Our summer "vacation"

So, we just returned from our blissful-ish stay in North Carolina.  We spent eight days, nine nights at "our" beach house; and, we all had a wonderful time!

Of course, we rushed to the beach as soon as we woke up the first morning.

The girls dipped their toes in the ocean.

Then they commenced the joy that only comes with salt water splashing in their faces.

Breakfast was served every morning on the upper deck.

Snacks were enjoyed on the sand.

And, when it wasn't a million humid degrees outside, dinner was also served on the upper deck.

This year, I tried to teach them to boogie board.  I wouldn't say it was a rousing success, but it was certainly entertaining to watch.

And, Maya can't be left out of anything so she boogie boarded sans board.

By far, their favorite thing to do was jumping over the surf.

Coming in at a close second, for Maya, was having Mama jump her over the waves.

We also climbed the 257 winding steps to the top of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  In 93 degrees with 80% humidity (according to the park rangers).  But, all three of them did it without a single complaint!

It was a beautiful view from the top.

I also "forced" them to climb the sand dunes.  In a million degrees.  I would have to say that this was their least favorite half an hour of the whole trip.

Just like last year, they were really good sisters while their feet were planted in the sand.

Laughing and squealing almost the whole time.

Still my favorite, was the nightly walks on the deserted beach.

Though snuggling with my worn out baby was very close to heaven.

Three beautiful, happy girls = successful trip.

Three beautiful, tired girls = time to head home.

I'm not sure I would do the two day drive again, but I would gladly move to North Carolina in a heartbeat.  I am so thankful that I was given the opportunity by my aunt and uncle to take the girls again this year.  I couldn't have done it without their generosity, and I am forever grateful for the memories we'll all carry with us.

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Lessons learned from driving halfway across the country with three children:

1. No matter how many times you tell them that we won't arrive at our destination until after dinner time, they will begin asking "Are we close" as soon as breakfast is finished.
2. When you come up with more than three "car games" to entertain them with, they will have cheated their way through them in the first hour to get the prize you were hoping to save until the end of the day.
3. You will remind them a million times to tell you as soon as they know they will have to go potty.  They will still wait until right before it comes out to announce it.  You will be miles away from an exit.  They will do this at least three times each day.
4. You have always held tight to the belief that kids don't need to watch tv in a car.  You will abandon this by lunch time.  And kick yourself for not just letting them zone out on dvds all day.
5. They will always have their noses buried in their games/dvds/fights on the prettiest part of the scenery.  (West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina) But will inevitably be staring out the window at the vast nothingness that is Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana.
6. Each time the youngest finally falls asleep, someone will have to go to the bathroom.  She will never fall back to sleep, but is now really cranky that she was woken up.
7. Although you have supplied them all with a trash bag, paper towels, and wet wipes - they will still throw everything on the floor and wipe their hands on the seats.
8. The only part of the journey they will enjoy is the one minute you are in the tunnel that goes under the water.  This is either at the very end or very beginning of the ride.  The little one will always manage to fall asleep two miles before we get there.
9. Someone is always kicking a seat.  Someone can never reach what they want.  Someone will lose their shoes every time they take them off.
10. You will strongly contemplate leaving them at every third rest stop, but you won't be able to because there's always some sweet old lady who smiles at them and tells them how precious they are.  Of course, that sweet old lady won't pack them into her car, now will she?
11. People will look at you funny when your children are eating a packed lunch in the parking lot of a McDonald's.  They won't care that you tried to stop for an hour, but every single rest area was closed for renovations.  Your youngest won't get the joke when you tell her "This is the closest you will ever get to eating at McDonald's so enjoy it!".

One thousand two hundred fifty six miles.  More than twenty two hours.  Seven states.  Two days.  Millions of dollars in gas money.  Several aspirin.  One bag of jelly beans.  Memories you hope to forget in about eleven months before you start planning to do it all over again. 

*sigh*

The things we do to escape the monotony that is our daily lives.

Yesterday my grandma would've turned eighty eight years old.  Unfortunately, she's been gone eleven years, so she'll stay seventy seven forever.

Patricia Batenic wasn't the snuggles and hugs kind of grandma.  She didn't get down on the floor and play Barbies with you.  She didn't pat you on the head and tell you how amazing you are.  She didn't smell of fresh baked cookies and chocolate cake.  My grandma was certainly neither soft nor gentle.

What Grandma was will be the one thing I will always miss.  She was honest and direct.  She told you exactly what she thought of you and your actions.  If she thought you were making a mistake, there was no hesitation in her assessment.  It may not have been what you wanted to hear, but it was nearly always right.  She didn't sugarcoat or soften the edges - and that's exactly what I needed.  She loved me fiercely, and I never doubted that.  Not when she was criticizing my clothes.  Not when she was pointing out the flaws in my character that were holding me back.  Not even when I got one of her patented verbal beatdowns.  Because I always knew she wouldn't say it if she didn't truly believe it would help me.

On more than one occasion, my grandma saved my life.  She saw the problems in my childhood, and she did everything she could to shield me from the worst.  I've heard stories of the person she was before I was born, but I didn't know that lady.  I don't recognize the flawed person she was before the date of my birth.  My grandmother walked on water, and I'm not afraid to shout that from the mountaintops.  She may not have been the milk & cookies grandma, but she was the kind of woman who openly offered her home to a nineteen year old girl with no other healthy options.  She didn't pull you onto her lap to snuggle, but she did take a lost and lonely kid to the mall for an hour of window shopping.  Not once in the twenty three years I had her, did she ever let me down.  I can say that about no other human being.

I lost Grandma when I was pregnant with Sofia.  So, my daughters will never know her.  They'll never enjoy the benefit of her wisdom or her honesty.  They won't be able to look back on her and think what I do... "That was one incredibly cool lady.".  I often wonder what she's thinking as she looks down at us now.  Would she approve of me as a mother?  Would she be disappointed in the decisions I've made in the last eleven years?  Would I have made different choices if she had been around to talk to me?  Would she have been different as a great-grandmother?

My childhood memories aren't the greatest.  But, sprinkled in there are the summers I spent next to her desk at UMKC-School of Law, alphabetizing and filing.  The afternoons at Mrs. Field's at the mall, sharing a small coke and a cookie.  The way she wouldn't ever let me have one of her Crunch Bars, but would share one with her cat every single night.  (Damn Chitty!)  I remember how, whenever I heard "Now, Sarah..."  I knew the conversation wasn't going to go the way I wanted it.  Most of all, I remember the woman who displayed more strength and loyalty than anyone I've ever known.

So, Happy Birthday Grandma!  I gave my girls a little extra dessert in your honor.  And, I was brutally honest with them more than once, just to pass on the tradition.

One more week

Exactly one week from today, I'll be sitting in the sand with my toes in the Atlantic Ocean.  I cannot wait to have the North Carolina sun (yes, it's different from the one in Kansas) on my shoulders and an ice cold drink in my hand.  Of course, the drink will be Maya's water bottle (which she won't set down in fear that sand *gasp* will get on it), but whatever!  I'll gladly trade sangria on my back deck for water on the beach.

This summer has flown by, despite each day seeming to last forever.  I cannot believe that, once we get back from NC, there will only be about four more weeks until school starts.  Only twenty eight more days of "I'm bored.  There's nothing to do.", "Mama, she stole my marble!", "Can we please go somewhere!", "When is it not gonna be so hot?", "Mama!... Mama?... Mama?!...... nothing.".

One more thing (to add to the long list) that they don't tell you before you become a stay-at-home parent:  As much as your heart will break the first time you drop them off at school, it breaks almost as much when you have three months of summer "break" stretched out before you.  Like the long dark hallway leading to the electric chair.  You can practically feel your hair graying and your nerves fraying.  At least, that's how it is for me.  I suppose I could be alone on this one.

But, one week from today, we will have survived two lllooonnnggg days in the car together (* hopefully).  We will have woken up in "our" beach house, had breakfast on the top deck where we can hear the waves, slathered on the sunscreen, and walked the three minutes to the sand.  The girls will have thrown off their flip flops and raced up to the top of the hill to be the first to see the water (and two of them will be whining that they weren't actually the first).  I will be trailing behind (like their personal pack mule) lugging all of our supplies and taking a million pictures.  And it will all be worth it.  Because my girls will be happy.  They will have a million things to do.  They will not whine or argue (* of course, the sound of the waves crashing drowns out the specific decibel level of their unpleasantness anyway). 

It will be amazing. 

Or, the next time my toes are in the Atlantic ocean and my derriere is in the sand, the ice cold drink I have in my hand will be a water bottle filled with a mojito - and Maya can hold her own damn agua.