Learning As I Go: June 2009

Quitting My Day Job

We have had a very eventful few weeks! A weekend vacation, lots of softball games, a hot-air balloon festival, a long camping weekend with friends, and tomorrow we're headed to visit my sister and her family who are back from Kansas! This is the life!!

I'm in heavy-duty planning mode for our Annual Buddy Walk fundraiser for our local Down Syndrome Association this fall! I'm also helping to design a website for our Association (no, we don't have one yet... and yes, we know it's the 21st century.) I would add to this the basics of laundry and dishes and cleaning, but let's face it... the kids are wearing dirty clothes, we're eating off paper plates, and you can write your name in the dust on the fireplace mantle.

But, here is my question. When am I possibly supposed to blog about all of our summer fun??

I've decided that I'm going to quit my day job to blog. Yup, I'm just going to blog all day long. I mean, really, when else am I going to do it? Oh, wait a minute. I don't really have a day job. Well, I do. I'm a mom, and I can't imagine quitting that. (Okay, when both kids are having a melt-down, kicking and screaming on the floor simultaneously, it does cross my mind.)

So, I'm back to lots of events, 600+ photos for the month of June (no lie) and it's almost midnight. Hmmm.... not much time to blog tonight. So, for now, just know that we're having tons of fun this summer, and as soon as we stop having fun and I have time to blog our fun, I will! (Well, hopefully our fun won't stop, but maybe it can pause for me to catch my breath -- and blog!)

For now, here is a moment from our weekend....

(Come on... all together now......... "Awwwwww!")

Wordless Wednesday

Operation GET WET!

Last week we took a mini-vacation to Omaha, NE (about 3 hours away) with 4 kids in tow. (And no, I didn't mis-count! Jordyn brought along her best friend, Emme!) We stayed at a hotel with a super-fun indoor water park attached, and spent some time doing what you're supposed to do there -- GET WET!

Sadly enough, I didn't get too many pictures. Oh, believe me, it was killing me! Jeremy actually tried talking me into leaving my camera in the room (until he remembered who he married, for goodness sakes, and knew that was no option!) So, there I was, standing out among the kids playing in the "very-shallow-and-meant-for-little-kids-so-Moms-and-Dads-don't-have-to-worry-about-drowning" area (the sign should have said that, anyway!) I was holding my not-so-cheap camera under a towel as kids pranced around, splashing about! Every now and then, when the splashing diminished, I quickly pulled the camera out to grab a few shots of the kids!

Here are a few of them!

Carter especially loved the water spraying up (and zappin' him right in the tush!)

Rylee spent most of her time getting Dad's legs wet with the watering can! (Jeremy did not sign his waiver to allow me to post pictures of himself in his swimming trunks... nor did I in my swimming suit. But we were both there. Promise.)

Jordyn and Emme spent their time in the "big-kid" area... going down the water slides and getting super-dooper wet! Though I wanted to get pictures of them, too, there were several reasons I didn't... 1) Did you read super-DOOPER wet? There was no way I was comin' out of that area with a dry camera! and 2) There were boys there... okay, teenage boys there, and though I like to think of myself as pretty cool, even I got the "Please-pretend-you-don't-know-us-while-we're-at-the-water-park-and-we-will-only-acknowledge-your-existence-when-we-are-back-in-the-hotel-room" look. So, there you have it. No pictures of the girls at the water park! (Was I offended? Not at all. I was a girl once. I mean, a teenage girl once. I was happy to be invisible.)

So, why aren't there more pictures of the little kids?

I tried to remember what I was there for... and now here comes the learning. As much as I wanted to capture the kids having fun, I realized that I didn't want them to say someday, "Geesh, remember when we went to the water park and Mom didn't even play with us? She just stood there, asking all the other kids to stop splashing so she could get pictures of us. Wish she would've just put the camera down and gotten wet with us!"

So, that's what I did. Was the trip so unbelievable memorable that, even at their young ages, they will remember it when they are older? Um, no. Was the moment so traumatic to them because they were begging me to play and I was saying "no"? No. But, I put my camera down. (Actually, to be quite literal, I put it back in my camera bag and into a very high-priced locker pool-side so I didn't have to run back up to the room!)

And I splashed with them. And I stood at the bottom of the slide and caught them (along with 3 other kids who's parents ditched them in the kiddie-area so they could go have a drink at the swim-up bar... no lie.) Anyway, I really enjoyed my time with them! And, though every other minute I thought to myself, "oh shucks, that would've been a super-cute shot" or "oh, look how cute that is that Rylee is ~~shoving~~ gently helping Carter down the slide" my camera stayed in the bag.

So, the learning is coming. Maybe next time, I can put my camera away and NOT think "oh shucks, that would've been a cute picture." (But then again, maybe not. I'm only human, you know.)

"I'll Take 'Dynamite Dads for $500' Alex"

When I met Jeremy, he was already a Dad. Jordyn was 6 years old, and I got the chance to see what kind of Dad he was to her. I fell in love with him... and we were married less than a year after we had met.

Now, 7 years later, we have added 2 more kids to our family (oh, and a dog... we must not forget the dog) and I can say, without a doubt, that Jeremy becomes a better dad each and every day.

Like many couples, we balance each other out and make a good team. We've gotten through very trying times together as parents... heart surgeries and other tough medical obstacles, the ~~"Terrible~~ Trying Twos", and those glorious pre-teen/teen years... just when we think we may have parenting all figured out and the road will be smooth going forward, we run into another bump in the road.

It's then that we look at each other, and hold on tight.

I've captured many moments of Jeremy and the kids. In going through years of photos, (back to when I began taking digital photos just after Rylee was born in 2003) I remembered. Looking at the pictures took me right back to that moment... I could hear Rylee's laugh when Jeremy was tickling her; I could hear Jeremy playfully teasing Jordyn about boys at school; I could hear Carter asking Jeremy for his paci... oh, sorry, he really IS asking for his paci right now. Geesh, bedtime already?

Anyway, pictures are powerful. Here are just a few of my favorite pictures - pictures that remind me just how 'Dynamite' a Dad Jeremy really is!!

Happy Father's Day Hon!!

(And yes, if I had a dollar for every time I heard, "Geesh, does Carter sure look like his Dad or what??!!" I would be publishing this post from a computer on a yacht as Jeremy and I began our vacation abroad.)