Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Isn't it amazing that you can't recreate a moment? It seems like it would be such a simple thing to do, but it is just NOT possible. So many times I have been somewhere and felt such a wave of pure happiness that all I could think about was how to recreate that feeling, that very moment in my life, but it just doesn't happen that way. You can't do it. Once it is over, it is gone, and I think that in trying to recreate it you take something away. I had to learn this the hard way, so many times I would feel this and even as I was feeling so happy inside, part of me was trying to think of ways to recreate it. I would plan everything out...the same people, the same place, even the same time of day, but it was never quite the same. It took being a Mom for me to learn that you can't make special moments happen, they just do, so you better grab hold and enjoy it while you can because once it is gone, it's gone, never to be experienced in quite the same way again.

Last night was a series of moments, such sweet, special ones I just wanted to hold onto them forever. We took the girls to the Keys game with Mac's grandfather, his parents, and our niece. Driving to the game the three big girls sang "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" the whole way there. The baby cooed and squealed the entire time, so delighted that her big sisters were so entertaining. I dressed the girls in red, white, and blue to celebrate going to a baseball game, the all- American pastime. When we got there, we found my niece dressed in red and white, completely unplanned, but perfect all the same. We had great seats. The kids ate popcorn and pretzels for dinner. They rode a carousel and jumped in a moon bounce. They played games. Bug and Peanut won prizes. Girly and my niece didn't, but they didn't even complain. The mascot came up to us and the girls were on the Jumbo screen. The Keys won. The kids all got to run around the bases at the end of the game. We watched the fireworks and the baby was so enchanted by the lights that she reached for the sky. When we walked to the car Grandpa held my niece's little hand the entire way, even though he was limping and his knee hurt. The girls sang "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" the whole way home. When brushing her teeth, Girly said to me, "Hey Mom, I guess some of those kids have already run around the bases a million times and that is why they didn't want to do it." I asked, "If you had already run around the bases a million times, would you still do it again?" She gave me a big nod and smile. Perfect answer. So many great moments, so sweet, and so special even though I could feel them slipping through my fingers never to be experienced in quite the same way again. Another great day. Another great adventure. Another item checked off the list.

Make Some of Jim's Pancakes

I'm pooped. I'm tired. I am completely exhausted, but we have one more item checked off the list! Now, this item was a covert mission so it never made the written list. Thanks to my sister's knowledge of everything youtube, the girls and I were introduced to the wonderful world of Jim's pancakes. Jim is a man who makes the most creative pancakes for his daughter using squirt bottles and food coloring. He has instructional youtube videos and he blogs about his creations. Seriously, you must check it out, the man is a pancake genius. Once the girls and I had watched the videos we knew that this was something that we just had to try this summer. We also decided to surprise and astound Mac with our extraordinary pancake skills, which then turned it into a secret mission.

Jim makes it look easy. First of all, there is all the preparation. I had to get the pancake supplies (gluten free AND gluten filled for my family), the food coloring, and the assorted squirt bottles for our designs. We planned this mission for a Saturday morning because that is Mac's day to sleep in so we know he would not be snooping around. The only problem with this day is that Peanut has karate at 9:30 in the morning and we are terrible at making it there. So, this Saturday I was determined to do everything, make extraordinary pancakes AND get the Peanut to karate. The teeny tiny one had her own plans! Instead of her usual 7am wake up time she decides to wake up at 5:30am and then take a nap at 6:30am. Well, of course I go back to sleep with her and we all sleep in until 8:15am. Oops! I jump out of bed and run to grab Bug who wants to run to the store with me, and by run, I mean RUN! Hmmm...wasn't it my plan to NOT be rushing around this summer? Somehow instead of rushing to get to school we are rushing to make pancakes!?!?! Oh well, at least we have smiles on our faces. We dash into the store and find the bottles, taking a moment to celebrate our good luck because they are on sale, buy two get one free! Woohoo! We run back home and set up our work station. Time to make the pancakes. When watching the videos by Jim, I was not only amazed by his pancake skill, I was also impressed by the patience he shows his young daughter who is always by his side . So, inspired by Jim, I am determined to be patient with my own daughters during this mission. That means no barking orders and I must suppress my need for perfection when the girls are designing their pancakes. Uh oh, before we could even get started Mac comes downstairs dressed! What in the world? This is the guy who has not seen the early hours of a Saturday morning since I don't know when and here he is looking all awake and alert on the one morning we want him to stay in bed??? The girls look at me with panic in their eyes, but Peanut fixes that problem by saying, "Daddy, we are not going to tell you what we are making for you." He goes back to bed. Onto the pancakes! First, we make the gluten free pancakes for Girly. She decides to make a Club Penguin puffle and a penguin. We are shocked and delighted by our own talent, the pancakes turn out great!! Then, we have to wash all of the supplies and make new colors using the gluten filled batter. We find that this batter is harder to use and it is harder to flip these pancakes, but they also turn out pretty great. We, too, are pancake geniuses just like Jim!!! We take the pancakes upstairs and surprise Mac with our colorful creations. He is thoroughly impressed and we all have fun eating the pancakes in bed. I guess it is a good thing that it IS so much fun to make these pancakes because I have the feeling I am never going to be allowed to make regular ol' pancakes in this house again! Oh yeah, we so did NOT make it to karate, better luck next week I guess!

Go Swimming

Well, now, this one just felt like we were cheating, but the girls wanted to add "go swimming" to the list so we did. It pretty much was cheating considering we had already checked it off the list before we put it on there! Swimming is pretty easy in our family considering my kids are blessed with not one, but two sets of grandparents who have backyard pools. And, not only do they have backyard pools, but they have HEATED pools. This is just a little something we like to call heaven on earth. I must say though that we are all getting a little (okay A LOT) spoiled! I was a kid who belonged to the public pool and had to jump in that frigid water at the break of dawn for swim lessons. Jumped in and then "bobbed" up and down to get used to the water. I can still feel the shock of the cold water as I jumped in the pool. But no, my children do not know this sensation, if I told them to bob in the water they would look at me like I was crazy. "Bob you say, what is this thing you call bobbing, Mother?" No, when my darling little girls are released out of the house to go swimming they race through my parents backyard, little tan legs racing across the grass with beach towels streaming behind them and head straight to...the pool thermometer. I know, I know it is bad and makes my little ones sound like prissy little princesses, which they are so not! These girls are known to handle bugs, frogs, mud! They sling horse poop, for goodness sake, but when it comes to pool water their little noses turn straight up into the air. It has gotten so bad that I cringe when someone else asks us to go swimming because I know what is coming. It always happens. One little innocent face looks up and asks, "What is the temperature of your pool?" I know, I know, we have created little monsters! The worst part is that I think we big "kids" are even worse. My sisters and I (plus our husbands) are just as bad as the kids!! So bad that my poor father must pay to heat the pool at our vacation house. In South Carolina. In August. Just call us the Hiltons.

Feeding the Baby Cows

Onto the cows! A local creamery offers a really fun activity...everyday at 4:00 anyone can go and feed the calves their bottles. Now we have done this activity before and I must admit that when the girls wanted to add this to the list I paused before writing it down. Why the pause, you ask. Well, because I was having flashbacks of baby cow slobber flinging everywhere, flies, goats climbing on my back trying to get the milk, flies, mud, flies, the lovely smell of cow manure, flies, and oh yeah, did I mention the flies? But, the girls wished and I granted so off we went dragging Nanny behind us. Now, my mom is not the animal lover, but she never misses a photo opportunity so she went without complaint. This time I was smart and did not choose one of the hottest days of the summer to visit the creamery. We waited for a nice, cloudy day when it was raining on and off, a perfect choice because I think the flies were reduced to only about a million to every square foot. The first sight we were greeted with was a group of baby ducks running through the calf barn, their little feet flapping in the mud. At the sight of these little ducks I was reminded that feeding the cows is not just about the flies, there are all these sweet and adorable animals to interact with and watching my girls do so is just so much fun. Upon arriving, we soon learned that three cows had been born that very day and in the barn were two of them. One lying down adjusting to life and the second was still covered in blood doing his very best to learn to stand up for the first time. My girls, and I, watched in amazement as this little guy worked so hard to get to his feet. Then out in the field we see another baby lying next to his mama. A buzz started among the workers and all of a sudden they were moving fast because they wanted to get the baby out of the field before he and mama got too bonded with each other. My brain realized why this was an important thing to do at a creamery where their livelihood relies on these cows producing milk, but my mama bear heart cried out at the cruelty of this! I watched in horror as a man in a van drove over and whisked the little baby out of the field. Visions of my own little babies being stolen out from under my nose while I lay in my hospital bed danced in my head and I had to control myself not too tell the man to get that little baby back to his mama. Just think about it, your baby taken from you before you even get a chance to love on it and then you find yourself strapped to a machine so they can take your milk!! Even worse, what to do we people do with that milk? Slap pictures of our own stolen babies right on the container!! Oh, it is just horrible when I think about it.

Luckily, before I could start making signs and protesting at the creamery we were distracted by the bottles arriving. The way it works is someone comes and places a half gallon jug with a nipple on top in front of each calf to be fed. Anyone who is there can just grab a bottle and have at it. Boy, do those little guys learn fast what those bottles are! They start sucking on anything and everything they can get their little mouths on at the sight of those bottles...people, strollers, my own nursing cover up, their neighbors face! It sure is a funny sight. The girls got right to work grabbing the bottles and holding on tight because those babies sure can suck! Girly's cow sucked so hard it collapsed the whole container and nipple (actually thinking back to my own early days of trying to nurse a baby hoover, maybe those mama cows have it good after all)! Peanut was a little timid to hold the bottle once she saw that you almost get pulled into the pen with the cow, but she watched as I held the bottle and she loved to scratch the cows behind the ears. Bug just giggled the whole time she held onto the bottle and the teeny one didn't know what to think of those cows, but her big eyes did not miss one thing that happened in the barn.

Another fun adventure completed on the list. I would say it was quite a wonderful experience and the girls had a great time. Although, I must admit I held onto my OWN baby very tightly on the way out in case those people got any ideas about MY milk, but thankfully we all made it back to the car. In fact, we even brought home a few extras with us that day. Just about twenty flies are now living happily ever after in my car feasting on all the crumbs the girls have dropped on the floor!

Strawberry Picking - Check!

Determined to get this summer started off on the right foot, the girls and I planned our strawberry picking adventure for the last day of school. School let out two hours early so as soon as they walked in the door we headed off to Butler's Orchard. We have been berry picking at Butler's for years now so the girls are almost professionals, but this time we brought along my sister and two nephews for the first time. Off course, doing anything with six kids in tow requires A LOT of preparation so before we could even begin we had to make sure that everyone was lotioned up and that water cups were full. The baby was sleeping so I lugged her car seat out onto the field and set her up with an umbrella. The only umbrella I had in my car was a small, broken one, but we made do and somehow managed to get the baby set up in the shade.
The kids all chose their containers and got to work. The teeny one immediately woke up and wanted out of the car seat so I then had to juggle the baby, the umbrella, a water cup, and a container. All the while, trying to take pictures of all these kids who looked so cute hard at work. Girly got right down to business and I am sure Butlers will be hiring her in the near future because she filled a container in no time at all. Bug was more interested in eating the strawberries, Peanut was looking for bugs, and the boys, being boys, were picking them and throwing them. Tired of lugging the baby around, I set her down in the container where she promptly grabbed a strawberry and took a huge bite that her little seven month old self was not prepared to chew. So I am then trying to fish the strawberry piece out of her clamped jaw while trying not to squish the container of strawberries. Finally, I gave up and just watched helplessly as the poor little thing gagged the strawberry down. Phew, she didn't choke. So that was a bad idea, back to lugging the baby around the field. Thankfully, me sister took pity on me and held the baby while I tried to take pictures of all the kiddies. After about ten minutes, we realized as we do every year that it is HOT strawberry picking. And to add to the fun this year, mosquitoes were eating us as we were trying to eat the strawberries. Fifteen minutes into the adventure we have two containers of strawberries, six hot and sweaty kids, and countless bug bites so we decide to head to the market for smoothies. All and all, I would say it was a fun, successful day. One item checked off the list, only about twenty more to go!

Our Summer List

I usually begin each summer with such high hopes. I will be the best mom ever. I will do tons of fun things with my kids. We will spend lots and lots of quality time together. I will make up for all those rushed, crazy mornings when we are trying to get out the door on time and it seems like the only sort of communication we have is me barking orders at them to get ready. I will make up for all those rushed, crazy nights when it seems like dinner, homework, bath, and bed are the only things on the agenda. Those always seem to be my hopes for the summer, but then summer always seems to slip away so quickly leaving me feeling empty when the first day of school descends upon us and I have to once again start throwing my children out the door for school. Oh sure, we do lots of fun things, but too often we trade the rushed, crazy mornings of trying to get ready for school for the rushed, crazy mornings of trying to get ready for swim lessons/camp/vacation bible school.
So, this summer I have vowed that it will be different. I will be a great mom, if not the best mom ever. I will do tons of fun things with my kids and we will spend lots and lots of quality time together. I know that in order for this to happen we needed some kind of organization and while we do need some kind of organization, I do not want things to be too structured. So, the girls and I have come up with a list, a list of all the fun things we want to do this summer. Seems like such a silly, simple thing to do but I am determined to complete this list. To add some motivation to completing the list I have decided to write about each item we check off and at the end of the summer the girls and I will make a photo book about all of the things we did together.
So here it is, the list:
1. Go to the zoo
2. Go strawberry picking
3. Go camping
4. Take a hike
5. Go for lots of bike rides
6. Go for lots of walks
7. Go blueberry picking
8. Go swimming
9. Find seashells and shark teeth
10. Paint pottery
11. Feed the baby cows
12. Complete a sewing project
13. Play in a waterfall
14. Slide down a wooden slide
15. Go flower picking
16. Go to the lake
17. Go fishing
18. Go to a car race
19. Go to a Keys game
20. Make playdough
21. Make a photo book
Ambitious I know, now lets hope we can pace ourselves and get these items checked off or we are going to have a REALLY busy labor day weekend!