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It was bound to happen. I think we all knew it was only a matter of time. This fall is our first time having kids on five separate sports teams. We are trying to coordinate the schedules for all five at once. Elle is doing both cross country and soccer. Rose is in volleyball for the first time. And Scarlett and Grant are both in soccer. Did I mention this was all at the same time? From here until the end of eternity (or early November – which seems about equidistant away currently) we will have a sporting activity (or 5) basically every single night. And don’t forget all the still-present requirements of normal life. Because that still has to continue as well. Somehow these minions still expect three squares a day. And there’s homework. Who honestly knows if they’re even still bathing regularly? Three of my kids also have birthdays this month and apparently still expect that to get recognized. There are three overnight business trips in the next few weeks between Alex and I. But we got this. We totally got this. We do not have this. Bless the hearts of everybody that asks me if I’m available or free at some point beyond tomorrow. I have NO. IDEA. what I’m doing beyond the next 24 hours at any given moment. My morning routine involves me staring at my multitude of overlapping scheduled commitments for the day in a scene straight out of “A Beautiful Mind” while I wait for all of the pieces to fall into place utilizing mental math and extreme logistical gymnastics to determine the path of least resistance to getting every child to every location. I’m not gonna lie to you. I have a pretty strong batting average. I can usually make this work. On the days that I can’t, I call in reinforcements. If Alex hasn’t already been called in he gets to take the first swing. Then I grab his Mother from the bullpen. Maybe my mother or a friend’s mom. I have a very deep bench. That’s the true secret sauce. You’re probably starting to wonder where the problem comes in? Or maybe you already see it. There’s no way one human can keep this many balls being juggled without dropping one occasionally. And drop one I most certainly did yesterday morning. As I said earlier, Rose is playing volleyball for the first time ever this year. They have a program that includes third through sixth grade children. Rose is in the fifth grade. They all practice together on Tuesdays but it’s only the older kids in fifth and sixth grade on Thursdays. Therefore, I have categorized in my brain that Rose is one of the older kids. It is only the older kids that also have games on Saturday mornings. The fifth graders play first around 9 AM and the sixth graders play separately around 11:30. The schedules were printed together. Apparently they assumed I would be able to decipher this. This is rookie stuff. The basics. It should not have been a problem. Unfortunately my mind fast computed that Rose is one of the older ones and my mental math slotted her onto the sixth grade team for Saturday morning. So we were ready to go to her game an hour away in Carson City and didn’t have to leave until 10 AM. Alex was going to take Grant to his soccer game at the same time. Imagine Alex’s surprise when he saw me stroll through the house at 8:45, knowing full well Rose had a game that STARTED in 15 minutes an hour away from home. Naturally, as every husband does, he assumed that he must be in the wrong because there was no way I messed this up. He casually asked me if the plan was still for me to take Rose to volleyball. “Yep.” I said “We’re leaving in an hour.” He was remarkably calm and probably a little scared when he told me “I’m not trying to panic you… but don’t the fifth graders start at nine?” “Yes.” I said, “but the sixth graders play at 11.” He very calmly reminded me that Rose, in fact, is a fifth grader. I was midsentence in my rebuttal when everything finally fell into place mentally and the computation self corrected itself. Mass hysteria ensued. I started running. I don’t think I even had anywhere to run to. I just knew that my body needed to move. And fast. I was screaming things that didn’t even make sense. Alex went to get Rose out of bed where she still slumbered peacefully. I threw things into bags that had no business being there. I literally packed a novel to take with us. Why? Did I think I was gonna have spare time to read this? Rose came down quickly and started getting ready at warp speed. When I didn’t feel that I was sensing enough panic out of her I tried to stir some up. Even though she was doing everything right and was hurrying, she was too calm for my liking. She finally looked at me in her full 11 years of wisdom and said “Mom. It’s fine. This is not a big deal. It will be ok.” While continuing to hurry. She just didn’t want to see me upset. Which is pretty embarrassing considering I’m nearly 4 times her age. It was at this point that I screamed at her that she needed to put her contacts in in the car. She’s about three weeks in to her initial attempt with contacts. She is not expert enough to be able to put these in while in a moving vehicle. Again, she used her old soul wisdom to make me realize how nonsensical my words were. She would be putting the contacts in before departure. We were then halfway to Carson City when I looked over and noticed Rose’s bare knees. “Rose, where are your kneepads?” I inquired. All I heard in response was a meek “oh no.” Clearly there was no way we were going home to get them. So Rose got to have her volleyball career opener kneepad-free. She insisted that it affected her performance. I’m unconvinced. When we arrived at the courts, Rose sprinted to the bench, while I did a walk of shame in front of the parent section to find a seat. Confident every one of them was silently judging me. Even though I’m also 100% confident that none of them cared at all. I like to think I did it just to make them all feel better about themselves. Even if they were a little late, they weren’t as bad as I was! I’m just here to lower the bar enough to make everyone else look great. You’re all welcome!

Sit down. Get comfortable. Go to the bathroom. Maybe get yourself a drink. This is likely to be a lengthy post. But if you’re the type of individual that likes to revel in someone else’s demise, you are likely to be quite pleased. The only way to adequately tell this is in a rather verbose way.

I left on Monday for a Dallas business trip for four days – the same day all five kids went back to school, but Alex was a trooper and assured me he would handle everything in my absence. Texas sounded nice this time of year. Until I looked at the weather and realized it was going to be mostly in the 30s the entire time we were there. I had to pack a winter coat. For Texas. Nothing I couldn’t handle, that is, until Wednesday. We realized that they were actually calling for a few inches of snow through the night that was likely going to affect many of our flights on Thursday because Dallas has no ability to handle any sort of freezing precipitation. They allowed us to move our flights up by a day if we wanted to try to get out of there. There were no flights I could get on on Wednesday, but I moved my Thursday afternoon flight up to 10 AM. We all anxiously tracked the weather, knowing it was supposed to start in the wee hours of the morning. I left for the airport at 7 AM, checked my bag, and boarded the plane with some light flurries. Our first delay came soon thereafter. The snow started falling heavier, and pretty soon the window was covered. A team of people that understandably weren’t familiar with deicing procedures were suddenly in charge of deicing every single plane before it flew out. Before long they ran out of deicer and we were told that it would be 45 minutes before they could refill to start again and that there was a line of 30 planes waiting. We continued to wait our turn. We sat on the tarmac for four hours. At roughly hour three the flight attendant gave everyone a glass of water and a bag of pretzels. He was a hero. They ultimately let us back into the airport to get something to eat, but told us to stay close so they could reboard quickly if it became time for us to depart. I ate the fastest chicken fingers of my life and quickly returned to the gate area to sit and wait some more. Hours more. In total, I was at the airport for 11 hours when all of a sudden through the television screen the status changed to ‘canceled’. There was no announcement from an agent. Everybody scrambled for their phones to try to be the first to book on the first flight out the next day. I was not one of the chosen. All flights out the next day quickly booked up, and I was left with no options. I called my employer’s travel desk and was able to find a 5:30 AM flight on a different airline the next day that connected through Atlanta to get me home late morning. I booked it. The Dallas airport was a zoo like I have never seen. And I have been through some busy airports. But when you ground all flights coming in and out of that airport the customer service line was probably literally a half mile long. I asked a gate agent how to get my bag back and they told me I had to go to baggage claim. So I did. Where I was quickly told that there was no opportunity to get my luggage back. I was told to leave it on the plane and then it would go to Grand Rapids. I explained to him that the flight was canceled and the plane was no longer going to Grand Rapids. They told me I could put in a request to get the luggage back. I asked him how long it would take. Up to 24 hours. I told them I had to fly out in less than 12. He told me he couldn’t switch it to the new flight. I told him the gate agent told me he could. He insisted it wasn’t possible. I asked him to give me a solution to my problem that was possible. He looked at me blankly. It was a stand-off. At this point there were 30 people in line behind me with the same questions. He ultimately checked with a manager. And found out I was right and that he could in fact change my luggage to a new airline. I proceeded to give him flight numbers and times and airport codes that he repeated back to me incorrectly. I left feeling quite confident I would never see my luggage again. I found an Uber and headed back to the hotel that I came from 11 hours ago with nothing but my personal bag. Thank God, I was able to get a room. I arrived at roughly 5:45 pm and asked them if they had any toiletries they could share with me. They were quick to oblige. I asked if there was a store that I could use if I needed anything else, and they pointed to a store behind me that had additional things. I went to my room to look through what they had given me. I needed a hairbrush. Or even just a hair tie. Anything. I came back down at 6:15 to buy some food and other toiletries from the store. When I tried to open the door, it was locked. I went to the front desk only to have her inform me that it had closed at six. For some reason, that didn’t feel relevant for her to share with me when I was inquiring about the store mere minutes before its closure. I went back to my room defeated yet again. I ordered room surface and showered from the neck down because I had no way of brushing my hair if it got wet. I carefully laid all of my clothes to the side as I had to keep them as fresh as possible, and found a bathrobe in the closet that I could use as pajamas to sleep in. When room service arrived, the guy was not accurately reading my mood and started hitting on me while he brought my food in. I insisted that he leave it dangling precariously on a side table instead of walking across my entire room to put it on a table that was clearly meant for food.

I pre-scheduled an Uber for pick up at 3:30 the next morning to get me to DFW for my 5:30 flight. You have to cancel at least an hour ahead of time for a full refund. You know where this is going. At 10ish pm my flight time changed to 10 am. Mere minutes later it changed to 7 am. I kept my cool and changed my Uber time to reflect the new flight time. And I tried to sleep. I set an alarm for multiple times throughout the night to get up to check on any flight changes. An hour before my scheduled Uber time everything was still set. I didn’t need to allow myself time to get ready because I had nothing to get ready with. At 3:45 AM I got an abrupt notification that the entire flight had been canceled. I called my travel desk and a little after 4 AM. I got booked on a flight out of a different Dallas airport that took off at 6 AM. I threw on my clothes, grabbed my bag and booked it downstairs. It wouldn’t allow me to alter the destination of my Uber so I had to cancel it and rebook another one from a different airport with a hefty fee. Finding an unscheduled Uber in Dallas at 4:15 AM in the middle of a snowstorm is not a situation I hope you ever find yourself in. I got the spinning wheel of death and many automated apologies that they could not connect me with a driver, but they would keep trying. Finally, a man pulled up and four people got out of his car. I assumed this must indicate that he was an Uber driver so I made him roll down the window and I started explaining my plight. Only to find out he did not speak a single word of English. Didn’t even know what the word Uber meant. I was desperate and relentless. He eventually pulled out his phone, which had a translation app and we had an entire conversation back-and-forth speaking through his phone to translate it into the other person‘s language. I eventually put together that he was a driver for Lyft. I told him to wait while I downloaded the app, set up a profile, and added a credit card. He told me if I wanted to pay him cash, I could decide the amount and he would still drive me there. I was so desperate I nearly said yes. That would have meant I was getting in a vehicle with a man that didn’t speak English, that I had never met, in the middle of a snowstorm in Dallas, at 4:30 in the morning, to head to a flight that nobody knew I was scheduled to be on, at an airport nobody knew I was heading towards, with no paper trail of my whereabouts. I was basically volunteering to be abducted. I told him if no one accepted my ride request through the app, I would take him up on his offer. I was like a cornered animal. I was desperate. Thank God, a lovely gentleman named Terrell accepted my ride request through Lyft and I was picked up moments later and on my way to Dallas Love Field Airport. I arrived there and nearly sprinted to the gate to arrive at the exact minute they started boarding. I had exactly 1 hour of layover in Atlanta. It was then that I texted my boss, who is a travel wizard and had been checking in on me regularly to let him know that I was on the plane and about to takeoff in Dallas headed toward Atlanta. His response? “Sarah – get off the plane!” Only a little alarming. He proceeded to explain that the storm that had just hit Dallas was now ravaging Atlanta. Flights were starting to get canceled and grounded. It was at this exact moment that the flight attendant announced that the door was closed and we were going to be taxiing back to the get deiced. “It’s too late.” I texted him. “I’m heading to Atlanta.” We pushed away from the gate and spent well over an hour deicing the plane. But hey… at least they had deicer! Sitting on the plane, I realized my Atlanta flight had already been delayed by three hours as well, so there was a chance I could possibly make it.

It was on the plane that I became quickly aware I was sitting next to one of the most inconsiderate people I have ever sat next to on a plane. He had no awareness of personal boundaries or any concept of airline etiquette. He had not one, not two, but three separate full volume FaceTime calls with different people before we had taken off. It was 6 AM. Everyone was trying to sleep. He was so loud the lady in the seat in front of him got up and moved to a new seat. The lady next to me grabbed my arm and encouraged me to move to a different open seat. His foot was under the chair in front of me and his knee was practically slung across my knee. He untied his pants so he could stick his hand down them up to his elbow. I felt like I was on candid camera.

As we were descending Into Atlanta, we were informed that they had closed two of their four runways to concentrate on snow removal on the remaining two. Then there was an emergency on a third one. All flights were grounded and all runways closed. We diverted to a different airport. And landed in Tallahassee, Florida a half hour later. Folks you can’t make this stuff up. I powered my phone back on knowing full well if they would let me off this plane there was no way I was going to wait around to fly back to Atlanta just to get stuck there for a few days only to fight Atlanta crowds of hundreds of grounded flights for a hotel room and food. It was about the be like The Hunger Games over there and I was not prepared to volunteer as Tribute. I started looking through Tallahassee flights. Tallahassee is a very small airport. Everything connected through Atlanta. Except for one flight I found that connected through Charlotte, North Carolina. Heck, at this point I was looking for flights that would take me back to Dallas as the storm was going to start clearing there soon. I texted my boss to tell him I was going to book the Charlotte, North Carolina flight and, thank God for Scott, he stopped me from doing this. He had already checked the weather and knew the storm was hitting there and flights were canceled as well. “Sarah, go north, or west. Do not go further east.” Unfortunately, those were my only options. It was then that he had his true stroke of genius and recommended I rent a car and drive to Orlando to find a direct flight. They made an announcement to tell us “If any of you plan to try to rent a car, this is Tallahassee… there are very few available.” They decided to let us disembark. I nearly sprinted to the car rental area and took anything they had available. I was able to secure a Nissan Rogue and I’ve never been so thrilled to get on the open road in my life. I felt like I was jumping in a van with the Polka Kings trying to save Kevin. I started the four hour trek to Orlando. I had some time to kill with a 6 pm flight so roughly 40 minutes out I pulled over at a Target to buy a hairbrush and a few other essential items hoping I could get them reimbursed if I bought them before I made it home. Knowing full well I would likely never see my luggage again. (How could they possibly have tracked me through that maze of flight cancellations on three different airlines!?) I only noticed the new climate when I started walking into Target in a sweater, boots, and a winter coat…and realized it was 70°. I didn’t exactly have another option though. More than tired of airports and running on mere hours of sleep I wandered aimlessly around Target for an hour preferring that to sitting at a gate. While checking out I pulled up the flight details so I could officially check in now that I had a conf irmation email. It was 3:50. It said the flight departed at 5:09. I was 40 minutes away. In a rental car I still had to return. Boarding started at 4:30. My jaw hit the ground and I started sprinting for my car. I still am dumbfounded and don’t know exactly what happened. I had it in my head that the flight was around 6:30. I don’t know how I got that number. I think I had seen so many times over the past day that the numbers were a blur in my head and there was no room for new information. I called Alex in a panic attack frenzy. He was nothing short of heroic. And abundantly patient with me. I had him clocking the time to walk from the car drop off location to the Frontier gates. I was going to arrive less than a half hour before my flight. And Frontier waits for no man. I pulled into the car rental return trying to decide what my best option was. If I wasn’t going to make it I might be in better shape to keep the car and ask them to rebook me prior to departure. I had been trying to get through to Frontier airlines on the phone and it kept cycling me through the same prompts on my nearly dying phone (The car didn’t have ports that worked with the charger I had on me. Of course.) I pulled up my phone only to find the “Check In” option was now greyed out and it was no longer an option for me. Alex looked into this too. Apparently at Frontier if you don’t check in at least a half hour before the flight, you are no longer allowed to check in. Alex took my confirmation code and worked with the airline directly to get me rebooked on another flight while I sobbed in the parking lot. Other options in Orlando weren’t until the next day and I did not want to try to find a hotel and an Uber again. So I had him book me a flight out of Fort Myers Beach, which didn’t leave until 6 AM on SUNDAY. My parents had a place in Bonita Springs and it seemed like maybe they needed a houseguest. I was bawling as I drove through the inner bowels of the employee-only areas of the car rental return trying to find an exit. I eventually escaped and started the drive to Bonita. I called my Dad and said nothing but “You need to pick me up at the Enterprise Car Rental return at the Fort Meyers airport at 8:30. Don’t tell Mom.” He said “Ok.” And then “What am I supposed to tell your Mother I’m doing? We’re usually sleeping by then?” I said “Dad, that’s a You problem. See you at 8:30.” And I drove. Then drove some more. And when I was tired of that I continued driving. I also had to call my boss with my tail between my legs to explain my foible. He was incredibly gracious and tried to help me find yet another flight. I told him no. He was no longer responsible for this mess and I was on my dime from here on out. After managing through the insane and incredibly unfortunate chain of events over the last day and then missing the flight because I was wandering around a Target it truly felt like I had intercepted the ball at the 80 yard line and run it back dodging tackles and doing incredible spin moves the whole way only to trip over my own feet and fumble the ball at the 1 yard line. All of my accomplishments out the window and meaningless with that one hiccup. But onward I pressed.

Perhaps I am insanely ignorant but I did NOT realize how desolate inner Florida is on the drive from Orlando to Fort Meyers. Especially for a single female with a dying phone in the dark. My gas tanks’s empty light came on with 40 miles to E. I looked up the nearest gas station on my GPS only to discover it was 33 miles away! That was the next nearest exit. I truly had no idea. Thank God I made it as I was running on fumes, but my phone died as I was pulling off the exit. I pulled into the Pilot station and took my phone in with two separate charges to see if I could find an outlet. I knew there was no way I would make it without GPS. I found 3 different outlets. None of them would charge my phone. I was panicked. I found an employee who literally unplugged a vending machine for me to try that one. It worked. Thank God. Albeit at a glacial pace. I wandered around the store for snacks. Because we all know car calories don’t count. Only the finest gummy rope chews for me please. As I was checking out I noticed a car charger for a cigarette lighter that also had a USB port. I remembered this type of outlet in the car. Best $12 I’ve ever spent. I ran back out to my car, checked my backseat for vagabonds (I was a very distraught girl alone at a truck stop in inner state Florida), plugged my newfound lifeline in and Bless the Lord it actually worked. I now had a full fledged GPS to get me to my destination. Thank the Good Lord because it was all 2 lane highways of drive 12 miles on this road, go left, go 7.4 miles on that road, if you see a red mailbox keep going etc. I would still be in interstate Florida if not for that car charger. I arrived at the car rental deposit to find my prompt father waiting. He drove me to Bonita as I regaled him with my tales of triumph and defeat. My mother was sleeping but quickly awoke when she heard my voice. Her jaw hit the floor. Probably partially because of the way I looked at that point. For those that have been counting that is 6 airports I was at in 3 states within 16 hours with 3 different airlines. All in the same set of clothes. Heck, maybe my smell woke her up. I filled her in, threw my clothes in the wash (I wanted to burn them, but I still needed to wear them the next day), showered, and crashed in bed. I spent the next day in Florida ruining all of my mother’s plans. “Want to go shopping?” “I can’t. There’s no room in my large purse to carry anything onto the flight with me.” “Want to go for a walk?” “I can’t. I only have brown boots.” They had planned to go out to dinner that evening which didn’t seem unusual to me. But I overheard Mom call to change her reservation from 2 to 3 people. Hmmm…why did they have a reservation? It was during Mass that it hit me and I remembered that their Anniversary had been on Thursday. I asked them if they had gone out to dinner on Thursday. They told me no. Which entirely confirmed my suspicions. This was their 44 Year Anniversary Dinner I had accidentally crashed! (And this isn’t even the first time I showed up on their doorstep in Florida unannounced to celebrate their anniversary but that’s another story for another time.) It didn’t stop me from still going to dinner with them, but it did get a little awkward when they served the special dessert with only 2 spoons. They were good sports about it and Dad even got up at 4 am to drive me back to the airport. (This time with more than enough time to spare. I literally got there before security was even open.) And icing on top of the non-anniversary cake – by some absolute miracle my bag was waiting for me in Grand Rapids when I returned. I got home and felt like Mrs. McAllister greeting Kevin after the Paris vacation went awry. (Are 2 Home Alone references too many for the same post? …nah…you can never have enough Home Alone.) I plan on erecting a statue to my husband who managed to hold the home front together during my four days turned into a full week extravaganza. I was able to talk to the kids only twice during this entire debacle. I was amazed I still had 5 when I got back. I think a few of them had birthdays and one may be driving now, but I’m confident with time I’ll be able to start telling them apart again. And my kids better never doubt how much I love them again – this was all to get home to them. There was a moment of weakness where I thought maybe I just belonged to the South now and I could start learning to incorporate “y’all” into my everyday speech and I’d send the occasional postcard. But my senses eventually came to me: I just don’t look great in cowboy boots. I think I could pull off the hat though.

6 airports. Within 16 hours. In 3 states. First attempted flight home on Thursday. Ultimately got home Sunday. Over 72 hours spent attempting to get home. All with no luggage. All done in the same set of clothes. I now have a sweater that qualifies as a legitimate world traveler. (And none of this includes Grand Rapids. If you want to include GRR that takes my grand total to 7 airports in 4 states during this nightmare.)

From now on I will be taking a train. Or hitchhiking. It seems safer.

Alex left on a business trip for a few days. This is fresh off of him spending an insane amount of time working on our garage all weekend to get the insulation finished. He was stressed. I was stressed. It wasn’t the most high-quality weekend we’ve ever spent as a family. He even tried to salvage it by buying donuts one day. It wasn’t enough. At least we only have four soccer practices in the time he’s gone. And I mean that genuinely. That is truly not that bad compared to some of our upcoming schedule. I got home tonight essentially right at five to let the nanny go home (who had thankfully already fed the kids dinner) to then turn around and need to be leaving by 5:15 to get Rose to her soccer practice. At roughly 5:14 Veronica told me she had to go to the bathroom. We are training her for preschool, which starts next week. She has to be entirely independent in order to attend. She’ll be three in a few weeks and is fully potty trained and does very, very well, but I wanted to get eyes on the situation to make sure no correction was needed before she entered a situation of mandated autonomy. She executed flawlessly and I was genuinely impressed. The problem really wasn’t her. The problem was that her brother had just finished going to the bathroom before her and decided not to flush. Veronica knew the final step was flushing so she didn’t hesitate. And I know what you’re thinking. No. Neither of them went in there just to pee. As soon as Veronica pulled down on the lever I immediately regretted allowing the independence. The toilet quickly filled to the brim and came over the top. It was spewing like Mount Vesuvius. I have literally never seen that much come out of a toilet. I started screaming at kids for back up. To Alex’s credit usually when something like a clogged toilet happens, I just walk out of the room and yell his name and tell him the bathroom needs his attention. Where was my Knight with Shining Plunger when I really needed him!? This was like nothing our house had ever experienced. I considered calling our insurance agent to check on our flood insurance. (Lucky for him our insurance agent had a baby this weekend and was otherwise detained so he was spared having to volunteer as Tribute to step in and help me fix this catastrophe.) The kids came running in, but were equally at a loss as to what they should do. They really just wanted to see the horror show that prompted the screams. I started demanding towels. Elle brought me two sheets of paper towel. I looked at her dumbfounded. She laughed sheepishly when she realized her error. Rose came back with real towels. They were my very nice luxurious personal bath towels. It wasn’t worth the sacrifice. I told her to get out of here with those I’d rather ruin the bathroom. Elle finally arrived with the old towels that had been stuffed in the linen closet since the dawn of time. At this point we’re getting around in row boats. It’s well past needing serious attention. It took SEVEN entire towels to clean up ONE toilet overflowing. And they were SOPPING, wet! Elle had to bring in a mop bucket to carry them into the washroom. And just when I thought I had it all cleaned up I leaned over and picked up a piece of dog food that had fallen on the floor during the hubbub. Elle took one look and informed me it wasn’t dog food. Thieves spray, hand sanitizer, and dishsoap ensued. You could now eat off the floor of my bathroom. It’s literally never been that clean. I opted for a photo of the towels in lieu of anything more vivid to protect the innocent. In an effort to salvage my night I decided I needed a victory after returning from dropping Rose off at soccer practice (late, naturally). I decided I needed to accomplish something, so I randomly decided to can spaghetti sauce. Because that’s always a good project to start at 6:30 pm on a night you’re home alone with the kids. It was only after I completed this project that I realized I forgot the one ingredient that helps prevent botulism. Whoopsie Daisy.

If you come to visit me and need to take a shower anytime soon, you might want to ask to use one of the nice towels… …(also, avoid the spaghetti sauce…)

Alex had to leave for the great city of San Diego for an entire five day business meeting. Insert the weakest “yayyyy” you have ever heard here. He also has an old buddy from the Marine Corps that lives out there and he hasn’t seen in awhile so, being the fantastic wife that I am, I quickly agreed that he could extend his stay for an extra few days to catch up with his buddy. I am a great wife like that. He’s also a good husband and deserves a break. But for anyone counting…that’s 8 days of me flying solo.

Initially I was destroying Single Parent Mom Mode. I was firing on all cylinders, remembering every little thing and really thought I had it together. Until about two hours after he left. That’s when I got the email from Rose’s teacher, indicating that they nearly had to put the school in lockdown mode because they couldn’t locate her. Turns out she was basically just skipping class with her friend – albeit at the book fair. (Gotta have them books!) I guess this is the third grade version of skipping school? They were legitimately going to lock the school down because they could not find her. But she turned up, so, glass half full: I didn’t lose a kid!

Undaunted, I wanted to try for success again. I decided to take all five of them out to dinner on my own. Well… not technically on my own… I met my grandpa, my aunt, my uncle, my cousin and his wife and kid and my brother-in-law at the VFW Fish Fry. As I type that out, I am only now realizing what a very random grouping of people that was. Welcome to life with a large family! No offense to any of those family members that read this, but I was kind of desperate and I needed out of that house. Dinner went surprisingly well but, in true fashion with my 95 year old grandpa’s Punctuality-Or-Death stance on life, I got an urgent phone call as I drove there wondering where in the world I was!? I was 12 minutes early. With 5 kids. On my own. Still not good enough.

The rest of the first weekend I basically Susie-homemakered the crap out of our lives. We played a board game, read books, I took them all to Mass on my own, made homemade banana bread. I even had to leave the house at 7:30 am with multiple kids in tow for a volleyball tournament an hour away. I had to get a sub to teach our Sunday school class and came up with lesson plans on the fly. It started to take a turn Sunday evening when I made popcorn and nearly started the house on fire because I forgot I was making said popcorn. Like, I literally had to run outside with a smoking pan and throw it in the bushes. You win some, you lose some. I came back inside to make a fresh batch. It was now exactly bedtime on Sunday night when we finally sat down to have popcorn and start our TV show. We were running a little behind and I was trying not to be frantic. We were looking at a very long week ahead, and I really needed to get them in bed, but popcorn was their dinner so I also needed to allow them some time to eat.

It was amidst all this turmoil and chaos that Alex decided to inform me through the Marine Buddy that he was staying with that he had been arrested. Old Marine Buddies are both great and can sometimes create an interesting dynamic. They used to get in… shall we say… shenanigans… quite frequently with these guys on a regular basis. Then they all went 15 years barely seeing each other and evolving into adults, but when they get back together, they somehow feel like they have to pick up right where they left off 15 years ago with their lesser-evolved selves. So to say this phone call – complete with photo evidence – was a bit of a shock to my system would be an understatement. However, not entirely unbelievable either. I had an immediate pit in my stomach and ran to the other room while trying to hide my near tears from my kids to privately speak with Alex‘s friend as my heart started beating through my chest and I wondered how Alex would find another job. I hesitated to believe them because I didn’t want to, but I also knew Alex knew better than to allow this joke to get played on the wife that was staying home with his five children for an entire week so he could have an extended stay for his work meeting to have fun. I was equally irate and equally terrified. Alex going to jail meant Alex not going to his work meeting. Alex’s friend insisted he was going to try to get it taken care of. I begged him to tell me if they were lying. This went on for 5 to 10 minutes before Alex finally got on the phone laughing, thinking he had just played a fantastic, funny prank. (Turns out there was also a police officer Marine Buddy that lived out there that enabled the innocent photo opportunity.) The word ‘upset’ doesn’t entirely quantify my emotional state at that point. I was still on speakerphone with Alex‘s friend or Alex likely would have seen a side of his wife that he would have started seriously doubting he wanted to come home to. Prison would have been preferable. What guy… in their right mind… decides THAT would be a great time and a great style of practical joke to play on your frazzled-out-stressed-to-the-max wife AT bedtime!? We didn’t talk for two days. At which point we had a very stilted conversation. And then ultimately exchanged a couple of text messages before he returned from 8 days away. Lessons were learned. Lesson Number 1: Think about the potentially frazzled emotional state of your wife before projecting your overly jovial mental state onto her. Lesson Number 2: Ask yourself… ‘Will my wife think this is as funny as I do?’ Lesson Number Three: Do the math around the three hour time differences before calling at bedtime with terrible practical jokes. Lesson Number 4: Don’t ever ask to extend your stay during a work meeting again.

Otherwise, the rest of my week went incredibly smooth. Just kidding. It didn’t. I had to juggle two volleyball practices, two running practices, two unexpected softball practices, a birthday party, and two volleyball games. I had one bus route get canceled that meant the kids all had to get picked up from school by someone else. There were two kids with fevers and two days with sick kids staying home. Three kids nearly missed the bus on 2 different days. One kid’s ride forgot to pick them up for practice. One kid chipped a tooth. One spindle got completely ripped out of our banister. One wineglass got shattered. I found out about an unexpected reorganization at work on Tuesday and I had to help design and have it rolled out to everyone across our state by Thursday afternoon and all of the conference calls and laying-awake-in-bed-overthinking moments that came with that. It’s March is Reading Month so there were reading assignments for most of my kids every evening as well as five different reading themed attire requirements at school. AND… as if that weren’t enough… a literal goat ran out in front of me in the road, and I almost hit it. And THAT is the picture I have chosen to include instead of the picture of my husband in the back of a police car. (That’s just not something I need to provide to the internet for any future employment purposes.)

There’s a reason parenting takes two people. I’m not saying it can’t happen or happen well with just one parent… and it often does… but man is it a gift to have two! Even if he occasionally makes bad choices about pretending to go to jail.

There are just some nights you know you won’t easily forget. We recently experienced one of those evenings in the Jones household. The day began as a normal Monday and we had very normal Mondayish expectations. Early in the thus-far-uneventful day, Alex suggested that we invite my parents over for dinner. I knew my work day was slammed and I wouldn’t have time to get dinner ready so I told him I was game for that, provided he could make dinner. He agreed to grill. I took chicken out to thaw. My parents agreed to come. With four kids playing sports right now it was one of the rare evenings that we didn’t have a sport practice. We decided to eat at 6 PM which is far later than usual, but Alex had his first physical therapy appointment at 4:30 and he thought he’d be home by 5:30 to grill. This was our first of, what you will soon see, very many mistakes. Alex had no experience with physical therapy. This was his first appointment. He needed physical therapy because he recently became a card-carrying member of the “Middle Aged Men” club when he… and I’m not joking here… threw his back out while getting into his minivan. Please go back and reread that sentence. I can’t bring myself to type it again. This literally happened. And after a week went by and it still hadn’t cleared up he started his gamut of appointments and soon discovered he had a herniated disc that would require considerable physical therapy, if not more. This is another whole story that deserves a post of its own. I’m not the most patient person in the world in general, but you can just imagine how little patience I have for a man that hurt his back getting into a van. I need to work on this. It’s really not his fault. But COME ONNNN…. Oh, and did I mention Alex also recently took on another VERY large home project. He has decided to build a garage. I didn’t want a new garage. Sure it’ll be nice… and I’m grateful… and Alex is super handy and will be able to do a lot of the work himself… but I wasn’t ready for another home project and Alex being tied up during all of his free time again. This particular Monday was also the day that they delivered the sand for this garage project. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was not the amount of sand that showed up at my house. It was like the Sahara Desert showed up on my front porch and dropped her drawers to take a dump right there. It was INSANE. They could have filmed Lawrence of Arabia in my front yard. And of course, all of the kids decided they needed to play in it. This was not clean sand that you could brush off easily. It was sand that caked to you and stained your clothes, and got in every nook and cranny throughout the entire house. And all of my kids went out to play in it RIGHT before my parents showed up for dinner. And, oh yeah, Alex‘s physical therapy appointment didn’t get out until the time that dinner was supposed to be starting. So my parents showed up expecting dinner and I had exactly zero food for them. He HAD taken the time earlier to ask our oldest, Elle, to cut up potatoes for him to throw on the grill. But he forgot to mention to her that she needed to put them under water to keep them fresh looking until it was time to use them; so they were very brown and shriveled by the time he was ready to grill. We didn’t have time to care. He started grilling as fast as possible. It’s one thing to not quite be ready when your guests get there. It’s quite another for the cook not to have even arrived, let alone prepped anything. It was during this speed cooking dash that, at roughly 6:55, someone yelled from the bathroom that the toilet was overflowing. Never in my life have I experienced this. I’ve heard of this happening, but never witnessed it with my own eyes. In a matter of minutes our guest bathroom turned into Potty Water Pond. Between that and the dunes out front it felt like we were the proud new owners of lakefront property. My parents, bless their hearts, kept asking if there was anything they could do to help. But I drew the line at asking my guests to clean up the dirty toilet water off my floor. I started with paper towels and quickly realized that was not going to be enough and switched to real towels. Then Scarlett came in completely oblivious, and started using one of the soaked towels to clean herself off from the sand. Honestly at that point what did it really matter? I was triaging my life and that just wasn’t gonna make it to the top of the list. I sent everyone out to the deck to sit down to eat dinner and smiled as though everything was fiiinnnneeee. Just fineeee. Nothing was wrong. There’s nothing to see here. This is super normal family time for us. Nevermind the fact that it was bedtime when we finally got a chance to sit down and eat. Needless to say my parents haven’t been back for dinner since. We’ve asked them repeatedly, and they keep having other plans. It’s weird.

Raise your hand if you have ever gone on a family trip with five kids ages 16 months to 10 years. Because that’s what we’ve been doing for the past week. And it’s been (mostly) a very blessed experience. We’ve been visiting my parents in Florida, seeing dolphins in the ocean, picking up shells, swimming in the pool, riding bikes, getting daily free ice cream… you get the idea. But if you’ve ever been blessed enough yourself to travel with littles, then you know it’s not always roses and sunshine. As a very wise gentleman once told me “It’s called a family trip when you take your kids. The term ‘vacation’ is reserved for kid-free traveling.” Truer words have never been spoken. Taking the 16 month old (who REFUSES to sleep outside her crib) on her first flight ever during her naptime may not have been our wisest decision. But we survived! No one slept. But we survived. Scarlett nearly ripped her toe off stumbling across a curb on day 2 and decided she would be done swimming for the week because it hurt to put her toe in water. Cool. Because swimming is LITERALLY all we had planned for the week. So Alex did minor surgery and slathered her toe in superglue which is probably terrible… but worked like a charm! She was back to her old mermaid-like self in no time. But that’s not why I’m here writing today. No, I’m writing today in regards to the trip we took to get takeout pizza and play in the park. This was what should have been our most low-key day of vacation. And it started that way. We got five kids loaded in the back of our rental minivan and headed down Bonita Beach Road to get dinner. Veronica cried most of the ride, but she’s doing this fun new trick where she’s the World’s Greatest Baby unless she’s buckled into a car seat, in which case she is pretty much constantly squealing or crying. Not sure what that’s all about just yet. So anyways… I thought nothing of it that Veronica was squealing constantly in the backseat as we blissfully ignorantly headed towards the pizza palace. Elle finally spoke up to tell me, “Mom, you may want to look back here to see how much Veronica is bleeding.” Even this didn’t raise any alarm bells with me as I assumed she was making it up, because HOW IN THE WORLD could Veronica possibly be bleeding. She’s literally buckled into a car seat and nothing is within arm’s reach. But after a few moments of this I turn around anyways just to be certain there was no blood… and imagine my shock when I see Rose, who is in the adjacent captains chair, leaning over with a napkin she found frantically dabbing it at Veronica’s face. The napkin is already mostly filled with blood. Rose isn’t talking. But there is definitely fear in her eyes. Mild panic ensues in the car as I try to make sense of what is happening while traveling down the state of Florida’s busiest road during rush-hour traffic. Alex is attempting to keep our vehicle within the lines while also making sure that we don’t need to check our baby’s blood pressure. As I’m asking questions a mile a minute and getting no answers Rose eventually breaks down and she starts crying as well. I still don’t know what’s going on. And then I remember. Veronica had a red bump on her forehead that appeared shortly after we arrived in Florida. It wasn’t a scab. It wasn’t a blood blister. I believe it was one of those blood vessels or capillaries that starts lightly protruding from the skin. Or maybe I’m making that up. But whatever it was, that thing had a STRONG blood supply. And then I also remembered…Rose is a picker. She CANNOT handle leaving a scab anywhere on her body. She has tried to pick things off my skin – ON THIS VACATION. (The new skin tag that graced me with its presence on my eyelid bested her though.) She is 8 years old and already has scars on her face from years of this terrible habit. Apparently this is a genetic thing that was passed on to her from her Great Great Grandmother Spitzley. What a gift. Some people get a set of heirloom china, others get a quirky disposition for self-sabotaging their own skin. You can’t win ‘em all. I inquired with Rose if she had picked Veronica’s forehead bump. She quietly looked up at me through teary eyes and said, “Mom, I just couldn’t resist it anymore.” Sure enough she reached over and dug her fingernail across the poor baby’s forehead. It didn’t pop on the first pass though – so she went at it again. Number 2 did the trick and the River of Blood began. When I asked her what her plan was after it popped (because clearly she had been working on cleaning up blood for awhile without alerting us to anything being amiss) she said “ I was going to tell you soon Mom, because it was the right thing to do.” Apparently she wanted to get a better handle on the situation before bringing in parental reinforcements and potential self-doom. That thing bled for an hour and a half. The picture doesn’t do it justice. Blood literally ran down her face. It had a supply pumping straight from the heart. And it barely phased her. It made for an interesting dinner, but the blood-soaked napkins blended in with the pizza sauce spills so it all worked out in the end. She now has an even BIGGER scab on her forehead and I kid you not, I saw Rose eyeing it last night…telling me she wasn’t sure she would be able to resist it again. So now me and the other members of my family are taking turns on Baby Watch, trying to protect her from Rose’s unfortunate genetic disposition. I’ve got the midnight -4 AM shift so I better wrap this up so I can get a brief nap in. Wish me luck…

Have you ever gotten really truly terrible, awful, horrible, horrendous advice, but only realized it after acting upon said questionable advice? Because that happened to me today.

I met someone this week that seemed like quite the sage at the moment. She has grown children now, but she described to me an absolutely idyllic childhood where she just went and did things with her kids regardless of how daunting it seemed. As a single parent she would take them on trips. They did events. She was active. “You just have to make the choice to do it,” she said. “You won’t regret it,” she said. SHE….was a liar. A very, unfortunately, inspirational liar. Because “just go do it” was exactly what I attempted this weekend while solo parenting my 5 kids. (‘’Attempted’ being the most important word in that sentence.) Alex was on a family Guys Weekend Trip. (This same family does not have a Girls Weekend Trip. Bastards. I am a firm believer that Guys Weekends should only be allowed if they are immediately followed by a Girls Weekend. But I digress…Needless to say I am already not a big fan of this weekend and spend most of my year dreading it. Because it’s always in the middle of September. Which is obviously the most difficult and busy month of the year outside of December. Three of my children are on soccer teams. It is back to school season when everyone is trying to return to routine. And not one, not two, but THREE of my children have a birthday within a week of this trip. But otherwise it’s super easy to juggle everything around this weekend. Again, I digress…)

Of course the two oldest had an away soccer game this morning. And when I say Away…I mean very, very far away. An hour AND forty-five minutes away. And they have to be there a half hour early. I had a ride lined up for them with my Saint of a sister-in-law since my niece is on the team with both of my girls as well. But then the aforementioned sage’s words start echoing in my brain. Inspiring me that I CAN do this. I CAN take them on my own. I CAN wake all of my kids up early and conquer the heck out of this day. And darn it, that’s just what I tried to do. I woke Veronica, the one-year-old, up somewhere between 3 and 4 hours earlier than usual. Yes, you read that right. No she doesn’t sleep in the car. Ever. We could road trip it across the US and she would pull an all nighter if we never laid her down in a bed. But man…when she’s in a crib she sleeps ferociously. Like 14 hour stretches. So waking her up roughly 3.5 hours before her normal wake time and then taking an underslept baby 2 hours away from the nearest crib was a bit daunting. But I was feeling confident. We also were going to be driving right by my favorite coffee place on the way out of town. So I thought it’d be a nice reward. I didn’t know the side road would be under construction. Or that there would be such a long line. (WHO are all these people getting coffee on a Saturday morning!? Why aren’t they sleeping in!?) I didn’t know it would make us 15 minutes late. I now know. The game itself went pretty well. They got the W and we were back on the road to head home. The night before I had painstakingly packed a very well thought out lunch that would work for the kids to eat in the car. Things that they would all equally like and would be a treat and would, at the same time, not make an enormous mess. I made sandwiches. I prepped fruit. I counted out packages of fruit snacks. And then I left it all sitting at home. I was now about to make the hour and 45 minute drive home with five hungry children. So I went through McDonald’s. Scarlett quickly spilled her water all over herself and was adamant that it was my fault. I had to employ my Stretch Armstrong arms to get french fries into Veronica’s hand in the row behind me. (Only the most nutritious of foods are allowed for my babies.) Otherwise they were happy and the McDonalds portion of the day went pretty well. It’s amazing what you can fix with 40 chicken nuggets (not an exaggeration). In hindsight I don’t know why I bought that many. That’s a lot of chicken nuggets. But at this point I was back to feeling good about my abilities. Unfounded confidence is dangerous. Just dangerous enough to make me think I could conquer Potter Park Zoo. On my own. With five kids. I had been bested by it a couple of weeks ago as you may remember. The zoo is essentially my white whale. The Moby Dick that I am trying to conquer. Today was going to be the day. And I was going to do it by myself. During naptime. I didn’t think it could be as bad as last time. You should never tempt fate.

Things went south fast. We were about 5 exhibits in and really enjoying the tiger as it was pacing back and forth directly in front of us, which is rare. The animals usually are asleep in the afternoon. Of course this is when an unnamed child decided they had to relieve themselves so badly they started crossing their legs and dancing. But we weren’t at a bathroom. I finally allowed her to go ahead of me to make it to a bathroom in time. And I tried to hurry the other four along to catch up. Because everyone knows it’s super safe to let your kids walk around unattended at the zoo. A few exhibits later I realized Veronica no longer had her pacifier. Which is not what you want to lose when you have an obscenely exhausted baby. So I had to turn everybody around and we had to retrace our steps for quite some time but did, thank God, ultimately find it. When we got towards the end of the zoo experience I realized two of my children weren’t even wearing shoes. And worse yet, I didn’t care. Is that allowed at a zoo? I initially worried when we walked by an employee, thinking they were going to yell at us for not having shoes on. But then I’m pretty sure they saw my face and they realized this was a battle they weren’t going to win. We finished the rest of the exhibits shoe-free. My standards are nearly non-existent at this point. Scarlett was allowed to look at the emus this time and was quite excited. She also fondly pointed out the tree she was forced to look at instead last time and told me how much she liked that tree. She then started pulling on a tree limb which pulled the far end of the branch down right into a woman’s face. Grant had been grabbing himself for quite some time at this point and I knew he was long overdue for a bathroom break. He insisted he didn’t have to go, but I picked him up and dragged him in anyways while the other four girls huddled together outside of the bathroom since we couldn’t all fit in at the same time. I am just now realizing that it probably looked like I was abducting him as he battled against me. However the fight that he gave me as I carried him into the bathroom was NOTHING compared to the all-out-war that ensued once we were in the stall. Sometime between yesterday and today my son apparently developed a deep fear of public restrooms. Specifically toilets that have an automatic flush. I don’t know when he was victimized by a toilet while he was unprepared for it to flush… but this for sure happened to him sometime in the near past. Because when I tried to sit him on the toilet it was like trying to drop a cat into a pool of water. He was latched onto me with all four appendages in a way that I couldn’t pry free from. He went straight as a board every time I tried to force him onto the toilet. And he’s a big boy. I physically could not get him onto the seat. And I haven’t even gotten to the screams. Literally SCREAMING at me to not put him on the toilet while physically fighting me. And mind you I was completely unprepared for this because this had never happened before. I usually don’t allow my children to win in a situation like that… but I had four girls at risk of ACTUALLY being abducted outside the bathroom door so we left, bladder still full.

The rest of the story gets a little foggy for me at this point because I still can’t quite believe I did this. I decided now, while loading my kids up from the zoo, filthy from a soccer game, unbelievably overtired, and fresh off a physical altercation with my three-year-old, that it would be a good time to go to Mass. My kids were nearly unrecognizable they were so out of sorts. But we were going by a different church than the one we usually go to since we were near the zoo and I knew they happened to have a Mass starting around this time. And -bonus- I wouldn’t know anyone there so if things got out of hand I wouldn’t see those people again. So we went. We couldn’t find Scarlett’s shoes as we unloaded from the van. And I SERIOUSLY considered taking her in shoeless. But after a more thorough search party went through we located both of her crocs. I then beelined to the bathroom with Grant thinking this would be a safe space for him. It wasn’t a multi-stall bathroom and, silly me, I thought that would make a difference. After another skirmish/fist fight with my three-year-old we walked back into the church, bladder still full. We were a few minutes late at this point and Mass had already started. I noticed at the far end of the church there seemed to be more seating available for 6 people in the same pew. So I trudged over there. Only to realize that what I thought was open seating was actually blocked off to allow for additional social distancing for the immuno-compromised patrons. The last place my 5 clearly-germ-ridden kids should be hanging out. So we tucked tail and headed back across the church to squeeze into the other side. Again, feeling safe in our anonymity. Only to realize that the person sitting DIRECTLY in front of us was my cousin. And the 2 people sitting DIRECTLY in front of her were my mom’s cousins. (You can’t make this stuff up.) My grand plan, foiled again. But God knew what he was doing because after seeing me flying solo she not only offered to help, she also told me all of her prayers at that Mass were getting directed at me. She could clearly tell I needed them! And she was right. My kids were out of control. There isn’t a person in that congregation that didn’t take note of the Mother with five wild-animal-like children at some point during that Mass. Kids were crawling all over everything. Laying down on the pew. Tipping kneelers over. The three oldest left to go to the bathroom and they were gone so long I almost had to go find them. The four oldest went to the holy water font after Mass. For those of you that aren’t Catholic this is a very special type of water that you need to be quite reverent with. And at this particular church they have a fountain of sorts filled with it. It’s expected that you lightly touch the water with your fingertips and make the Sigh of the Cross. That is all. And you NEVER see anyone break that rule. Grant stuck his entire arm in it and splashed it around like he was playing in a pond. Even exclaiming “How fun it was!” And Scarlett couldn’t be outdone so she followed suit. I was mortified. As I was hauling them out a man could tell I needed some encouragement so he told me how great it was that I was taking the time to bring them to church. And how he wished more parents would make the same choice with their young kids. (Thank you kind sir! I needed that.) Another very well-meaning man also chimed in, “Yes! And especially since you have some wild ones!” So you’re telling me you noticed…

It’s at this point that it seems relevant to bring up that the sage had two kids. Which can certainly also be a lot and daunting at times. But she probably isn’t the person I should allow to talk me into doing extravagant days with my children moving forward. Hers cannot be the life I use as my standard. There are limitations that come with large families. Limitations on the amount of one-on-one time. Limitations on the amount of space available in the closet. Limitations on the type of vehicle you can drive. Limitations on who is interested in babysitting for you. And, apparently, limitations on how many activities you can realistically cram into one day while solo parenting. Lesson learned. But there are also incredible blessings and joys that come with 5 children that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I know there are many people out there that would kill to be as richly blessed as we are and on nights like tonight when I am ready to throw in the towel it’s good to remind myself that the blessings and limitations balance themselves out…they just balance out a little differently for every family. And it’s ok if I’m not capable of conquering the same mountains that other moms are…I’m sure there’s a hurdle I’m bounding over that they’re struggling with on their end. (And if anyone ever wants to race me packing school lunches, bathing children, or latching a car seat I’d be willing to put a lot of money down that I can beat you.) So, again, quit trying to be like everyone else to fit some standard or mold that works for a different person, and instead lean into the particular life that God gifted you with and see the blessings (and limitations) for what they are!

I didn’t intend to take a hiatus from my blog this summer… but it’s been a couple of months since I’ve written so I suppose that qualifies as a full fledged hiatus. I figure I am long overdue for an update. For any of you that recently saw my carefully curated Facebook photos of a lovely weekend spent visiting the zoo with my children you would think my summer has been spent doing nothing but Insta-worthy family time. Please allow me to pull back the curtain and show you a glimpse of the reality that was behind those carefully curated photos. That zoo trip was an absolute nightmare. We were coming fresh off the first full five days of school in a row. The kids were absolutely beyond exhausted. We got a late start heading out. We had tantrums. We had tears. We had fighting. We had hunger pangs. And that was just from the adults. When we were in the very dark Reptile and Amphibian House and my children were distracted I contemplated slowly backing out while the kids weren’t looking and running for the hills. At one point I took a few of the kids on a longer trail to see the mooses (Meese?) And ended up losing Alex and the stroller. We eventually found him. Hiding in some overgrown garden trying not to make eye contact with us as we searched for him. When we walked by the Camel Ride area Scarlett lost her ever-loving mind when I wouldn’t let her ride one of them. Mind you, she has never in her life up until this moment wanted to ride the camels. Pick a lane kid! She was so mad and I was so desperate that as her punishment I made her stick her nose to a tree facing away from the exhibits for a time out. I literally grounded her from looking at the emus. No joke. That may be a new low for me and was definitely the most random punishment any of my children have ever received. I was just grasping for straws at that point. She’s in Kindergarten now so I guess I should also probably talk to her teacher for fear that she may struggle when they get to the part of the year where they work on animal identification. Eventually, after more of the same song and dance, we ended up calling it quits – we know when we’ve been bested – and walked past the final exhibit and just loaded everything back in the car to head for home. The kids were quick to remind us that we still had not fed them. (Nevermind the fact that I had seriously considered feeding them…to one of the larger animal exhibits.) Like every good mother of a large family, I said “Not to worry – we’ll go to our local BJ’s where I am a card-carrying member.” (For those not familiar, this is a store similar to a Costco or Sam’s Club. They have a killer tiny café that is ridiculously cheap.) Naturally we spent a ton of money in the store and definitely did not save money by stopping here to eat… but that’s beside the point. The café is strategically placed just after the checkout lanes. After we had spent an hour browsing the store buying a bunch of random things in bulk that we will never use, we stopped to get giant pretzels, hotdogs, cookies, and pop. Because that is for sure the answer to your kids’ miscreant behavior. Reward them with sweets. That’s what all the good parenting books say! It’s genuinely difficult for me to even write that sentence out of sheer embarrassment. But this literally happened. After picking up the enormous amounts of trash that are the result of a family of seven’s mealtime, we headed for the exit. Completely forgetting that you had to show your receipt to an attendant at the door in order to leave. So they could make sure that we weren’t trying to steal our bulk box of potato skins. Turns out our receipt got thrown away with our mass quantities of refuse. We stared at the receipt checker lady. She stared back. We were literally locked inside the warehouse. At this point it was roughly two hours past naptime and we had multiple nearly crying kids. Many, many bad decisions had led us to that point. We asked the attendant what we had to do to be able to get out of the store. She told us we had to go back to the guest services area where they could get us a new receipt. I kept the kids corralled while Alex went back to the store entry point. After he was gone for some time Elle, Rose, and myself all took our turns literally dumpster diving. Thinking that the receipt had to be somewhere near the top of the trash. We were there just after lunchtime and I’m fairly confident there were at least 7 pounds of mustard wiped down the sides of those trash bins. I eventually had to throw in the towel and pull my children out. It was at this point that I heard “Hello Sarah!” And I turned around to see Elle’s kindergarten teacher from our local school district. Each of my kids either had tears or mustard coating most of their skin. We literally just pulled our arms out of the trash bins. And I was just standing there looking quite dazed and confused. I pulled myself together enough to try to act like everything was perfectly fine. I think I carried on a fairly normal conversation and then we went off to try to locate Alex. It turns out it takes 12 hours for the receipts to update in their system. Thank God they have a mattress section. Because we were about to have to stay the night. After much pleading the store manager had to come out alongside Alex and they literally side-by-side had to dig through the trash until they found the receipt. I’ve never been more attracted to my husband than when I saw his hand come up out of that trash bin with that ketchup-covered receipt. Therefore freeing us from eternal damnation inside the BJ’s wholesale club. But that oversized cookie was worth it!

I tell you this story to help each of you understand that you can’t believe a word of what you see on Instagram and/or Facebook. Not that there was anything dishonest about the pictures from our zoo trip… I just didn’t post the whole story…and neither does anyone else. Your life likely isn’t worse than everyone else’s and their lives aren’t better than yours. We’re all only showing a carefully curated version of ourselves online and it’s important to remember that there’s a whole storm going on underneath that surface! Quit getting wrapped up in comparison and just live the best version of your own life – quit wishing for someone else’s!

I absolutely love the end of the school year! I love that my kids will be home for the summer. I love the new memories they will be able to make. I love seeing them come up with and create new, imaginative games. I love seeing them spend more time outside. I love the more relaxed, slower pace of life. I love everything about it. With one exception. I DO. NOT. love emptying out the backpacks that come home on the last day of school. This is partially my fault because I do not do a midyear clean out periodically like many parents do. So there is an entire year’s worth of paraphernalia crammed into four kids’ backpacks that I get to deal with. I know…if I was a better parent I would make my kids deal with it themselves… But unfortunately that would result in them needing to keep every single thing in that backpack and cherish it for all of eternity. We don’t have the space in our house for that. Elle took a snack to school every day this year. When she cleaned out her bag I think there were roughly 12 Ziploc bags partially filled with a variety of different foods that she never got around to eating from the past six months. And she’s my neat, organized kid. It only got worse from there. I found toys that have been missing for months. I found things that should never have been going to school in the first place. I found multiple face masks. The kids didn’t even have to wear those this year. Riddle me that. But my personal favorite from the multi-hour backpack clean out experience came from Scarlett‘s backpack. Where I pulled out not one… but TWO overdue library books. These books had gotten put in her backpack to get returned to school roughly a month ago. This is nobody’s fault except Scarlett’s… how she never pulled them out of her bag to put them in the return pile at school is beyond me. She never struggled with getting her books returned one single other time all year. But apparently she really REALLY liked ‘The Wee Kitten’. And just wasn’t ready to part with it. Because sure enough it came home to live with us for the summer. When I pulled them out I glared at her. She simply looked back with a sheepish grin and explained “But Mom…I REALLY loved ‘The Wee Kitten!’” As though that justified the theft. I now get the joy of keeping track of these two library books all summer so that I can send them back in the fall. That shouldn’t be a problem at all.

In other news, I also found an award that she received for being the ‘Leader of the Classroom” for the year and she could not have been more excited. She was probably leading them straight to detention…but still…that’s a start.

It’s end of school year activity time! Which is fun and exciting and equally complex and confusing when you have a slew of children. Each of them have some form of coordinated activity or event that they have to be bringing materials in for, or prepping for, or dressing up for nearly every day. I have quite likely sent kids in themed outfits to classrooms that weren’t supposed to be themed that day. I forgot to send in a particular container to Rose’s class and only remembered when I saw her bring the finished craft home. I guess she was able to borrow one from somebody else. I love this time of year and enjoy having fun right alongside my children… but it is A LOT to stay on top of! Today was tie dye T-shirt day for Elle! She was thrilled and her teacher generously supplied the T-shirts for the entire class. Must be they did this craft near the end of the day though, because they were still wet when she got home with it in a plastic bag. Naturally it’s very important that you wear this T-shirt immediately once it’s completed. For anybody that’s familiar with tie dye… you DO NOT want to wear it when wet. And, naturally, I didn’t raise no dummy… so she wanted to make sure this thing dried fast. Her answer to this was to walk around our house with her dripping-wet-with-fabric-dye T-shirt spinning it around her head to try to get it to dry. In true whip-it-round-your-head-like-a-helicopter fashion. And apparently she wanted to check to see which room had the best airflow to aid her in the drying process because as she whipped this piece of fabric around her head she walked through multiple carpeted rooms. Our walls were literally speckled like Easter eggs. There was blue paint speckled through my hand carved armoire front that I couldn’t even get a rag into to clean. It was on every wall, crack, and crevice. It was in the carpet. I had to wipe off the paintings that were hung on the wall. It was E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. And in true Murphy’s Law fashion we noticed this problem at the exact minute we were all supposed to be walking out the door to get loaded in the van to go to Rose’s baseball game. When you accidentally stain your entire house with a dye that is intended to be permanent and not be able to be removed you have to act fast. Alex and I both grabbed wet rags and went to town. We got to the blue in time… the red was far more difficult. We decided we didn’t feel like living in a house with polkadot walls for the rest of our lives so Rose had to accept being a few minutes late to baseball.

My favorite quote of the night was from my five-year-old daughter, who said “it looks like a flag house!” After noticing the red and blue speckles all over our very light gray often-gets-mistaken-for-white paint. Maybe in honor of Memorial Day we should have kept it?