I've been neglecting the blog lately - sorry about that. Somewhere around mid-May I developed a terrible case of Too Much On My Plate and in an effort to regain my sanity, I spent much of my writing time writing creatively, rather than recording my family adventures. Mostly because my real life was too busy and I had too much stress, so I escaped into writing fiction for a little while. But here it is July already, and I realize that I skipped a couple of months of family life on here. So I'll try to catch up a little over the next couple of weeks.
This year we are experiencing the Summer of Extremes. We don't have "just a little bit" of anything around here. The weather has been too rainy, the garden is growing too fast, my kids are involved in too much, and the mosquitoes here in Minnesota are OUT OF HAND. It must be all the damp weather, I would guess, that makes it impossible for us to be outside and enjoy ourselves. One step outside after dusk and you are nearly devoured by them. I haven't even prepared our outdoor patio this year because I know we can't be out there anyway.
Let's start with the kiddos and the summer of too many activities. So far this summer, I have shuttled my children through basketball camps, softball practices and games, baseball practices and games, swimming lessons, cello lessons, summer reading programs at the library, and soccer camps. The girls are both playing fast pitch softball, on the same team. It has been really fun to watch them play together two nights a week. Cooper started baseball this year, and he plays on two different nights a week. That only leaves 3 days each week where we get to be home in the evenings eating real food. The rest of the time we are subsisting on hot dogs, popcorn and fast food restaurants. My cooking skills are practically dormant, and I should probably start buying stock in sunflower seeds.
Ball wraps up this weekend, and then we will have a few precious days together before the soccer season starts. I love watching my kids be active, and I am hoping they will use these opportunities to gain some of the skills I can't teach them myself at home. How to be part of a collective team, how to lose gracefully, how to handle disappointments, and how to win with integrity. It also keeps their little bodies healthy, and keeps them sleeping soundly through the night, so hey - it's a win for all of us!
You know this wouldn't be a typical Gudahl blog post, though, without a few parenting adventure stories.I have a couple of notable moments to recount. Let's see... on the mild end of things, Emma drove the golf through the garage door. So that was awesome. On the more extreme end of things, we had a close encounter of the head lice kind this summer. Let me tell you, you have not truly LIVED as a parent, until you've treated your children for head lice.
**Side Note**
Before I continue, I must stand on my soap box and shout to the rooftops: Can we please change the stigma surrounding head lice?! PLEASE? There is some dark and terrible connotation attached to this malady - people feel shame that they have it, and keep quiet about it. That's why it keeps spreading, people! If we all just admitted it, notified people promptly when we've possibly shared it, and treated it fast, we could overcome this very common yet totally time-consuming problem.
There, got that out of my system. God bless the parent who notified our softball team when her little munchkin came home with it. Because we all share helmets on the softball team. And almost all of us got it. Thank goodness for that awesome mom, because if she hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have noticed it in my girls until it was really bad. I truly thought it would be easy to spot, and easy to figure out if you'd picked it up. I was wrong! Aaron and I checked our girls a couple of times and didn't see anything concerning. However, I was looking for actual critters, and you aren't likely to SEE actual critters. Turns out both my girls had picked it up, so we began The Process. The good thing is, once a few of us admitted we had it, more were willing to admit it too, and all night long we were texting each other pictures of all of us in our kitchens, eyes watering from chemical shampoos, glum looking girls on chairs, metal combs in hand. It was kind of nice to go through it together - you don't feel quite so alone. Also, God bless my parents. Because when I found out we had it, I went straight to their house armed with $100 worth of lice treatment. My mom stayed up for hours upon hours, helping me treat my girls, treating me just in case, and letting us sleep there for 3 days. (If I had any lice in my house, they die after 48 hours of no human contact, so I needed a place to stay until I could be sure they were all dead.) When most people would recoil at the news, my mother just took a breath and said, come on over, let's get this done. Aaron and Cooper took the easy road...it's called a razor with no guard. Coop didn't really mind - except for having to use sunscreen on his head for a couple of weeks.
As for vacations, we decided this summer to stay close to home for the most part. We spent four days on the 4th camping at the Yacht Club where we have a summer membership. It was nice to be able to be interchangeably on our boat, in the pool, by the fire or in the camper pretty easily. The kids got their fill of kneeboarding, tubing and swimming. Aaron got his fill of wakeboarding and eating s'mores. I got my fill of reading good books and having time to socialize with our friends. We ALL got our fill of mosquitoes - did I tell you how bad they are this summer? Seriously!
I have one last summer adventure to look forward to. I turn forty this year, (ugh) and my early birthday present is to take a 5 day vacation with my best friend from Colorado. Yay! I get to go back to the mountains, and all by my lonesome for a change. We have all sorts of adventures planned, and I'm practically giddy with anticipation. I don't know quite what I will do without a family to cook for, to shuttle around, to cheer for from the stands. Just thinking about getting to choose a restaurant without first looking at the kids menu is pretty exciting. I don't quite remember what that is like, but I'm sure I'll be writing all about it when I get home.
