It's the reason I was okay with lazily slapping some thawed out Thanksgiving pumpkin roll from the depths of our freezer on the table and calling it breakfast. "See, kids? It's pumpkin cake. What a treat!"
It's how, after completing a math lesson a piece with each of my girls (from last school year, mind you), we opted to just throw some of those stigmatic Lunchables and Lance crackers in a cooler and head for one last midday-weekday hurrah at the pool/splash pad before they move to weekend-only hours for the rest of the season.
As the day wore on, after swimming in the pool, splashing around, dining on "fancy" picnic tables in the hot, afternoon sunshine, we collected our things and traipsed back to the giant van where I realized that I'd only brought enough dry clothes for half of the family, but decided - It's cool. We're only going to be strapped in carseats on the way to drop Ben at church for a quick youth event anyway. No big deal! This is not a real problem in the grand scheme of life. We've got diapers for the little ones. Dry clothes, be darned. Two mostly-naked babies, one girl sitting on a towel in a wet bathing suit, two dried girls, and one completely-dressed near-teenager ought to get us to our ultimate destination. We dropped the biggest kid at the very-short youth event during which I planned to make a happy hour Dunkin' coffee run.
Except, on the way to feeding my coffee addiction...the entire 24oz bottle of water consumed at the pool went straight through our chronic, habitual pee-er. And with not-clothed babies and a mom wearing "dry clothes" (loosely interpreted as last night's pajamas now soaked through from the wet bathing suit underneath), stopping at a public restroom was not really an option. As I weighed the possibilities ("Sit tight! We can make it back to church. They don't expect anything differently of us there. They know we're a hot mess!"), the problem-solving child took matters into her own hands, procured the largest diaper in the diaper bag and relieved herself in the backseat of the van.
I almost died.
Of laughter.
This child has been potty trained for quite some time. We're talking...years.
And yet, the problem was no longer a problem. Well done?
That still left us with about 30 minutes to waste as we pulled back into the church parking lot. It was about 2:30pm, and, I assure you, well beyond naptime. We eyed the mostly-shaded playground and decided to go for it. After combing my van for the third time hoping some spare clothes would magically appear, I came across a pair of shorts for Noah.
We filed out of the giant blue van with fully-dressed nine and seven year old girls, a four year old girl in a bathing suit and flip-flops, a two year old boy in just shorts, an infant in last night's pajamas, and me, also in last night's now-wet pajamas. I put my sunglasses on to shield me from the glare of Noah's neon white belly. I shrugged. They played. It was surprisingly lovely. Even more surprising was how compliantly they filed back into the van at 2:57pm. (Just kidding, I had to wrestle Noah into his seat. There may have been karate chopping involved.) We picked Ben up, got home, and I promptly put Hannah in her crib, and laid down next to a beyond-tired Noah for his way-late nap.
As is the custom at naptime, I read him a (very short) book. Then I sang him the ABC's. Immediately following the alphabet song, he screamed, quite belligerently, "JESUS!!!!" That, of course, meant that he wanted me to sing Jesus Loves Me, and given his current state, using polite manners was not a battle I was picking at that particular moment. It was also not lost on me the irony of how angrily he asked me to sing him such a sweet song about our Lord and Savior, but I obliged the request and he sweetly pretended to try to go to sleep while I sang it.
I tiptoed out of his room to take a much-needed shower. When I emerged from the bathroom thirty minutes later, I discovered Noah. Not sleeping at all. Watching Leah play a Kindle underneath one of four very-elaborate blanket forts that sprang up in my living room yesterday. And what's that sound? Oh, it's Hannah. Also not sleeping. On the bright side, no naps means earlier bedtime. See? Silver lining.
Was it well-planned? Perfectly executed? Without flaw? Manicured and coiffed? Not even a little. But it was enjoyable. Hilarious. Well-lived. And most of all, not taken for granted.
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