Life At The Circus

After a week of fun, friends, field trips, house work, sleeping in, and even a camp fire, we’re topping off our Spring Break with a long weekend at Grandma and Papa’s. I have found that packing up the circus crew of 6 for even a weekend away, can at times be a bit overwhelming.  And while the kids love to help pack, sometimes they are anything but helpful.  So, I found a system that works pretty well for us.  It utilizes there eagerness to travel, but keeps us from showing up at Grandma and Papa’s with no shoes.  (yes, once we did arrive at my parents house…. 5 hours from home with no shoes for my youngest daughter…when I asked her where here shoes were she replied, “I couldn’t find them so I just gave up and got in the car”… thankfully it was July and she happily went barefoot all weekend ).  I give each kid their own bag.  I make a list of what they each need to pack on the dry erase board and they initial off  each item after it is in their bag....

This morning we said a very tearful goodbye to our beloved Maggie dog.  She’s been a faithful and loving part of our family for 10 years.   When Scott and I brought her home in March of 2003, she was the center of our little family.  Then she lovingly welcomed, one child after another to the circus fam.  She stood guard under their bassinets and cribs.  She gave them something to look at during tummy time.  She cleaned up the food they threw out of their high chairs.  And she slobbered them with kisses when they pulled, tugged, sat on and squeezed her to death.   I never, not once, worried about her with the kids, though I often worried about the kids with her because I knew she would patiently take whatever they dished out to her.  She loved to sit in the sun on the back deck.  She also loved to run in the snow and in the fields at my parents house.  You never had to worry about her running away.    At ...

I don’t really know what it is that possesses a child to just randomly on a whim pick up that crayon and suddenly decide to make the world (or in this case the bathroom) his canvas.  We have crayons out every single day in our house.  I do my best when I see a stray one on the floor to nab it lest it suddenly look inviting to my toddler.  But, truly they are laying on the school table, in reach, every single day.  And pretty much most of the time, he leaves them be.  Or colors on paper or his coloring books.  It’s not like every day I find him scribbling on my walls.  (for if I did, you better believe I wouldn’t be leaving those crayons lying about) So, what was it today that made that blue crayon call out to him?  What possessed him to literally paint the down blue? It was a classic homeschooling momma moment.  One child was practicing piano, the other working on a handwriting sheet (lest this sound picture perfect, let me tell you t...

Last weekend was our Cub Scout Pack’s Pine Wood Derby race.  It is one of the favorite Cub Scout traditions.  Scott and our oldest son worked hard on the car. My son had one focus:  speed He wanted his car to be as fast as possible.  Whenever they discussed designs or modifications, speed was always his deciding factor.  He designed his car to look like Bullet Bill from Wii Mario Kart. Bullet Bill (the car on the right in the picture above) did well.  He took second three times and first twice in the preliminaries. I love their faces on these next two pictures…. you can tell this was one of the times he took first. In the finals, he ended up coming in fourth.  So, he didn’t medal.  This was a disappointment to them both, but after the race they were already talking about what they would do differently next year. Truthfully, I know he would have liked a trophy.  But the real prize is in the memories they made ...

Scott has been a huge help and support to me this week… taking time off of work so I can rest up (apparently surgery takes more out of you, then you anticipate)… driving the kids to their activities, helping with school, and meals and cleaning up… So, today, I thought I’d show my appreciation and wear my “My Husband Rocks ” tee shirt.  My 7 year old looked at my shirt, read it aloud and said, “So, why did you wear that today?”  I told her I just wanted to say thanks to Daddy for all his help this week while I was healing. Hmmmm.  she replied, “So, why don’t you have a ‘My Kids Rock’ tee shirt?”

I had to have surgery this week to remove a skin cancer spot on my nose.  Having gone through skin cancer a few other times, I naively thought it was going to be no big deal.  So, I went into the surgery center very low key. I couldn’t believe how many people were in the waiting room when I arrived for my 7:45 AM appointment, but since I was the youngest one there by a good 40 years or so, I am guessing this is normal.  I don’t think my generation arrives quite as early for their appointments as those of older generations.  I started out really optimistic.  The way this procedure works, is they take a circle of tissue out, then cover you with a bandage while you go to a special patient waiting area, then they look at it under a microscope, then if the margins are all clear, your done and can be stitched up.  If not, they go in again and take another sample until you are margin free.  My MA was super duper nice… the Pandora station they had playing...

So it was one of those library trips where I was really regretting going.  We were pushing close to past bed time and Momma was tired.  But, I knew there were some books on the hold shelf waiting for me and I had two bags of books in the van to return, so I figured we’d run in “real quick.”  But, of course, it wasn’t real quick.  I had to help my Kindergartner find a book on cats for her science book.  And I wanted to grab the reading book my first grader was going to need for school next week.  My third grader wanted to see if they had the next book in his current series… and so they all disappeared to find the books they wanted while I tried to find the ones we needed and well my 2 year old was the wild card tonight.  (as 2 year olds often are).   He typically likes to look for choo choo books and beg to take home as many as he can find.  But tonight his pleasure seemed to be in running through the stacks giggling.  No amount...

This afternoon I was finishing up in the shower, when my youngest walked into the bathroom.    I told him, “Hold on bud, Momma’ just needs a minute.  Can you give me some privacy?” His response? No Mommy. I can’t.  I can’t find your pivacy.  Neither can I…. going on 9 years now since I lost it.

So, it turns out we have a sneak here at the circus. Yes, behind this adorable smile is actually a rather devious little chocolate hoarder.  Earlier this week the kids received a package of chocolate from their cousins for Valentines day.  I let them all have one after lunch and then we put the box up on the counter for later.    Later that evening when the kids wanted another piece after dinner the box was no where to be found.  We found an empty bottom half of the box, but the top half (with the chocolate) was MIA.  We checked the trash and every single Mommy candy hiding place I could think of with no luck. I figured it would turn up eventually, so we gave up searching. Then the next day I found my little man pretending to sleep on the couch.  “How cute,” I thought to myself.  I also remembered I had seen him doing the same thing the afternoon before.  “Ah, what a funny little game he’s playing sleeping on there couch.”...