family time survival

Have you ever noticed that blogs sometimes don’t seem like real life? It’s just a snapshot of this or of that and it seems as though we have put our life through photoshop to give it just the right look. The truth is, most of the time Marie and I feel like life is just hard. Not in a negative sort of way but in a way that makes us enjoy life but really hope that we can survive it. Well, this weekend gave us a little extra hope that we might make it!

I’m always trying to think of fun things Marie and I can do with the kids and in my mind they are these wonderful bonding experiences that will create lasting wonderful memories. The reality is that it never works out this way. “Let’s read the Christmas story and then decorate the Christmas tree together. It will be great.” In the end however, we are desperately trying to talk the kids into watching a movie or something so one more piece of the Christmas crèche is not used for a bouncy ball or thrown in anger because someone wants just one more piece of candy. One of us usually ends up looking like scary Bilbo from Lord of the Rings (pray you never see Laine make this face at you. frightening.)

I should have known it would be a good weekend when it started with me coming home from work to find Romney hanging out on the toilet. “Hi Rom, what‘cha doin’?” “I read magazine daddy!” hmm – wonder where he learned that. We aren’t even trying to potty train Romney but he seems to be doing a pretty good job all on his own.

Saturdays are tricky. We always have things we want to DO and things we want to ACCOMPLISH. We aren't usually able to do both, but yesterday was different. In the morning Lainey and I decided to make a chart of all things we would do for the day. This included cleaning her room, the family room, the bathroom, and then going sledding. I was pretty sure she would immediately start writhing on the floor because she wanted to go sledding NOW (even though it was dark and 10 degrees outside.) But she didn’t fight one bit and in fact was only frustrated that I wasn’t going straight into the bathroom so she could clean the mirror. Romney was excited too and he joined in, but he felt he could only really do a good job if he was wearing his swim goggles (his current favorite accessory).

A funny highlight of the morning was when Romney said, “mommy, I have a booger on my finger!” Marie – “okay Rom, why don’t you get a tissue to wipe it on.” “okay mommy. I do it.” and off he ran. A few seconds later he came into the room with the tissue he had gotten for his finger, only he forgot to rip it off of the rest of the roll of toilet paper so………(if you click on the pictures you can see the toilet paper trail back to the bathroom and Rom carefully cleaning his finger.)

Amazingly, Laine finished her chart and we made it sledding, which was a blast! Some friends had suggested hiking up Neff’s canyon in Olympus Cove with sleds and then sliding down. It turned out to be a great suggestion. It took us awhile to get out of the house and then to convince Marie’s sister Catherine and her boyfriend Derek to come with us but finally we made it! (oh yeah – we had to get lost in the cove once but that was Derek’s fault.) Lainey and Romney rode up the trail in sleds and we all got a good work out. We found a rope swing along the way that was a hit, as were a few impromptu stops for mini-sledding trips by the side of the trail.

Finally the sun was going down and it was time to head back down the mountain. It really didn’t look THAT steep but holy cow – it was crazy. If you click on the pictures you will see a hint of the fear they were experiencing as they zoomed down the hill. Lainey really is fearless on a sled. I don’t know where it comes from but she just loves it and it was so fun to hear her giggle and yell, "faster!" all the way down the hill. Even after we got the bottom we had to stop on two different hillsides so Laine could risk her life just a few more times.

In the end it was one of the magical days. Family time worked! Our house was clean AND we did something fun! It probably won’t happen for another year or two but Marie and I both felt really grateful for the fun day. (and glad Derek and Cath came with us! – I told Derek I hope he doesn’t end up just some random guy in our pictures. Uncle Derek has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?)

The cherry on top of the sundae came, just as you may expect, on Sunday. My meetings for church start at 6:30 AM. My cell phone started to ring this morning between two meetings at about 7:30 am. It was my next door neighbor and I considered not answering it and waiting until after the next meeting to call them back but since I had about 30 seconds of down time I decided to take the call. Lucky I did because they were calling to tell me that they were communicating with Marie by yelling from a window in our house to a window in their house. Sounded strange to me, but as I listened I learned that Lainey had managed to lock herself, Marie, and Romney all in Laine’s bedroom (her lock is on backwards.) It takes a very small screwdriver to unlock the door and they didn’t have one! All the exterior doors of house were locked by my safety-conscious wife, so someone needed to rescue them. Luckily I had mostly quit laughing by the time I got home otherwise I think Laine and I would have both been in trouble.

Okay, gotta go. Lainey is in the bathroom yelling “help! Pee is running down my leg!"