Vacation Replay

My vacation was split pretty equally into two parts: actual vacation and consignment. I enjoyed every last bit of it though and hated going back to work Monday. Only having to make it as far as my basement helps a lot though.

Anyway, this was our first vacation where we didn’t have an automatic house sitter, and it made us a bit nervous—Hub more so than me. He shut off the water before we left and unplugged things like a crazy person. I was more worried about the cats, but I knew they would be fine for 2 nights without us. My aunt took the dog, so dropping her off was an extra step in our prep, but no big deal overall. In all though, things went very smoothly.

We were on the road by 6am and made it to Cedar Point by about 10:30. I fed the kids an early lunch as we were coming up the causeway so we wouldn’t have to be bothered with food for a while. It looked like it might rain on and off all day, but except for a 15 minute downpour after dinner, the weather was just right. We never realized how many kids things there are to do there; Hub and I only ever went on roller coasters. But we all had a fabulous time.













Monday we took a boat out to the Lake Erie islands, which was kind of a bust. There wasn’t too much to do, but we made the most of it for a few hours before heading back.








Then we checked out some caves.





We were home by mid afternoon on Tuesday, but it really was the perfect little trip. Family fun, and nostalgia combined. We can’t wait to do it again next year!

I totally had to look up how to spell culottes

• I started writing a post the other day about how our summer vacation was going (well), considering the changes in our household, and went on to talk about how I’m keeping the kids busy, and decided that I hated the tone of it. It was more of a narration of our daily minutiae than anything that was helpful or even interesting. So! Summer is good! The kids have chores! And I print out crap to help them keep their minds sharp! And sometimes they go to camp! 4 weeks ‘til school starts!
• I am ridiculously excited for our 3 day mini-vacation that is coming up in less than 2 weeks. I’m sure the kids won’t give a flying fuck when I show them the place Hub proposed to me, but I am nostalgic just the same. And we are indulging Liv’s boat obsession with a ferry ride and a day long trip to one of the Lake Erie islands and she is going to die…just die! I cannot wait.
• The dog will be getting a vacation of her own while we are away by staying with my godmother who has 3 dogs. Haley just loves other dogs, (and cats too, but ours will not play with her) and if she doesn’t have a heart attack from all the excitement, she is going to have the time of her life.
• We had the girls’ big birthday bash this past weekend and it was a great time—though I don’t think I sat down even once over the course of 2 days. I was lucky to have my sister-in-law in town to help me get ready (read: chop fruit and vegetables), and generally keep me sane. We’ll be even luckier if she follows through and moves home as planned in September.
• I was going to share a few pictures, but I am going to leave you with just one. This is my, Lucy’s and SIL’s reaction to an interesting outfit composed of a short sleeved button down shirt, vest, a neck tie on a string of pearls and belted culottes. I thought we kept our opinion in check…but the photo tells otherwise. HA.

Ok, I guess I did sit down...

Missing (?)

Do you ever feel like something is missing?

Hub and I have all but permanently decided that we are done expanding our family. We are more than 3 years past having a newborn. This is the longest I have not been pregnant since we started having kids. We have 2 more years of pre-school before all of the children will be in (free) school. We have a great family dynamic. I am honestly and truly ok with our decision to be done now. As much as I love to snuggle a newborn baby, I am ok with my time of middle of the night feedings and diapers and having to pay attention to someone every last second of the day being O-V-E-R. I like the independence that has come with having older kids. I like it a lot, actually.

A few months ago I had a dream. I was very pregnant. We were expecting twin boys. The kids were a bit older, but everything in the dream was much as it is now. We were happy, with 2 of everything lined up just so, just waiting for our boys to join us. I’ve had dreams about being pregnant before, dreams that have stuck me with a brief feeling of longing, dreams that have made me wonder if we’ve made the wrong decision…but the feelings are always fleeting. Always. This time though has been different.

Hard as I try, I cannot shake the feeling that regardless of not necessarily wanting to have another baby that I am supposed to get pregnant again. I am supposed to have (at least)another baby. I am supposed to be someone else’s Mama. And I don’t really know what to do with this nagging feeling. I don’t know why it won’t go away even though I am mostly in the camp of no more babies.

Is my head messing with me? Are my hormones messing with me? Am I being spoken to from a higher power? That is the thing. I have no idea. No idea at all about any of this. I thought that maybe typing it out would help me make sense of it, but…not so much.

How about you? Do you ever have a feeling about how things are supposed to be, compared to how they actually are, or how you want them to be?