Saying Yes to Water

My children - they are a constant bundle of energy, discovery, and amazement.  Today I had one of those reflective moments where I was thinking about how wonderful it is to be a kid who gets to play every day.  A friend of mine wrote a beautiful blog about saying yes to children's impulses or desires.  These moments are times when for no reason other than a tug at your heart strings you say yes to something that may not be clear in the moment but you soon realize how that simple word provided great and simple joy to kids.  We spend so much time telling kids what not to do because of fears/safety/time/etc that saying yes can become a novelty. Yesterday I was able to have one of these "yes" moments.  To explain this "yes" moment, I need to backtrack about twenty three years. 

My boy

My family lives in an area that is considered very hot during the summer months.  We regularly see temperatures in the high 90's and many times it gets well over 100degreesF.  Because of this, and since my sister happened to be born in June, my mother instituted a tradition at our house.  Each year at my sister's birthday, Mom would prepare for the party by filling buckets of water balloons.  On the day of the party, we would engage in water balloon warfare.  Our fights weren't limited to water balloons.  All sorts of water throwing implements were utilized during these battles.  These included slingshots, hoses, pans, pots, water guns, and even the occasional horse trough.  Pretty much the rule was to soak as many people as possible.  Oh, and if the hose was on, it couldn't come in the house - that one was harder to remember.

Very quickly this tradition didn't stop at my sister's birthday parties.  Water fights soon became a common occurrence around our house.  Usually the situation was my mom would ambush us with the hose as we came walking up to the door or similar.  It would then escalate into a full blown battle where someone usually laughed so hard they peed their pants. To be fair, my mother learned this behavior from her mother.  I have a vivid memory of my grandma flooding her own bathroom with the garden hose because she was trying to shoot cold water on my cousin who was taking a hot shower.  I guess you could say its in our blood.

Yesterday, my kids were playing up at Grandma's house.  All of a sudden, the door flies open and my three year old son comes in yelling that he needs his water gun.  He was soon followed by his five year old sister.  I could have said no since I knew one of them would end up bleeding or crying, the wind was blowing really hard and they both are struggling with allergies, etc.  But I remembered all of those water fights growing up and knew my mother was waiting outside.  I turned to my husband and asked if he knew where the water guns were.  I took the kids to the drawer, handed them each a gun and my daughter was nice enough to take an extra for Grandma.  I  gave only one direction.  Shoot Grandma before she shoots you!

My girl

 

Road Trip!

The family road trip.  This is truly an American institution that is held in high esteem by most people I know.  The road trip is a chance to get out of our little spheres of influence and get connected to new environments.  Each year thousands of parents say to each other, "Lets plan a trip.  I know we can take a drive to ________(fill in the blank)."  And so, each year, thousands of well intentioned parents carefully plan, pack, save, and get excited to take the American road trip.  Road trips do not have to be far excursions, the only requirement is that the whole family will spend a generous number of hours sitting in car seats, moving down one highway or another. 

This past weekend was our families version of a mini rad trip.  We live in central California and my in-laws were flying in from Maui (yes, my in-laws live in Maui - lets not get gushy).  We decided that we would take a road trip to southern California to meet up with my husband's family.  Here was our plan: 

1) Leave Friday afternoon after the pre-school Mother's Day luncheon my kids' school was having and drive to Riverside County to visit my sister for the night (if you know anything about southern California, you already sense problems - we'll get back to that).

2) Spend the night with her then drive to Long Beach Saturday morning for a family reunion in the park.

3) Saturday afternoon drive to Escondido to a hotel

4) Spend the night and on Sunday, go to the wild animal park (Safari Park) with the in-laws.

5) Stay one more night and drive home on Monday - approximately 6 hours north of Escondido.

We'll go step by step.

Step 1

We left our town around 12:15 after having the luncheon.  We headed south via Interstate 5 and were tootling along quite nicely.  We merged onto the 210 East around 3:15pm.  This had taken us bout 3 hours and we estimated we had about one more hour to go.  Uh-huh.  As we traveled along the 210 we all of a sudden encountered the Friday afternoon southern California traffic.  We literally came to a screeching halt.  For the next 2 hours, we  traveled about 17 miles.  On the return trip on Monday, this same stretch of road took us 12 minutes.  As we were in this stop and go traffic, our children decided they had had enough of this car business.  At once, both of my dear sweet kiddos decide they have to poop and absolutely can not wait.  Our car was stuck somewhere near Rosemeade/Altadena/No Idea and we were in the lane next to the car-pool. Being the nice understanding parents we are, we told our kids, "Too bad, we can't stop so either you have accidents or you'll just have to hold it."  This lasted for about another half hour and they started to sound desperate.  So we eased our way off the freeway and found a potty.  Just to keep things interesting, neither kid pooped - just peed.  Thanks.   

The other thing that was happening during the stop and go was a phone conversation with my sister informing her of our progress.  Somewhere my sister had come across a website which gives the status of traffic via a color code system.  If a road is green you are good to go, yellow means so=so, and red means good luck.  So as my husband drives along, I am on the phone with her getting updates on what the website says our traffic situation is - red, yellow, or green.  I don't know this site but I can say that it is full of s@*!   My sister also kept yelling out alternate routes to try to reroute us around the traffic.  But, as she would come up with a plan, our road would turn green on her screen and we were apparently moving much more quickly.  Sure.  We finally made it to my sister's house (another potty break later) around 6:15.  Seriously, we could have been in Vegas with that pace.

That night my daughter wrapped up this easy going day with a major protest about going to bed.  Basically she decided that everyone in my sister's house should stay awake since she wasn't interested in going to bed.  Bed time for everyone wound up being 11:30ish thanks to her efforts.  Good news was that her uncle taught her a new video game the next morning.

Playing Whack a Mole

Step 2

We went to Long Beach for the  reunion and it was uneventful.  

Geoffrey and I at the reunion

Step 3
The four of us piled into our car to head to Escondido and wound up taking a toll road by accident.  Now, most people carry enough change to pay a small toll but we weren't planning on this so we decided to get off before having to pay.  Little did we know that the off ramp had a toll booth too and we had to pay anyway.  They problem was we had almost no money with us.  We searched the entire car and came up with $1.35 in change.  The toll was $1.50 and the fine for not paying was $57.00.  No, they didn't take cards or checks.  So, here we are, on an off ramp that leads to Laguna Beach of all places with no money to get off the freeway.  I would up having to run to the Mercedes behind us and begging for a quarter so that the ten other cars behind us would stop thinking evil thoughts about us.  On the bright side, I had never seen Laguna Beach and it was beautiful.  As a side note, apparently everyone in Laguna Beach drives black Mercedes. The kids slept through most of this so thank heaven for that.  They woke up just in time to see the end of the beach scenery and conveyed their feelings loudly about being denied a chance to go to the beach.

Sleeping through the whole toll road debacle

Step 4

We did go to the wild animal park and it was wonderful.  Nothing major happened that day except somehow Geoffrey and I wound up watching 2 1/2 hours of a Sister Wives marathon before bed time.  Yeah. Moving on.

At the wild animal park - great place!

Step 5

Monday it was time to go home.  So, in an effort to be home for my daughter's ballet class at 3:15, we left the hotel at 8:15 and made the following stops:

-Back to my sister's house because I had forgotten three things and Geoffrey needed to poop

-Stopped in Glendale because the kids needed to poop

-Stopped in Camarillo at In N Out because everyone was starving

-Stopped in Santa Barbara to see my friend J who is wanting baby #2 to get here asap

-Stopped in San Luis Obispo because I had to poop

We got home around 4:30 and yes, we missed ballet.  I blame the bowels.

Let me sum up by saying in my experience with family road trips there are definite truths:

The kids always have to poop when there's no potty, always add on two hours to any schedule because it will take you two hours longer then planned, Benedryl will be needed to get the kids to sleep the first night, and the car DVD player is the best invention ever.  Oh, and you must go on road trips because they are how memories are made - memories you will talk about for years to come.

Growing Growing Growing

I haven't had a chance to write in a while because we have been immersed heavily in the process of growing.  Typically I would just be talking about our garden but tonight I have garden news as well as kid thoughts.  Both of these center around growth.  

To start off, lets chat kids.  This past weekend centered around a milestone for my daughter.  She celebrated her fifth birthday.  Birthday number 5 is a very special one I am rediscovering.  As of this birthday, she enters the school-age population and is fully registered to start kindergarten in the fall.  I set up a kindergarten academic screening for her and took her to get her kindergarten shots.  She bravely accepted that she needed shots and only cried when 1.5" needle number 4 was thrust into her thigh.  Those are Mommy moments I wish I could erase but simply can't.  She passed her vision test with amazing success and hears us perfectly despite choosing to ignore us most of the time.  She was also very instrumental in planning her party.  The only requirements for her party were that it be a princess theme (going on year 3 of that theme) and that my sister/her aunt be present.  My sister is her absolute favorite person so luckily she made the trip.  As we held the party, I watched her play with the other young guests and enjoy being a kid.  She is a baby no longer and it is strange to see her entering a new phase in life.  I know that she will take on this phase with enthusiasm but I now realize that time is on the run way, ready to take flight.

Here she is with our traditional on-the-real-birthday cake.  Her party was two days later.

On another growing front, our garden is doing wonderful and terrible all at the same time.  To start off, the wonderful part is that everything we planted in the higher planters is doing great.  The pumpkins are growing, the lettuce and peas are getting taller, and the watermelons are coming in.

Mesclun Lettuce

The lettuce was a plant I was very worried about.  We have fairly hot summers here with many days reaching over 100 degrees F.  So far, we have  had two days that have reached temperatures over 90 degrees F but I am trying to give them lots of water to help protect them.  Also, they are shaded for a good portion of the hottest part of the day so they are still doing great.  Realistically, lettuce in our area really does better planted in the fall but we're still going to try for a decent summer crop.  Just for reference, we are zone 8 for planting.

Peas are getting taller too!!

A little over two weeks ago I put in watermelon seeds and I am thrilled to say that I have 17 watermelon seedlings in my planter.  I know I will have to thin these but it is so exciting to see something I planted from seed is pushing its way up to the sunshine.  Right next to the watermelons are the pumpkins and  I now have 9 pumpkin seedlings.  I am thinking I will thin those out to 3 plants so I don't wind up with a hundred pumpkins.  Again, grown from seed so I consider this garden to already be a great success.

Part of my watermelon seedlings - how cute are they?

I did mention a terrible part to my garden's development.  For some reason, my dogs have decided that the most easterly end of my low, large area planter must be constantly molested.  Almost every day I go out to water and discover they have dug out more dirt and destroyed or almost destroyed a plant or two.  So far, they have eliminated my basil plant, a row of lettuce, 3 marigolds, and several of the potatoes I had in the ground.  Just tonight I had to shovel about ten shovel-loads of dirt off my cayenne peppers, dill plant, and pickling cucumbers to save them from being buried alive.  Geoffrey has a plan to lay some extra fencing over the garden to stop them from digging.  We'll see how this works.  Hopefully I can keep writing about the growing plants and not murdered plants.  

Garden death - they even dug out my sun dial.