I'm going on a vacation with ticks. Are there ticks in Disney?

Here it is, near the end of a holiday weekend, and I find that I am feeling less and less relaxed, and more and more nervous and there's something I forgot to do lingering the back of mind.

Oh yeah.  I'm going on vacation.  Tomorrow.  And because it's almost-camping - cabin in a state park kind of camping - there is a ton of packing to do.  And cooking.  And baking.  And I've dealt with all of this by pretending it isn't going to take long and I don't need to do it until today.

Yes.  This is working well for me.  Until 8am this morning when reality could be denied no longer.

My dad's birthday was last week, so I need to do some baking.  Like, be-in-the-kitchen-all-day-and-come-out-barely-able-to-stand baking.  All my siblings will be there.  All my nephews.  My dad.  His wife.  Now, I'm not responsible for all of the food.  But we're still talking about several days of food and lots of mouths.  My mommy-distracted brain can't even THINK about all of the food I need to pack right now.  And a husband who only eats vegan.  He might be eating corn straight out of the can for 3 days.  Note to self: pack can opener. And corn.

Apparently there will be bugs at this place.  Stinkbugs, mosquitos, and ticks, to name the ones I dread the most, although not necesssarily in that order.  One of my sisters told me about this stuff you need to spray on your clothes and let dry for a couple of days to prevent ticks.  You can't put it on your skin, though, because it breaks down on skin.  So.  Two days of preparations, and I'm just starting today.  Oops.  Note to self: stay in the cabin as much as possible.  Wait.  Unless there are stinkbugs.  Second note to self: be prepared to sleep in car. 

I believe I used to be somewhat normal in my dread of ticks.  I didn't like them, but I didn't freak out either.  I even suvived the lodging on and removal of two different ticks.  It's normal to make your 7yo son take them out for you while you look in the other direction and try not to hyperventilate, right?  But then there was The Incident.  I had nursed my baby to sleep and went off to take a shower.  Unbeknownst to me, he had an overgrown mutant tick who grabbed on for a trip into the Great Indoors and took advantage of the mommy-child bonding moment to hop on over to my body.  I took off my shirt as I stepped in the shower, and spotted the black thing the size of a quarter that started to run up my . . . you know . . .  torso area.  All I can remember now is a blur of screaming and panic as I thrashed about in the shower curtain. "GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!!"  And if you are thinking I could have just washed it off . . . .NO.  nonononono.  The rushing shower water just made it hunker down and look like it was going to sink its fangs into me.  So.  Yeah.  Panic level increased a notch or two.  My husband did finally come to my rescue - got me out of the shower curtain and that horrible creature off of me. FYI - it's very hard to look the other direction and not hyperventilate when something is that close to your chin.

Anyway, all of that to say, my sister sent me info about this spray and it takes 2 days to spray on your clothes and dry and then ticks will die or jump off of you and so I am rushing around doing this right now with the "help" of two children who think they know more about ticks than I do (they might) and that this won't do any good (they had better be wrong), and I am not really looking forward to going on vacation anymore.  I am suddenly thinking about my Very Smart Friends who have talked about going to Disney.  I don't like crowds.  I don't really like rides.  I don't mind cooking on vacation, but my husband usually chips in so I haven't thought our low-key, low-budget trips to places like this cabin are that bad.  Plus, I just like to do my own thing.  So my friends' attempts to convince me that Disney is the ultimate vacation have not really made any headway.

Until right this minute.  I am betting there are no ticks in Disney.  Or stinkbugs.

Not Quite Ready

Every now and then I feel a very strange compulsion to exercise with my kids.  Healthy family habits, good example, bonding, blah, blah, blah.  It's strange because it always seems to involve more pain than fun and yet somehow I forget that (kind of like birthing a baby) and decide once again that it's the thing to do.  So today I declared a family run. 

My daughter is a perfect angel (in this one small area, and possibly just for today) and just jogs along at my side.  My boys are thoughtless, possibly evil creatures, who can far outrun me.  While running backward.  I hate them; no I really love them and could burst from a not-so-secret-pride in their athletic endeavors, even as I glare ferociously and tell them that if we were running 5 more miles I would run them into the ground, and yes, I am fine and please stop trying to hug me while saying things like "Poor Mama.  She looks tired."

I am a mature human being, a self-less mother, who has adapted just FINE to this idea of not being able to keep up to my kids, and so, today, when we started off on our 3 miles, I told the boys that they would be allowed to go ahead after we got past the stop sign.

We're blessed to live on a road that sees about 50 cars go by on a busy day.  After we go south of our house, past the stop sign, there's a stretch that sees maybe 20.  Fields on either side.  I think of it as pretty straight and flat (because this is NJ, after all, not PA), so I don't think they'll be out of sight for long, and I'm determined not to be one of those helicopter moms.  I'm NOT a helicopter mom, after all, never have been really, and plus I have some firm ideals about encouraging kids to stretch their wings and learn independence a little at a time.  Letting them fail in small things while they're under my wings so they can learn how to fail at big things when they leave the nest.  Blah, blah, blah. :)

There's a small hill after the stop sign, which then goes down gradually to the next stop sign about a mile away.  The boys take off together, all confidence, sweat, and manliness (with some little boy thrill and excitement thrown in by my so-called "little guy" on his bike).  I watch them run away from me without so much as a backward glance - I really thought there would be at least a couple of backward glances - and they are soon out of sight over the hill.  When I get to the top, I am unpleasantly surprised at how far away 1/4 of a mile looks - maybe it's more.  How fast they've gotten that far from me.  How much farther there is to go before they turn around.  And I had forgotten that there's a slight curve and additional slope that hides the stop sign from me.  But at this point it's too late for second thoughts.  Even though I can zoom in pretty well w/ the camera, they are outside the range of my voice.

Gulp.

And it turns out I'm not quite ready.  I'm not quite ready for them to succeed OR fail at this little trip out of my sight.  I'm not quite ready for them to take ANY steps away from me, let alone little ones.  It turns out that *I'm* the one who needs to practice letting go.  I'm the one who's failing (or maybe succeeding, who knows) in the unending march to their independence.

All I can do is keep going .  . . counting the cars that pass (2, one of whom is the farmer who lives across the road from us and who creeps along at a sedate pace) . . . keep running to that next hill, and wait at that curve . . .

 

 

. . . where I see them sticking together.  Looking out for each other.  Succeeding.  Without me.

But I'm still not quite ready.


~Stephanie

Houston, we have a sleeper!

Well, first I guess I need to apologize?  I've been a *little* busy these past few months with no time for blogging.  But, then again aren't we all busy?  So, I know you understand. 

Mirabella has been an excellent baby.  Very sweet. Perfect addition to our family.  After our third child who was not a good sleeper (though a sweet boy!), it has been a RELIEF to have our sweet Bella (the 4th child) who enjoys her sleep.  

Well, except for last week. And the week before. And the week before that. She was sick the first two weeks of this poor sleep trend. Last week we were transitioning her from her bassinet in our room to her own room in her crib where her parents were starting to need to sleep like statues and not move a single muscle or she'd wake up.  She didn't like her crib at first, but we are relieved to have some kind of consistency for about 4 or 5 nights now.  *crossing fingers*

And, this process along with a conversation with someone the other night reminded me of a time when we were transitioning our third child (who did not sleep for more than 5 hours in a row for the first 19 months of his life...) to his crib.  

And THAT is what inspired me to blog again.  Weird, huh?  It was just like-
Bam! This should be a blog post.  So, here it is.

The only reason this story can be a blog post now is because we can now laugh about it.  It was not really funny for a very long time, but we can now laugh.  I wouldn't ever wish it to happen again, but now it is a tiny moment in our history.  Or, should I say my history.  My husband was sleeping.  Rare at the time but needed. 

He was working a full time job in a school and a part time job as a youth pastor.  The strangest things happen when you first become a youth pastor.  There's this sort of initiation.  It's the kind that kids give their substitute teachers only worse.  This one was in a string of many incidents that almost always involved our second car, markers, and sometimes saran wrap. What the teens never realized is that it never truly affected my husband.  He really didn't care that his car's windows had words written in window markers even if there was misspelling involved.  He didn't even care about the saran wrap and the vaseline they used to make it stick.  Even the litter from the saran wrap containers in the yard were not even a cause of concern for him. He didn't like it, but he was a good sport.  To be honest, I didn't care about any of these things either.

(Well, except the time I had to take his car to a business meeting last minute and there was nonsense written all over the windows.  I have to admit- I was annoyed because I was concerned it could affect my success at that meeting.)  Anyway, there was really only ONE thing that bothered me about this kind of strange torture done to the undeserving Toyota Corolla.  This was my baby at the time who hardly slept a wink.  And, my dogs who at the time barked at every. single. sound. coming form the backyard.  

One night in a time thankfully far away, I was rocking my little sleepless baby boy.  My husband was asleep. He needed to sleep as juggling two jobs was taking a toll on him.  I was rocking the baby, nursing the baby, singing to the baby, and everything else imaginable to help this child sleep.  It was late.  I don't remember what time, but I'm thinking it was after 11pm on a weekend night.  The baby started to doze off.  I had the movement perfected so that I didn't step on any parts of the floor that would squeak while rocking.  Miraculously, his body was feeling limp.  I didn't want to get overly excited yet.  I stayed focused. Finally, I leaned over the crib placing him in the crib, my hands still under his body and cradling him. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter it seemed I was able to get free. Miraculously, he didn't wake up. Hallelujah! I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops, but reality set in. I wasn't out o the woods yet. It was an old house, and though I had pretty much memorized which places in the floor would creak, I hadn't slept for a long time. This fact alone could foil the entire operation. I breathed in quietly and started my exit from the baby's room treated each step as a potential trip wire that could activate the baby's alarming cry. I couldn't believe it. Was it really happening? I could see the light from the hallway and flawlessly escaped the room without a single cry. Maybe, this was the beginning of a new era where sleep would be possible! Briefly I started imagining the possibilities...

And, then, the dogs heard something. Something unfamiliar like the sound of teenage girls trying to be quiet. The whole house erupted in a cacophony of barking that only my two pugs could create. The baby immediately woke up crying uncontrollably. And, thus began another very long night for the books for a very tired mommy.<sigh> 

So, what's funny about this?? Not very much except for the crazy lengths that parents go through to get some sleep.;) 

*Disclaimer: Despite the horror of not sleeping from the countless past pranks of certain teenage girls, I still love those girls regardless. :)  One person who led most of the pranks actually bought the outfit for my sweet baby in the picture on this page, and she is a special part of my life. I might have some pranks in mind for her  when she has children however.;)