Bumgarner (Birthday!) Beach Week

With all the grandkids getting older and starting school, in a variety of school districts with varying school district schedules, we opted last year to move our family's beach week to August instead of spring break. So we had to wait several extra months this year to scratch our beach itch, but we finally made it! And celebrated Charlotte's birthday there, to boot!

(Girl's going to start thinking she gets a trip every year for her birthday.)

I made a laughably fundorable janky sunshine cake, per her beach birthday request, and it was... something. (She loved it.)

In better crafty news, I also made that shirt myself with a roll of iron on glitter paper and a blowing up a fun font and tracing it, oh yes I did, LIKE A BOSS.

Her one birthday request for the beach was to have an egg hunt. Normally we have always been there near Easter of course, and we often do a big family egg hunt outside on Easter afternoon after our beach arrival. Egg hunts aren't really part of our Easter celebration at home, so she totally associates eggs with the beach, not Easter itself. And. So. She wanted one for her birthday. At the beach. BECAUSE EGG HUNTS ARE A NORMAL BEACH ACTIVITY DUH.

After her birthday, the rest of the week was full of drinking and ice cream and watching the Olympics together, which was sort of fun since we hadn't done that together since we were kids.

We also took some of the kids to a tye dye event in the little pavilion by the town hall. Excellent activity.

We waited by a turtle nest for some turtle rescuers to shepherd some babies into the ocean (Holden Beach is a turtle sanctuary and we were there exactly the right week!) but it had already mostly hatched, so we only got to see leftover eggs, no babies.

John and Mark and the kids built a lot of sandcastles. Like, a lot. A LOT. Sometimes I think those two only pretend to be into it "for the kids" because they just legit like digging themselves.

Anneliese figured out how to ride waves in on the boogie board, and spent literal hours doing it. At one point during the week she asked me if there was an olympic medal for boogie boarding. "No reason, just curious."

We had some lovely evenings out on the beach, too. Our normal (little kid) routine had been to bring everyone in by 4 or 5 for dinner and then into bed afterwards. But this time of year, when it's hot in the day and everyone doesn't need to be in bed super early (because Olympics) (and getting older), it became easier to have some a/c time inside in the middle of the afternoon, and play to our hearts' content in the evening. Just so amazingly beautiful.

And fun uncles make things pretty fun too.

Thanks for a fun week as always, Dad and Cathy! It's so fun to see how the kids grow up all crowded around you at the beach every year. We are lucky to do this and lucky to have you.

It seems every Carolinian family has "their" beach town that they go to every year, a thing that is apparently unfamiliar outside of this part of the country. But it happens, it starts to feel like home, everyone has one, and this one is ours.

See you next year, Holden Beach.

Responsibility. How Do I Teach This? No Really.

Okay so, question:

How do you teach a kid to care about something they... don't care about? That's to say, how do you make a kid be responsible?

Because here's the thing: if we make them be responsible for a thing, then, by definition, they are not responsible for the thing. Because we made them. Which is the opposite of them being responsible for it.

Y'all, we are in a Season with Nathan. He is so bright, and so compliant, and also his head is in the clouds right now. He's just careless, on almost all fronts. His teachers have made a big deal about them taking personal responsibility for homework, no hand holding, no reminders, and are working on teaching them how to use a study agenda. All of these thing make my little planny heart just sing. Yesssss teach them to do it. Yes! YES!

But.

He isn't doing it. He forgets his homework packets, then forgets his agenda, then forgets to turn in his homework packets, then forgets to get new ones, which days to take carpool home instead of the bus, then forgets his glasses, then rushes through a math test and fails it, then loses his homework folder (and agenda).

And when we ask about it and follow up and say (ad nauseum) YOU are responsible for getting it done, it is no one's job to give it to you or ask to make sure you got it, it is YOUR job to find out what you need AND to get it. YOUR JOB he is just... full of excuses. He asked but no one answered. He asked but someone said look at the board, but the info wasn't on the board.

I just. WHAT IS GOING ON.

I am going to pull my hair out. The words we are saying (not our job! your job!) are not sinking in, or if they are, they aren't enough to make him care.

How do I raise a kid to know that there is not going to be a personal invitation for him to do what he is supposed to be doing?

So in the early weeks of this, when we told him he needed to do all his homework for the week (do it and turn it in and get his new packet) in order to earn screen time for the weekend, he sneaked behind our backs when we had a sitter and played a computer game anyway.

And then lied about it.

Oh my god, there were tears.

And yes, we have worked through various consequences and rewards and such, trying to balance the notion that he has to earn privileges, with also avoiding him digging himself into such a behavior/reward deficit he can never climb out, and so just gives up.

He just... doesn't care. I am tired of caring more than he does. He is perfectly responsible and totally on it when it comes to stuff he cares about, but apparently right now homework isn't one of those things. He only cares when he feels in trouble. (Or, if he's reminded, he's perfectly happy to do it.) But I don't know how to move from that "on fire" moment of him wanting to smooth our displeasure, to him caring about it when no one is managing it for him, besides just... letting him crash and burn.

Which we did. He still does not care. (Failed a math test. Barely noticed.)

I feel super powerless about it, which I am. And I should be. It's his thing. But it's so important to me to convince him, somehow, of why he should care and feel responsible for things that are assigned to him. It's hugely important in life. And isn't this our job as his parents? And so, I feel like I am failing him right now.

My dad's advice on these things is always: just wait it out. Almost everything is a phase. Almost everything passes.

So I am trying to tell myself he is barely out of the first month of school, it's an adjustment, he will figure it out and begin to shoulder this stuff on his own, if I keep backing away and let him. Even if it means watching him stumble a few more times before he gets it.

How do I balance assuring him that I will always be here when he falls, with also being clear I'm not going to swoop in and prevent the fall from happening?

I am going to read this book everyone recommends, (which sure sounds like it espouses everything I think I believe about the kind of parenting I want to do), and cry some frustrated tear at both Nathan and myself.

Parenting: I'm always a little bit in over my head, yknow? *sigh*

Marky Day 2015

Last time our anniversary fell on the same day as Father's Day, I proposed that we re-name it Marky Day. Because he's a fantastic husband and a fantastic dad alike.

This year, we celebrated the dad part more than the anniversary part, since I figured he could use a day that's just about him and our anniversary date and feelings could wait a few days. So we took him to a baseball game to see the Durham Bulls play, and get to go onto the field before the game and throw the ball around with the kids.

Real talk: sometimes the picture perfect plans we dream up don't end in perfection.

cherish every moment?

Nathan and Charlotte did have fun throwing the ball around for a few minutes though, and once we got out of the heat and into the shade and found some snacks and drinks, Anneliese perked back up too.

So twelve years and three kids later, I'd say he's still a keeper. We love you, Marky.

Like, really really love you. In a messy, real life, working hard, adoring our kids, crying, sweating, having fun, laughing together at the funny and chaotic things of our life way. I wouldn't want to do this with anyone else but you.

You definitely deserve your own day.

Lasts and Library and Church and Feelings: Summer Begins!

Occupying my brain space this week:

1.) Nathan has learned to do some farting noise thing with his hand and his knee-pit, and it is making me batty.

2.) Mark and the girls have been doing random dance parties in the living room the last couple evenings, and the most recent version seemed to be Ace of Base. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a co-parent who helps teach children the important things in life. (I'm being absolutely sincere.) (Picture me with heart shapes in my eyes.)

3.) Our public library has had a long-standing policy that your fines will max out at $10. Like, however much you owe, $10 will clear it all out. So for years, I have just... left it at $10. I don't pay it, they never ask, and it never gets higher, even when I keep books out overdue. (Yes, I know, I am terrible, shut up.) So anyway they just re-did their website, and I logged in to request a book, and suddenly I owe like... a lot more than $10. What happened? Did the policy change, or just the website? I'm skeered. (Update: just the website changed. I paid the whole giant debt with $10. And yes I paid it because I decided I feel bad about it.)

4.) I have hard church feelings. There's not a one-sentence way to boil it down, but maybe... feeling unsettled in what place I have right now? Anyway. I am taking a tiny break from choir, partly to avoid some toxic people and feelings (which usually I am great at avoiding and handing out grace as I pass by, but these days feels hard), but mostly so I can go worship with my family, in the pews, without dragging them into the chancel with me (which they do, gladly, but it has started to feel complicated) -- and thus try to reframe church from being a thing that mom and dad need to go to, where they get dragged along, and back into a place that's also for them, where they are wanted and needed and valued and belong in their own right. It has gotten out of balance.

5.) Last week was a horrible sad time with my family, and we will be burying my Grandpa this weekend. He was old but it was also fast, and I feel exhausted of the emails and planning and I need some room for my sadness, and I will have more to say about him and his life later, but now I don't have the bandwidth for real words about it. We miss him. It sucks. He was wonderful. He was my last surviving grandparent. He was a good man, in the least trite way one could possible use those words.

6.) Last week I had my last day with Ali. (Well, not my last day. She is still my niece and she better come over here and swim every weekend so I can see her.) But my last day as her daytime caregiver. It has been a heck of a year juggling four kids but most days I think I did it well, and I will have a bond with her forever because of it, I hope. She is a funny sweet energetic bright-eyed little girl, and it has been an honor to be amongst the first humans on earth to truly know her, and love her. I am also glad for the empty summer stretching before us, with lots of time for the kids before Anneliese starts her school years and I go back to work. It's both/and.

7.) Speaking of last days, Nathan had his last day of school yesterday and he is done with second grade and he is still so tiny and still my baby and what is even happening?? On Friday they did a "wax museum" biography project where they dressed up as a person from history and gave little prepared speech about them. Nathan was Walt Disney and he was ADORABLE.

Walt Disney and George Washington were great friends, didn't you know?

And Then March Happened, Apparently

That thing where you are months behind so you just post a lot of random thoughts, because people like that better than carefully crafted themed posts anyway right? Hi, welcome to the March (waaaaaay later than March) edition of I Don't Even Know What This Post is About.

Okay so the most important thing is that my sister had a baby! After a pregnancy lasting forty weeks plus four months (she is a dolphin, you didn't know?) (ask me how I know about gestation length of dolphins anyway *side eye*Nathan*) she delivered her third son (yes THIRD) (yes, her oldest is Charlotte's age) (yes, she would accept any of your prayers for sanity) and anyway, meet my newest nephew Everett! He is perfect.

Also! Ali turned one! ONE! I can't believe it's been a year. I love her so much.

The weather got warm and the girls had been asking Mark to plant something, so he took them to pick out flowers and some veggie seeds, and he pulled some dying shrubs out of an area near the pool, and they turned that space into a little garden.

The girls are totally taken with it. (Nathan too, although mostly he is too cool to act like it.)

Oh! Speaking of cool ("cool") Nathan also did a weather project where he needed to write a report including a media/visual component about some weather phenomenon. He chose monsoons. He did a good job researching and writing the paper, and then he made a little video to show why monsoons can damage houses even if you put plastic on your roof, like some people in monsoon-prone areas have to do.

I'm not sure this video actually proves anything, other than he likes to build with legos (and make videos), but it still tickles me. You know you want to see it. Right?



Another random Nathan thing, from the grocery store one night: "Hey this is the same kind of bread Jesus ate! You can tell by the shape!"

(Pretty good endorsement for Kroger, yes? JESUS HIMSELF ETC ETC.)

Hmmmm I... have no idea what else happened in March. Let's look at some pictures.

Anneliese, wearing a lot of colors, and not one but two headbands, including one with a donut on it, because obviously:

Me with all the kids, taking a walk on the greenway, proving once again that it is difficult to get very many people to look at the camera at once:

Charlotte, looking half teenager and half baby:

Perfectly reasonable outfits for a Target run:

And! Marky made me a brownie in a skillet one night when I had a random hankering, and he sort of made it up from a boxed mix, and then he throw ice cream on top, and it was delicious. You know how some things are just exactly what you had a taste for, except even a little bit better? He wins everything.

We ate it on the couch in front of Netflix, because we are good at being grownups.

Chaos Theory of Parenthood

Okay so my friend Arwen has this theory (well, her husband does) about chaos in parenting. The theory posits that Chaos Mode - that thing with young kids where you feel like you're just trying to keep your head above water, putting out fires one at a time, but not necessarily kicking ass at any of it (or even particularly wanting to), because Chaos - happens in the season when the number of kids you have is greater than the average of their ages.

Simple, right? Yet kind of genius.

baking with three kids: a comedy of errors

Okay so if we don't account for Ali, we have 3 kids averaging age 5.4, which is well out of Chaos Mode (and perhaps entering into Delightful Mode).

When we do account for Ali, that's 4 kids averaging age 4.3, which means we have juuuuust recently eeked out of Chaos Mode. Which explains why the last few months have felt fairly settled and relaxed.

This theory also accounts for the fact that a first child, even just one, feels hard and exhausting and chaotic for the whole first year (1 kid, "average" age is less than 1) while being alone with just, say, your third kid? Even as a newborn? Feels like SWEET SWEET FREEDOM.

You can be more specific with this if you do the ages by month, go read Arwen's blog post. Don't read it if you have a newborn. Don't read it if you have twin toddlers. Don't read it if you have 3+ kids, none of whom are school aged yet (looking at you, dear sister). If you're in those camps, your energy is better spent on Chaos than math, because I promise - you are still in Chaos Mode. And will be for years.


But I'm here on the other side, to tell you - the chaos settles! It does! Babies are cute and full of wonder and all that, and yes, enjoy it, of course. But know that the chaos settles. And in the meantime, you're doing just fine. Don't expect more of yourself than Chaos Mode allows.

XOXO, parents of the internet. Hashtag: it gets even better.

So This Is "Spring Break"

We have had a spell of trecherous* weather that has resulted in like nine days of missed school, and they haven't officially announced how/when we will make it up, but I'm assuming we just enjoyed our "spring break" of sorts (fine by me, we have no spring break plans over actual spring break, we are taking ours later anyway to go to the beach with my dad like we do every year).

(*The NC version of trecherous = some legit snow, some legit ice, and a lot of days - A LOT of days - waiting for all the icy patches to melt on even the smallest of shady no-light back roads, so the buses can safely drive, because we ain't got no snowplows, etc etc etc.)

The first day it snowed, the kids wanted nothing to do with it. They stood inside and watched it and were glad for a day off school, but I couldn't even beg them into the yard to play. I think they were traumatized. Their last snow experience was something else. (It was a sheet of ice and no fun for playing that day anyway, not that it stopped everyone else in the county, according to my instagram feed.)

Once we had some real snow, I went out and walked around in it (enchanted like a proper southerner) and eventually the kids joined me.

Some pictures of the snow, because it's still novel enough (or so we claim? even though it has happened several years in a row now?) that it warrants photographing.

Our backyard:

Across our front yard, at the last snow which was really heavy and wet:

By the time Mark and the kids were building a snowman in the front yard, it was super warm out and Mark was in a t-shirt. Yes, it took baring the grass to get enough snow for even that tiny snowman. This is... so North Carolina:

Snow selfie:

Also, find me something more delightful than a five-year-old who is delighted by swinging in the snow. Go ahead. Find it. (It doesn't exist. This is the most delightful.)


Oh! And! I bought new snow boots back in the fall (for no good reason, they were just there at TJ Maxx and impossibly cute) and I was not ashamed about feeling glad for an excuse to wear them.

In related news, I had a whole rant ready about how annoyed I am at moms (parents) (but mostly I see moms) who complain about having their kids home for days on end. I mean, yes, I get it. We all get stir crazy. Especially when the roads really aren't safe. (I'm not taking chances with that again.) But! There are people who have to miss work when their kids miss school, and therefore miss pay when their kids miss school, and some of those are the same people who need their kids at school for free and reduced lunches, and backpack buddies for weekend groceries, and the like. Having extra mouths to feed for extra meals a day when you're suddenly with a lower paycheck? Sucks. But those are not the people who I see complaining online, it's the white rich ladies and I just want them to shut up, or do it with nuance, or something, Everyone has feelings and I get that, but. Don't be gross. Don't be a dick. That's all.

(This is the short version of my rant because it's snowing and I am still enchanted.)

(Also I've been getting to sleep later, because no school! And Ali hasn't been coming since her parents are off work. And sleeping til 8 makes me a better mom, TRUE STORY. Thanks, snow.)

The Christmas When I Forgot Pants

Well, we had ourselves a merry little Christmas. We did the traveling portion of the celebrations before Christmas this year instead of after, which is different for us -- it made the shopping and prep part feel a little rushed, but once we got out of town and got back, we were kind of glad to be home and settled and relax here, just our little family. It felt like far less frenzy than it does some years.

I managed to get all the way to Huntersville, for four family celebrations within three days, and I packed no pants. Zero. NONES PANTS. I wore leggings and a tunic to church on Sunday, and went straight from there out of town. I had packed a bunch of shirts and sweaters but no pants to go with them, and no other tunics or long tops, and no room in our schedule of gatherings to run to Target, so! I wore that tunic and leggings for daaaaaysssss and the good news is I didn't even burn it afterwards.

Anyway. Pictures of Christmas. My outfit on repeat x1000 is barely pictured. Because I can't stand the sight of it. Because obviously.

Reading on his new Kindle, wearing airplane
slippers and reindeer antlers... #doingitright

Anneliese had been asking for colored streaks in her hair for months,
and then Santa put hair chalks in her stocking! She was... excited.

It might be Christmas if your parents let you ride a scooter in the house.

Charlotte also got a new baby doll (she named it Claire, her middle name)
and an Elsa nightgown which we passed off as a dress-up dress. We are smart. 

That awkward moment when you're trying to pretend-
straighten your hair and your dad keeps photo-bombing you.

Giant wall atlas!
Hey Nathan, your Bumgarner is showing.

These magnatiles we gave Nathan were a hit with *all* the kids. RECOMMEND.

Taking pretend selfies with Daddy. Ahhh child of the new millenium.

All the kids/spouses/grandkids were able to make it to Dad's this year! Whoa!

Anneliese and Grandma

Decorating cookies at Ashley's house with my mom.
I'm not saying my decorating was the best, but... it kinda was.

And then I came home and put on jeans and it was awesome, the end.