Just Another Day in Paradise

Last night the bigger kids and I stayed up to watch a movie.  Ben was out of town and Eliza wanted me to sleep with her when the movie was finished.  I protested because I wanted to finish the things I was doing around the house, but she was adamant that we go to bed together, so I let everything else wait.  Therefore, a messy kitchen and a half-folded mass of laundry in the family room greeted me when Luke woke up at 6:45.  But I got to work and had things under control by the time we left for swim lessons.

Before 10:00 this morning, Jack had accidentally squirted himself in the face with his squirt gun and showed up to track practice with no shoes.  That didn't matter very much, though, because I'd rushed the kids out to the door for track practice for nothing.  There was no practice today.  Eliza also managed to drop a mostly-good nectarine into the trash can while trying to cut off a little bad part.

There were more hiccups throughout the day, but there were lots of great things today too.

The kids had lots of fun with the squirt guns they bought (squirt gun post coming later).  We walked to the rec center and back for the kids' last day of swim lessons (more on that later).  We hung out in the back yard and ate watermelon (one of the highlights for me).  The kids got their wish of frozen pizza for dinner.  The big kids all practiced piano and read for at least 30 minutes.  Cat practiced with her new soccer team (more on that later too) and got psyched when she saw what the uniforms are going to look like.  In addition to these great things, I had a great conversation with my sister and thoroughly enjoyed choir rehearsal tonight.

Today was a great example to me of how we have so many choices throughout the day.  There were some little bumps on the road, but there always are.  And even though we could have gotten discouraged, we stayed positive and just kept moving along.  The things we chose to do, and the things we chose to focus on, were all good things.  I'm so glad I listened to Eliza and let the housework wait so I could go to bed at the same time she did last night.  I'm so glad we ate as much watermelon as we wanted at the picnic table in the back yard.  I'm so glad that I let the kids have frozen pizza while I was gone tonight instead of the dinner I'd planned to make them, which nobody really wanted.  Those are all such little things.  But I love that we made those choices.  We don't do that stuff all the time, but knowing that we can have a little more fun when the opportunity arises (summer break!) makes everyone happier.

I'm trying to have this attitude this summer, of being more go-with-the-flow and giving the kids opportunities to have fun even when it's not an organized activity.  Maybe that's why I feel like the summer has been so great so far?  (I think not having anyone in diapers is also helping, though.)  It hasn't even been two weeks yet, but I feel like we're in for a really good summer.

(I realize that I tend to use this blog as a travelogue more than a journal, and hope that I can share more personal stories, experiences, and feelings than I have been.  Pictures and commentary are easy.  Personal stuff requires more brain space, so I've just been skipping it lately.  I'll try to do better.)