Outdoor Fun

I promise to add more words to this little blog this year. In the meantime, I thought these picture could speak for themselves. We had a great weekend!!

Fireworks on Upper Saranac

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Making Music

She waited her "whole life" to have her very own guitar. 

Happy Christmas!!

Colton's Room Laws

The Dead End sign has been there for a while, but the rules are new.  (Someday I know I won't get such preferential treatment!)

Girls Day Out

  Yesterday was Lennon's field trip to Bankers Apple Orchard in Plattsburgh.  (Lucky for me the original date was rescheduled due to the million inches of rain that fell, and I got to attend the festivities yesterday.)  It was a beautiful fall day, bright sunshine and cool.  I thought I was being a bit over cautious with the "winter" coat I sent her in, but by the end of the day I was happy with the choice.

First on the agenda was a wagon ride around the fields.  As opposed to last year when she didn't really care where I was, she sat on my lap for the whole trip.  Then it was off to the pumpkin patch to choose our pumpkin (this is a major decision and needs much thought, many squeezes of your Moms hand, and the occasional quick thumb-suck when you are sure no one is looking).  Once the perfect pumpkin was selected, we were instructed on the correct way to pick our apples and sent into the neat rows of trees to select 5 perfect apples (another major decision that takes careful thought and some worried hope that the "one" you were unsure of and bypassed a few minutes ago is still there).

(Much of these tasks were performed hand-in-hand and without much interaction with our fellow Orchard Adventurers.) 

Apples selected, we dropped our booty off in the car and found the perfect picnic table for lunch, right next to the smelly goat pen.  Lennon nibbled half-heartedly on her sandwich and then declined a cider donut...this really made me wonder.  After feeding the goats and llamas, we said goodbye to her teacher and headed for the car. 

"Mom?" 

"Yes Babe, what's up?"

"Never mind."

I stopped and bent down to hear her better.  "Do you need something Hun?"  She then rolled her eyes at me and groaned, "Not here...we're in public!" 

Only when we were safely in the car and on our way to the mall did she feel ready to share with me.  A little voice whimpered from behind my right ear, "Mom, I really don't feel that great.  My throat hurts and my head hurts and I'm sleepy..."  I glanced over my shoulder to see her pale little face and my heart melted. 

Our original plan was a little shopping and then dinner somewhere that would consist of only appetizers.  In the end I made the exchange I needed to make and she picked out a cute bathrobe, then we grabbed take-out soup for dinner.  She slept the whole way home and today, even though she's sick, she's happy to be getting day number two of just the girls.

Momsters in the night

In the middle of the afternoon I might catch one of the kids looking at me with a curious glint in their eye and I have to wonder, have they found me out? Do they know what a horrid mother I really am? Can they see through my daytime Mommy costume and remember the sleep crazed monster that lumbers around the house in the middle of the night, roughly “tucking in” and impatiently “listening” to the absurd bad dream about French toast that woke them up.

I am not good in the middle of the night.

Everyone has a little glitch, something they can’t do well, like poaching eggs or drawing stick figures. I know this and I could handle my lack of control for eight hours while I recharge, if it didn’t affect my family. My glitch hovers over my children in the middle of the night, this dark ominous cloud of tired grouchiness attempting to sooth and comfort. How are they not terrified by this? How does Josh manage to fall back to sleep after my moody toss of the covers, grunts of impatience and the blackness of my soul seeping out onto the sheets?

For nine and a half years I have attempted to contain my inner nightmare, only sharing my treacherous deeds with my poor family. For a little while I secreted away this little hope that I would get better, find the time to listen attentively and gently coddle my poor babies in their time of need. Unfortunately, the dreadful fact remains that I am a real life Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I guess it’s time to accept the fact that I would cut off my arm for my child, but I cannot contain the "momster" lurking about in the middle of the night.