So today my sister comes over and leaves a TV on my front porch and my kids are whining, crying, and carrying on in front of my sister, and I’m like, “Do you want some watermelon and soda?”
A little backstory for you…..room goes hazy as it spins back to this afternoon…..
So my 8 yr old is in a clinical study (don’t judge, it pays $75 per visit) and she got her last check and we go to Dollar Tree and she sees a pool outside for $8. It’s a baby pool, just itty-bitty and she wants it. I say no and we go in the store and there in the center is a much bigger inflatable pool for $10! She is stoked. “Can I get it mom? Please, please, please?” So I let her get it.
We get home and my oldest blows up this thing by hand (or mouth really). She says, “I’m a little dizzy, I’mma sit down” She wavers in her stance and sits on the couch. We take this baby outside and the girls fill it with water and have a great time. Barbie even swims for a while. Yeah, it’s all good.
Then I have to use the restroom and so I go inside after telling the kids that they need to drain the water. They wonder why and I yell, “because we don’t want it to get tons of mosquitoes and nasty like the sandbox after the rain!” I run inside.
Someone knocks on the door while I am in the bathroom. The dog barks non-stop, alerting me to this intrusion but as I am indisposed at the moment I can only sit. And wait. I figure it is a neighbor kid so I don’t sweat it as I sit there. Ok a little. I am curious.
After I am done, I go and check the door anyway and see a TV on my front porch. It is right by the door so I cannot open the door at all. My sister had promised to bring it by for the girls room. I had forgot. But her car was still here so I assumed she had heard the sounds of laughter from the backyard and went to investigate. She meets me at the back door. She actually scares me, but I’m not going to let her know that. “Oh, hey… you left the TV.” I explain that I cannot open the front door and we go around (after much deliberation over this fact) and get the TV.
By this time the pool is drained and I start to hear the wonderful sounds of crying and whining from the two younger ones. “Whhhyyyy??? I wasn’t done yet!” and the younger one just crosses her arms and stares. That one. That is the one you got to watch out for. Again I calmly explain my theories on mosquitoes and walk my whiny children toward their bedroom for quiet time. (I’ve heard of other households who have this every afternoon!).
I see the bathroom (I was just there!). There is water everywhere! The children have it in their heads that because the outside water is so cold, they should bring in HOT water from the sink. In a bag. Made of cloth. Yeah, that worked out well.
So I then ask my sister if she would like watermelon (we apparently carved the biggest watermelon ever grown and I have nowhere to store this all these pieces) and soda or water or lemonade. Because I’m a hostess in the middle of chaos. She declines (her loss, they are even cut into cute pie pieces – totally Pintrest worthy). I ask her if she would like to stay a while and talk. Bless her heart, she does for a bit and we talk between my 10 second interval of disciplining (read yelling at) children. Finally, she leaves and I walk into our family room and find an empty pool with a pillow and blanket and small child in it.
I love summer. There is no season I would rather be in. This is my life.
Ps- New neighbors moved in next door last week. They had a bible study outside on the back deck. I met them and offered them watermelon.
Pursuing Life 