Blustery and Still

Between trips, outings, garden maintenance, and birthday preparations, life feels quite blustery right now. In fact, I am constantly losing and looking for things like shoes, keys, bathing suits, wallets. Always a sign.

More reason to be still and think of little things that I love:

• I love the way when John stirs in the night, all I have to do (sometimes) is touch him to let him know I'm there, and he settles back to sleep.

• I love the way June, in her "summer" wool skirt, puts her arm around John when they ride in the burley, always.

• I love the way all day, Clara cannot stop her kinetic self: flipping upside down on the trapeze, "doing" the splits whenever anyone approaches (to solicit a response, of course), turning in circles in the pool until she swallows a gallon of water, doing backbends in her bed until she falls asleep, potentially in a backbend.

• I love the way Will's brain is constantly working through tension: sweetly helping his sisters with things while also asserting his domination; determining how he can best negotiate getting a root beer float, honey sticks and maybe even a popsicle in one day; listening to Narnia tapes and flexing his muscles, sure he channels a lion spirit.

• I love the way Jeff leaves us a note every morning before he leaves for work, with a joke directed to each kid. Will reads it first, Clara memorizes it, then "reads" it to June.

So while we are packing tons of summer into our summer, I am thankful. There is so much to love.

Vacation: Swaps

One perk to vacationing with Grandparents is swapping children for time. In our trades this trip, I so thankfully got:

• a glorious yoga class with my yogi sister;
• a hike/run in beautiful Telluride;
• a bike up a breath-taking path to the end of the road in Telluride with the best kind of company - sleeping John in the burley. (No offense John... or Jeff); and
• a 20+ mile Durango bike ride to Baker's Bridge, with just my camera in tow (see below).

Grandma got: a child that has pretty much never napped without his mother. I think he (and she) did quite well... Thank you, Grandma!

Vacation: Cousins

We just got back from a long trip into the mountains with family. The places themselves were beautiful, but most of our time and attention was on COUSINS! They played hard, and slept very little. I look forward to telling the teenage Will and Carson how they set their alarms for 6 AM to finger-knit before camp.

Vacation: Mishaps

With 6 kids, 2 grandparents, and 4 40-somethings on vacation, there are bound to be some mishaps. Without naming names, here are a few examples of our mental lapses:

o One family drove North out of Telluride, instead of South, for at least an hour;

o Someone took a walk from our VRBO, and then overshot the house by over 2 miles, turning a 3 mile walk into 8;

0 Someone was stuck in a parking garage with 2 kids for over an hour with a dead cell phone, not knowing where to meet the rest of us;

0 Someone remembered to bring 6 journals, 5 books, unused sewing projects & knitting projects, but forgot underwear and jackets. And it snowed, sleeted & hailed in Telluride for 3 days;

0 Someone carted 8 kids home from camp with an unhitched, dragging bike rack;

0 Someone drove 9 miles to a beautiful destination that was 10 miles away;

o Some very tired children woke at 6 AM to fingerknit (as mentioned earlier); and

o Many people tried repeatedly to pacify the children with ice cream, milk shakes, chocolate bars, cookies.

Honestly, there have been more embarassing mishaps. Like the time we ran out of gas in our rental car on "Alligator Alley" heading for the airport in Miami, with 4 kids, and totally missed our flight. Luckily, we were so relaxed from vacationing that it hardly phased us.

I guess that's the point.

Summer: Bikes

One of my favorite things about summertime is biking. I remember our kids' ages by what kind of bike they were riding during what year. And I am definitely a glutton. Here is what we have:

Sit and Scoot

Tricycle

Burley

Trailer

Strider

Attachable Child Seat

Training Wheels

Tiny 2-wheeler

Medium 2-wheeler

Big kid 2-wheeler

2 Adult Bikes

Oh my. And today, I just bought more thing: our third bike rack. Our first was for the car that no longer fits our family. Our second got obliterated in an "incident" I had a few months ago. But, I am so very thrilled that our family can now hit the road, bring any number of combinations of bikes, and explore in the world on two wheels.

We'll be leaving behind flowers in bloom (the fruit of much labor), and a mama bird with brand new babies, but tomorrow.... we're off!

Summer: Swings

Each summer, I like to add a swing in the backyard. We're up to 7, if you include the hammock and the swinging ladder. Nine if I could manage to hang two more that are sitting around. The kids fight over the newest - the trapeeze - but still mix around on the others. Their need for motion is fascinating. After attending a friend's trapeeze lesson birthday party this week, I sort of get it. Next year, I'd like to hang one for the adults. Why not?

Pretty

When Clara was a baby, she gave me a scratch on my nose with her little fingernails that were so hard to keep short. But her little scratch remains a lovely red dot, right in the middle of my nose.

I always told Clara it was my special mark, but I probably should have played it down a bit. When Clara was 4, she determined to make a similar mark on her own nose. Two years later, it's still there.

John joined the club a few days ago. He had a little tumble on the back patio that made a big scab right on the tip of his nose.

I saw little June scratching her nose today, and I asked her what was up. She said, "I want to be pretty. Like you and Clara." At first I didn't get it. Then I did. I tried to convince her that the beauty mark beside her eye is her equivalent.

While I do not share her opinion, I appreciate her view. What you see every day, that's "pretty."