorite holiday, over St. Patrick's Day, you loved giving gifts, especially the "mystery gift" and even when I was older and you still thought I wore a size 0, I loved you saw me that way and everything you have me.  You taught me it is better to give than to receive, the look on someone's face with the right gift is precious.

8.  Florida - our yearly drive to Florida was full of "slap fights" tape recorded Star Trek episodes, bags of candy and cheap hotels.  I'm not sure what I loved more the drive to Disney World or the actual theme park.  You taught me patience.

9.  Keno - we both played our birthdays in Keno and it was the year I was 31 and you were 65, I played 6/29/65 and you played 6/26/31 - we both hit for a dollar because of luck!  We played again and lost it all, oh well.  I learned to

10.  Kenotherapy - there were hard times when you were sick, and I watched you joke through them even when you were scared.  I was right there by your side, and through your battle I learned to be strong, to make the memory in the now, to tell people you love them before you can't.  What I wouldn't give to hear "Danny Boy" one more time.

Thanks for being a great Dad, and teaching all these important lessons.  Enjoy your day because you are special.  Love you Dad.

Kelly

What would you write in your letter, why not write it right now and give it them so you can see the joy on their face?

Zombie Children Attack!

We were having such a great time on the beach when little did we know that there were Zombie Children, hidden in the sand dunes, waiting for just the right moment to attack!  And no, we don't know these people but couldn't help but snap a few picks to show the Zombie proof!  I didn't see any chewed limbs by these children but am sure that's what the hole is for.

Seriously, I understand that sun protection is a good thing, but at 3pm in the afternoon do you have to make your entire family look like Zombies?  We also nicknamed them the Casper family.

My son walked by these kids looked over and jumped back in fear, their white faces turned to him, their eyes vacant and their lips limp from all the Capri Suns their parents kept giving them.  He'd heard about the Zombie attacks in Florida and came over to ask me if there were Zombie's in Maryland.

Then when the photographer comes to take pictures of the family for keepsakes, do the parents wipe the 2inch layer of white paste off of their faces?  No, once a Zombie always a Zombie.

So beware now when you hit the beach, Zombies are everywhere and can come at any age!

The Long Goodbye

“You have now successfully completed elementary school studies and are officially Middle Schoolers.”  And so begins another goodbye in a mother’s life.  What started as being excited about the last day at school, I’m not sitting and trying to wrap my mind around the last day of elementary school for him - ever.

I still see the innocence on his face, I get choked up when he asks to sit for the rest of the last day in a teacher’s room.  I realize that, like me, he’s in a slow and sad process of saying goodbye.  I see his quiet confidence at this change and know that he’s being brave and not thinking about how he feels leaving his friends and teachers of the past 6 years.  I am that brave, I’ve been saying the long goodbye for 11 years now.

When we give birth to these precious gifts in our lives, we start our own long and steady process of saying goodbye.  God’s way of preparing us for life, making us stronger with each milestone they hit in their lives, becase we, as mothers, now have to say goodbye to that piece they joyfully leave behind.  Today I said goodbye to that Kindergardner in my mind as my son walked out the doors of Elementary School for the last time..

As mothers, we understand that pain comes with the job, pain in letting them go, pain in watching them make bad choices, pain in watching them grow up.  We feel pain when dropping them off for school on that first day, wishing we could tuck them under our arm and run away.    The pain comes back, in bigger doses with each new step, teaching us to understand that goodbyes are not short, or simple -  there’s different degrees, different intesities, different types of ache you feel when you know you should be glad but just can’t seem to get there.

These small goodbyes help us learn to cope for the big ones that come along.  What starts as reassuring a child that they’ll be OK on that first day of school is a little goodbye that prepares us for the big one.  Sitting by the hospital bed, holding a hand saying, “It’s going to be all right.”  Simple when it’s a child walking through the school doors for the first time, with more meaning and harder when it’s a parent staring back with the eyes of a scared child.  

Goodbyes help us to learn to let go of the things we cannot change.  We can’t go and make the kids in the class like them, we have to explain that it’s beyond our control that we work on ourselves and damn the rest of them.  Then we go and look at that person in our lives that we cannot control and listening to our own lesson, we let them go.

How did I get old and he grew up?  What happened to those 6 years?  I can reach back into the memories and see different parts of his travel down these halls.  The funny kids I took to Funigans from the 2^nd grade for his birthday, how he asked me to write a story for his friends in the 4^th grade, each time I see him in the school I see that little boy walking through the front door saying, “I’m OK Mom.  I want to go alone.”  I’ll tuck those aches away and put a smile on my face and be excited about the new chapter in his life.

Not only am I saying goodbye to my elementary school child, but I am saying goodbye to that part of myself, that part of being a Mom to him.  I think I’ll miss her.

Congratulations Son, one door is closing and another is opening.

I am a writer

I am a writer

I write because I want to write

I write to be heard in that great chorus of life

I write because it makes me stand out

It makes me, well, me.

I don’t write to impress,

I write to impart.

Sometimes I may not write well,

Sometimes I crack myself up,

Sometimes I am actually moved to tears,

Sometimes I have to stop because I am actually sweating

Sometimes I have to say what no one else wants to say,

I have to open that can of worms, of whoop ass, of shit

Because when it hits the page it becomes real

Everyone has to deal with it.

Days I will write until there is nothing left,

I gave it all to the page.

I find joy in my writing

Each and every piece I write is a piece of me.

When I write I feel peace

Because I am doing what I am supposed to do.

Writing.

A little dark humor

The writing prompt, write about taxidermy in 15 minutes and post what you wrote...guess the Fishers Popcorn gave me the dark mood.

Why did he take that fox from his Mom’s house?  Everyone else after the funeral was picking up shit - pens, lamps, pictures and all he could grab was a stuffed fox?  That’s what he gets for starting with the bloody mary’s before the funeral then continuing with the margaritas at the wake.  He started at the thing, staring back at him on his dresser.

“You are like, so dead,” he whispered to the fox.

“I know,” the fox whispered back causing him to fall out of his bed.

“what the...,” he said to the empty room.

Nothing answered back so he lay back in bed looking at the ceiling, counting the drinks he had during the day.  Yep, a little too much in the alcohol category, but since he was a grieving son he could write that one off as a Mulligan for the family.

He looked over at the fox, and sat up again, had it moved?  The damn thing seemed to be staring at him, challenging him.  “She told me…” he heard whispered across his skin as goosebumps errupted.

“What?”  He went over and turned the fox towards the window, “Go and look at everyone else.”  He went back to his bed swearing that tomorrow morning he’d be tossing that piece of shit in the dumpster.

He lay again, his mind going to the soft touch of the fur, the soft touch of her skin, how both had that cold underlayer, his hands flexed under the covers, they were still a little sore.

“You did it, everyone knows…” he looked over at the fox.

“Did what?  I didn’t do anything she didn’t want me to do,” he pushed the sheets away from his body as he started to sweat, he felt almost like when he was a boyscout and in the shower for the first time - naked, nervous, and knowing that he was being watched.

“I know, I was there…”

He looked back at the fox staring out the window, it was there, standing sentry as he helped her do what she wanted to do for 6 months.  It watched as her struggles got weak then her hands went limp.  It watched as he arranged the covers back on her, turned off the machines and lightly kissed her on the cheek.

He got up and picked up the fox again, walking to the kitchen.  He didn’t realize that he was allergic until his throat started to close and he couldn’t breath.  A’int Karma a bitch, he thought as the fox fell to the floor before he did.

The fox watched.

Today I blew it....

And frankly was glad about it.

I ate Cookie Crisp for breakfast

Washed it down with a big glass of orange juice.

Finishing it with a handful of goldfish while packing school lunches.

I gave myself the opportunity to re-read my favorite parts of a book

while stuffing my face with Fishers Caramel Popcorn.

I tried my hand at writing something different

Then didn't think twice about throwing it away.

I read through all the blogs I've been saving,

Posted comments to a few.

Then went back as someone else 

And had a little fun.

I did all the things I wasn't supposed to do

Eat junk, drink wine, read romance

Because one affects the hips, another the head, the last the heart.

I figured that one day wouldn't hurt.

But I felt guilty so the last ten minutes

Before I went to sleep,

I drank several glasses of water,

Pulled out my nonfiction book,

and cut up a piece of fruit.

Sigh

If you could cheat for a day, what would you do?