Motherly Musings

·         If I have a weakness as a mother it’s bath time. I realized as I was bathing the boys tonight single-handedly (well, double-handedly if you want to get technical about it, but without Roy) that I hadn’t done it in a long while. And I was reminded how sorely my patience is tried when they are in the tub. They must make it a point to plug their ears with water immediately on impact because their listening skills disappear entirely. All of the sudden it’s super cool to chug disgusting bath water and splash each other on purpose and wail incessantly about the injustice of water in the eyes (which only ever got there because somebody didn’t lay still when he was being rinsed off). And I, who usually get quieter when stressed, too often let my frustration get the better of me and speak sharply, which doesn’t work at all. It doesn’t make me feel better and it doesn’t especially grab their attention either. We’re all just ready for bed.

I guess all of that to say--thanks Honey for being awesome at bathing the kiddos so often.

·         One probably shouldn’t volunteer to plan, organize, rehearse, and execute a massive Sunday morning service the same weekend one is packing for the entire family to live somewhere else for two weeks. Seriously…somehow I got suckered into prelude, singing, playing, underscoring, offertory, postlude, the whole shebang. Plus having music picked, copied, distributed, hiring extra brass players, and preparing to welcome a bishop of the Free Methodist Church for crying out loud.

And this isn’t packing to stay in a hotel. Zero sheets, blankets, towels, kitchen supplies included.

·         I’m steeling myself against the Csehy Gastro Blues. Two years ago I was pregnant with Owen and was urged to gain a little weight after a nauseous first trimester. I wasn’t doing great until after two weeks at Csehy. I gained 9 lbs in a month, which positively mortified me but, thankfully, appeased my OBGYN. Last year I was nursing a voracious Owen and so I managed to keep things in the clear. This year…I have no excuses. It all starts off so innocently—the food is gross so you eat the relatively safe, but bland, salad. For six meals consecutively. Then your body starts shutting down and you stuff your face with fries because you’re so darn hungry. Toss in all-you-can-eat Perry’s ice cream and it’s alllllllll downhill baby. Sigh. Roy and I have probably had the healthiest year of our lives and we’re optimistic we can survive the camp food of 2016. Here are a few of our objectives and, yes, I’m totally publishing these for some sort of weird Internet accountability…

o   Ice cream after supper, and only if we’ve behaved ourselves during the day. (OK, so that’s really for the littles, but we’ll have to model it for them and that keeps us from eating ice cream twice in a day.)

o   Gluten-free choices. For me this means I won’t get any French toast sticks, an annual treat. For Roy this means no English muffins…also an annual treat (I am a terrible wife I know). But we agree it steers us away from pizza and hot dogs and towards slightly healthier, if still largely inedible options.

o   Eat breakfast on our own. Whole-grain cereals, oatmeal, stuff for smoothies.

o   Run individually or play Ultimate in the afternoons for exercise to keep the blood flowing.

It’ll be an adventure! I’m excited to be reunited with good friends and make music together. Prayers for the boys, whose lives and routines are about to be turned upside down for the foreseeable future!

Today’s 1%:

Book 41/50: The Testament. Another Grisham. I didn’t last very long with Tolkien, although it proved to be a highly effective sedative.

42/50: The Vogue Factor by Kirstie Clements. Former editor of Vogue Australia, Clements started as a receptionist and worked through the ranks to the very top of the fashion magazine’s Australian edition. Full of flare and drama and, largely, what you’d expect from a fashion editor. Clements seems a bit more down to earth than someone like Anna Wintour (or Miranda Priestley), perhaps stemming from her humble roots. Still, we had very little in common and I could only semi-scorn, semi-resent her life of clothing, models, and celebrity.