Oh, the middle child. Why does it always seem worse when you forget, or mess, or overlook an event for the child betwixt your firsts and your lasts. It is not totally our fault, and to be fair, we tried. Back around Easter, we took a small trip to Atlanta to see The Lion King with some friends. Our plan was to check Alden out of school and rush over to Spencer's school Spring concert at noon and leave from there. We did all of that exactly as planned. The only problem is that as we claimed what seemed to be seats so close it was unsettling, we discover that the concert was at eleven o'clock. We are armed with our kids and an hour late. To make matters worse, parents are to pick up their little ones from the concert which means my little middle is somewhere in the school very aware of our absence. I tried to convince him when we found him with his sweet teacher playing blocks alone that we had seen the concert and his teacher had agreed to watch him while we went to get Alden and came back. He was like, nope, you missed it. Here is my defense: The email the school sent out said noon. I not only checked the email, made Daddy read it, but forwarded it to the teacher. The peanut does not seem to be scared for life and I believe that Mom and Dad are totally exonerated from any fault due to bad information. So, the art show comes up on the day we are going to be at the beach. I beg the teacher to let us pretend that each child has his own art show day and that Peanut's art show day is the Thursday before we leave. She bought into the plan, and he believed me this time. Not like I would have liked to make up for the Spring Concert guilt, but at least we toured his art including the sad faced George Washington. He still cannot tell me why George was sad.
Oh, I am sorry, the last paragraph probably made everyone faint because I believe I said our family was going to the beach. Yep. The stand-out (i.e., father bear) finally relented that he could not put off an ocean viewing any longer in his children's life and would just have to suck it up and get out a checkbook. I believe the following ate at his soul:
Spencer: "Alden, the beach has a really big sand box we can play in."
Alden: "We are never going to the beach. Daddy shut that down."
Ouch.
After packing that family of five, boarding the dog, sending permission letters to elementary school principals, getting granted permission for our one excused absence of the year, and faking out an art show date, our little crew's dream was finally coming true. We drove straight to the water. The boys were absolutely amazed. They had no idea what an actual beach looked like and the vastness of an ocean and tremendous size of that sandbox left them in awe. They went nuts in other words. This man started laughing hysterically, "It is like they have never seen the beach before!" Dig number two Big Joe. "Well," he had to admit, "It is."
For some reason, when Daddy does finally go to the shore he goes all out. We went to the best locations, ate at the best restaurants, and stayed in a huge four bedroom house. Which meant that we had three extra bedrooms we considered offering to friends. I tried to get him to rent the one bedroom with a pull out sofa bed. One bedroom, he says, for all of us! Dude, most of them don't sleep in their own beds all night at our house, you know they are going to be in our bed on vacation. Our only saving grace of ending up sleeping with one child instead of three was that bunk beds were one of the options. Joey was convinced that they would fall off the top, which of course they only wanted to sleep on the top no matter how much I tried to pass the bottom bunk off as a cave, and Joey would pick them up and move them down when they fell asleep.
Little mister was not a fan of the water. He was perfectly content to stay firmly on the sand.
Alden and Mom rode the waves. Spencer got about ankle deep and thought that was more than enough. I am pretty sure Alden never got out of the water.
Still playing in sand.
Spencer is a wanderer. Seriously, this child should have a leash. He is quiet and sneaks away, even with a giant ocean and a million people. I am not really sure how far he would have walked if we had not eventually stopped him. Sometimes, I sort of just want to find out.
Finally got this one in the water by finding him a tide pool. He spent the entire visit to the beach building a giant mound of sand and using it as a slide into his little pool.
Running away again.
Posing.
Now, this was a super sunny and happy day. We loved water and sun and sand. The boys loved watching the man next to us fish. Oh, why did the man next to us have to fish....can catch a shark! I mean, it was a baby shark, but a shark nonetheless. Of course, this attracts everyone on the beach and there is no way your kids do not see that their is a shark half of their body size in the ocean. That was the end of the ocean for my kids. Day one and done. Thank you man with your really hot girlfriend and your stupid shark.
Not to worry. There is still heaven abounding. Candy is my fear in life. I hate it. It grosses me out worse than a dirty diaper. That is no joke. I had to take a picture of my sugar loving' boy and leave his father to do the shopping. This means that they did get limited treats. Apparently, it was a little too limited since we figured out about a half hour later that Spencer had taken a few extra treats to which his Father was unaware. The sugar addiction is real my friends.
Love. Love. Love. Best buddies on the beach.
This is the happiest I have ever seen this one. The smile never, ever went away. The curls were perfect. I think he found his element.
He!He!He!
Day Two was a little over cast with red flags. Although none of them spoke of it, I believe the shark was bright in their minds from the day before because no one was interested in riding waves or swimming in the ocean. The whole lot of them built that mountain of sand and played in the tide pools. The beach is one of the only places I have ever been where my three boisterous boys played peacefully at my feet while I read magazines and relaxed in the breeze. I think we are going to plan to move there.
I love seeing them play together. I think it must be nice to have your own boy gang in which you are a lifetime member.
Never fear. When the salt water starts to stink your legs and the sand pile gets boring and red flags are flying, you go to the pool. I truly think the kids would have just stayed at the pool the entire time after the first day if I had not encouraged them to beach it instead. However, Harrison was on my team. Could not stand the pool. That is about as far as he would go and then he would crawl out. It didn't matter if you held him or if he was holding on to the steps. He was over it fast. Harrison spent his pool time on the deck of the pool laughing hysterically and throwing things out of the beach bag into the water. After a few shoes and a towel, I shut that operation down.
We took a break and went out to dinner exploring nearby towns. The boys were absolutely fascinated by the fishing pier. I mean, the wind was blowing, the pier went out into the water where they could be "in" the ocean and feel a little safer, there were probably fifty fishermen, and a ton of fish guts! Utopia.
We watched this man catch this big old thing. He was a huge sport and let them touch the fish and take the picture. From this moment, he man takes him over to a station where someone is waiting to gut the fish. I cannot imagine my job being to gut fish all day long, but I must say, I was a mesmerized as the kids. I have never seen that done before.
Granna gave everyone souvenir money to spend. Alden was set on getting a stuffed animal shark. When there is a choice, he always chooses a stuffed animal...or legos but that isn't very beachy. The fishing pier scored on that one as well. It might have been the highlight of the whole trip for them. Alden is already asking to return and go fishing with Daddy.
More pool time on another cloudy day. This was Spencer's idea of catching a wave.
Mr. Cool at the pool.
Day Three of the sand mountain. This time, we needed to make our own moat and get out the heavy construction equipment. It took the whole team.
Mother's Day at the beach. Pictures are awesome because pictures don't talk. I believe that these little cherubs had had enough together time and enough vacation and enough restaurants and bunk beds. Brunch was an adventure in patience yet so yummy that I can't even remember why I finally relented to iPhones in hands and PBJ's for breakfast. No one wanted a Mommy day photo, Daddy yelled a lot, the curly one pitched a lot, the little one was out of it totally, and the sun was blinding. But, who would know!?
"Bye-bye Beach!"
I tried one more time for the perfect photo. I don't think this is it. But, the trip was perfect. I cannot wait to take these babies back for another adventure.
The biggest child of the bunch is six years old! I felt for sure he would ask for a Lego party, but surprised me with Scooby Doo. I am a big fan of the birthday party, but I was a little daunted by this one. It took a lot of planning and ideas and rerouting ideas to come up with an awesome mystery Scooby Doo party. I had made pillows for each child with outdoor Scooby picnic blankets and a six station obstacle course/game to move from clue to clue. I even got my mother here early so that I could go outside and paint my minivan to look "just like" the mystery machine. The weather was zero percent rain and it was set up an hour early. All we were waiting on was the bouncy house. And then it rained. Poured. Chaos as ALL the men/boys watched my mother and I run back and forth to pull in the paper decorations hanging from trees that being destroyed, tables set up with T-shirts to tie dye that were now wet, and pretty much everything making a big turn for the not-as-I-planned.
Inside we go for the party. Not exactly as cool or as pretty, but we were able to do all the activities. A little 60's tie dye was for sure the favorite. I didn't really think that Spencer was into it, but he wants to wear his all blue shirt literally all the time! I had no idea how proud he was of his creation. The funny thing is that Alden, of all people, has been the least excited about his party favors of anyone. I mean, wasn't it he that wanted to have this party ode to Scooby! From what I hear, his friends are much more appreciative, but I will just secretly sulk about that one and move on...
The minivan Mystery Machine that was SUPER COOL was completely washed away. Boo. So, cardboard mystery machine it is! Little girls love to color.
The Mystery Gang's masks were much more of a hit than I thought they would be.
I have always wanted to do an art birthday party and no one will bite the bait. Turns out, they will do anything you want them to do if you have a theme they like. The party was pretty much all arts and crafts up until this point and was working great despite the change of plans.
The next part of the party was a bit more tricky inside the house. I had written five clues. The kids would find the clues and read the hint to the next activity. I underestimated a few things here: First, they were not too savvy on understanding the clues; Second, they didn't really listen to the clues; Third, not too many of them could actually read the clues. However, we got it did and first stop was the Mummy Wrap to find out which Villian had stolen the birthday cake!
Alright, so I might have underestimated a six year old's ability to wrap another six year old in toilet paper. Or maybe I underestimated the strength of Costco's Kirkland brand. Good news is that parents are good sports and jumped in to help. Just in case we were wondering, the 8 year old was an expert at wrapping everyone in toilet paper. Either this is because she is the oldest of four children, or in two years this skill should be readily acquired.
The best part of getting wrapped up is getting to bust out!
Found another clue! I still find life miraculous that Alden can read. Amazing how much I didn't realize how much this life skill would make my life easier. I mean, it is not really equivalent to being able to wrap your friends with toilet paper, but it will do. Both, however, will be good skills to know in college.
The next clue involved searching for "Scooby Snacks." Despite the fact that this meant cookies were involved, it was nothing compared to finding a clue to pop thirty balloons. Underestimation #3 was Dollar Store balloons. Before the great birthday flood of 2014, all of the balloons were in the backyard. One by one we kept hearing pops and yelling at kids who were not popping them after all. Grass pops Dollar Store balloons. Bark pops Dollar Store balloons. Rain pops Dollar Store balloons. Wind pops Dollar Store balloons. Now, when you send your husband to buy the high dollar CVS balloons, kids have a lot harder time popping them!
Well, we found our villain in the Mystery Machine!! He was supposed to have on his costume, but I am not sure that it was a problem that he decided against it. Can't say that I haven't had a strong urge to spray foreign matter at him at times myself.
Picnic moved inside. Movie added. Oh, and by the way, the sun is now out and shining brightly on the nasty wet grass and paper decorations.
So, everyone loved the cardboard car. The moms were saying how their girls had had their cardboard house for such a long time and loved it. I told them that this car would not last a day in our house. No way, they say, not when ours has lasted since Christmas....it lasted two hours. Welcome to the frat house.
Don't know what Alden received. He sweetly asked his friends to bring donations to the humane society instead of gifts, but some people brought him gifts as well. He opened all of them with his brother and neighbor, Catherine, in a flurry of paper and bags and screaming while I was saying good-bye to guests. There are no photos of the birthday boy and his gifts and no thank you notes because I don't know where to send them. Alden did tell me that its as the best birthday party ever, rain or shine, so Jinkies! I guess we pulled it off. Scooby-Dooby-Doo!!
Kindergarten end of the year was a mad flurry of activities to fill time and take energy. I think I spent more money on sitters for room mom duties and parent involved activities than I did on our car payment in the month of May. I am not actually sure I remember the month of May or that my head has stopped spinning. Two schools, three kids, three classrooms that even the color-coded calendar got mixed up and crazed. The kindergarten campout play was cute of course. I felt sorry for poor Alden though because his group had to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. During our moment of being Yo-Yo Ma on the Violin, he had to play Twinkle, Twinkle for about six months. I am sure that song haunts him in his dreams.
What doesn't haunt us is our little Kindergarten graduate. He flew through his first big boy year with flying colors. I am so proud of his hard work and enthusiasm and progress. I am spoiled rotten for expectations of his little brothers. Sure, we had screaming fits of rage and tears of defiance over reading homework. Sure, there were playground dramas and a few tardy slips because someone wouldn't put on their shoes. But, I really couldn't have asked for more. We all have new friends, and a great school, and it turns out that our child was voted the most polite rule follower in his class. I mean, perhaps we shouldn't have publicly let our jaws drop to the floor with such obvious disbelief, but it sure is nice to know that even though you think that the child is going to end up a story inspiration for a Law and Order episode based on his behavior at home, that perhaps you are raising a nice young man after all.
