Life At The Circus

I love, LOVE picking fruit with the kiddos.  Apple picking in the fall and strawberry picking in the spring are two of my favorite annual excursions with them.  I was delighted when I found out that a family from our tutorial owns a pick your own blueberry patch.  The younger three and I went Monday morning while my oldest was a day camp with the cub scouts.     I hope to go back with all four of them and really stock up on some berries.  Mmmmm…..mmmmm good!

Exactly one month ago today we had a Superman birthday party for my youngest.   In addition to a slew of crepe paper, we hung a giant poster of Superman on the hutch in our dining room. Last night I noticed that Superman still hangs in my dining room. He’s hung there for an entire month. We let him hang there until we moved it up to the boys room.  This way it wouldn’t wrinkle or rip until we got around to it, and maybe by leaving it hanging in our dining room we’d be more motivated to get around to it sooner than later. Well, clearly that didn’t happen. As I went to bed last night, I pondered that Superman hanging in my dining room.   See at first I saw him all the time.  Every time I walked in the room I’d see him and think, “We gotta take care of that.”   But a few days after the party we went to St Louis.  I was busy washing clothes and packing suitcases.  Then we got home and I was busy unpacking and then life happened....

A few weeks ago, the kids spent a long weekend at my parents while Scott and I enjoyed St Louis.  While they were there, my parents took the kids to a friends farm.  The kids had a blast.  Seriously, a day doesn’t go by that they don’t mention the horses or the chickens or the barn cats.  They even got to ride on the horses.  Right up there with all those memory making experiences, was another new life experience for my 4 year old. Peeing outside Let me just pause here and say that I have no problem with little boys peeing outside.  And I have a lot of friends who let their boys freely let it go in their yard whenever they want.  Personally, that has not been our style though.  If my boys have to pee, they come inside and pee in the bathroom just like the girls.  (unless we are camping or it’s an emergency or something)  Well, while he was at the barn, my four year old had to go potty and since their wasn’t a potty at the barn, h...

They saying becoming a parent changes you.   It does.  Truly, nothing can prepare you for it.  I remember so well the day our first born child entered the world.   I remember all the nerves and excitement. One of the things that surprised me the most about becoming a mom was how much I fell even more in love with Scott on that day.  I already loved him to pieces.  He was already all I could have wanted and more in a husband.  And then he held my hand and coached me through child birth.    And my love for him grew to heights I didn’t know existed.  Seriously, I remember sitting in my hospital bed that night, holding my baby boy and thinking, “Scott is the most amazing man I know. I could never have gotten through today without him.”   And now, 10 years and 3 more children later, I feel the same way.  I can not imagine going through the journey of parenthood without Scott by my side.  ...

It seems to be that when you have more than one child… their differences sometimes seem to shine out, and they can kind of fall into different roles.  The peacemaker, the organizer…. not that I am advocating type casting your children or anything.   I know they can all play different roles at different times. However, when I asked the kids to pose for a picture at the strawberry patch the other day, my youngest displayed his true colors… “Kids, gather together with your strawberries in front of the strawberry patch so Momma can take a picture.” And this is what I get. That would be my little class clown on the left. And judging by the smiles and laughter he got from his siblings, he got exactly the reaction he was going for and all the encouragement he needed to begin his career as comedian.

Scott and I started dating our senior year of high school, when we were both 17.  A few years ago we were out for an anniversary date and realized that we were approaching the point in our life when we would have been together as much of our life as we weren’t together.  We decided we wanted to celebrate such a momentous occasion and so we (and by we, I really mean Scott) calculated out when exactly that would be… our dates are different since we don’t share the same birthday.  My half life mark was this past weekend, Friday May 30th marked the day I had been with Scott as many days of my life as I hadn’t… I’m happy to say I’ve now been with him MORE days than without … Since my “half life anniversary” coincided with the weekend of our wedding anniversary, it seemed to make the most sense to go all out for my half life anniversary… Scott’s is in July and I already have the date marked on our calendar so we can go out for a special date.  We had earned some free m...