Summer Livin'

It’s been a while since I’ve sat down to pour some thoughts into this blog.  It’s been for good reason though- we’ve been busy doing a lot of summer livin’; busy cramming as much as we could into my last few days of summer off before I head back to work.  I’d be a huge liar if I said that I have enjoyed every single second home with Kennedy.  Sometimes I feel like as a mama whose lost one of her children I’m not supposed to feel like that; like my kid annoys the crap out of me.  But there you have it: she does sometimes.  This is not to say that I don’t eat those moments up too, it’s just that they give me some wicked indigestion.  Four has brought us some challenges; strong-willed, question everything, argue everything, eat nothing challenges.  So we made sure to mix in enough fun that if we look back on this summer that will be what we remember-not the battles.

Some highlights from the last week and a half:

There is something magical about fruit patches and picking you own; it all just tastes better.   Seriously though, I really think that if you gave me a blueberry I’d picked and one I’d bought in the grocery store I could tell you which was which.  

Ask me how long it takes a four year old to pick a quart of blueberries…go ahead, ask me….

We made our way back to one of our favorite spots of summer.  Kennedy is in it for the horses and I am in it for the first rate people-watching but either way the track is a family favorite.  Opening day was packed but Kennedy put on her best retro sundress and shoes and picked out a hat and made her way right up to the rail every race-whether I could squeeze up there with her or not but as crowded as it was the sea of people parted to let her through every time. 

This week we spent a day in the park getting boldly close to the ducks, riding the carousel, and grabbing some ice cream with Daddy.  A lot of our summer is just Kennedy and I so the rare days where Sean can join in makes the little lady’s day. 

Kennedy and I made our way up to the Adirondacks to our favorite place in all the land.  We made our yearly visit to my best friend’s family camp to visit with a family I have come to love and look forward to spending a few days with every year.  

As with everything else we do annually, this trip changed a bit with Kennedy being a year older.  Jumping off the dock was a new one and making sure we had crafts and games to play with will probably all be staples for years to come.  As Jen awaits her own little man, making his appearance in a few weeks, she is happy to show my little girl all of the best things camp life has to offer. 

The days are long and the nights are sleepy, cool and full of sounds you can only hear if you download a good white-noise app for your phone.  Watching my fearless one nuzzle the horses and swim without her puddle-jumper I am amazed at how much older she seems than four sometimes.  When Jen’s aunt asked about my tattoo and I fumbled trying to explain it, Kennedy simply said, “She got that for my baby brother so we always remember him.”  There. Just like that.  As we packed it up and headed home, she complained that she didn’t want to leave camp, that she loves it there and why can’t we stay there longer, I thought, “Same here, kid.”

Monday brings another new school year.  I really need it to be a good one, since this last one was pretty tough and I already know that I am putting too much pressure on it and everything but the truth is that life in the summer makes it really hard for the rest of the year to measure up to it.

So if you need me, I’ll be sorting through my photos; deciding which ones will carry me through the next 200 school days….

Slaying Giants

There are times when I feel like I am David and my days are Goliath; I’m the tiny little guy up against a brutal giant.  They are the kind of days that by the time I lay my head down at night I am so exhausted and glad that it’s over that it’s a wonder I made it through at all.  It sometimes feels like I’m no match for my life anymore and that I’m playing at a disadvantage.  My team is, very literally, one man down.  It’s just not a fair fight.

I’ve had to do battle with a couple “giants” in the last two weeks.  A few of them were due in part to a tough situation I have been dealing with at work where a very sick little boy is not receiving any where close to the care he should be at home and there is a lot of factors outside of his control that are preventing that from being enforced.  Unfortunately, with this particular child it is not the first time he has been living in bad conditions but it has been the first time since losing Jack that I am dealing with it directly.  It has always broken my heart that this is how life is for this kiddo but now it makes me downright furious.  I think now my heart screams inside my chest, “How can his mother squander the gift she has been given?  How can she dare to not care for this sick baby the way he should be?”  Those are the cries of a broken heart, one that I would give anything to have her boy back to care for him, no matter what condition he came in.  Another came in the form of a harmless Target run with Kennedy this past Thursday night.  We had to get a few (okay 4…don’t judge me) pairs of shoes for her for the cooler weather we’ve finally begun here.  We were wandering around getting other things we didn’t need when she must have spotted a baby.  Loud as can be, she yelled, “Look, Mommy! Their baby didn’t die!”  The mother of this baby gave my exceptionally loud toddler and me a strange look but hurried along, leaving me stunned in silence.  While I fumbled to try and figure out what to say to Kennedy about being appropriate or at least more quiet about those kinds of things, I looked over at her to find her little face in a pout and her quietly asking, “But why did our baby die?”  It doesn’t matter how many times she asks me, it always knocks the wind out of me and adds another tiny crack in my heart.  It’s like she doesn’t feel there is a good enough answer to explain why her baby brother is gone and it seems like he’s the only one.  Well, she isn’t alone there.  So when it came to these “giants”, I was knocked pretty flat on my back and it took a little while for me to get up and go another round.

Luckily, my sister, persistent and just as determined to make an outdoorsy gal of me as she is, convinced me to go on a hike yesterday.  More than that, it was one of the 46 “high peaks” in the Adirondacks, near Lake Placid.  “It will be fun,” she said.  While our idea of fun clearly varies a bit, it was pretty amazing and we did have a great time.  Ironically, the peak we tackled was Giant Mountain in Keene, NY.  It was way tougher than I ever bargained for, and my legs ached worse than they did that time I ran 13.1 miles but the views were incredible and Sara and I laughed harder than I have laughed in a good long while.  We joked about all of the unnecessary crap we’d brought, and the amount of food we’d packed, my stuff in Kennedy's preschool backpack.  We teased about the, clearly, expert hikers that seemed incredibly over dressed and then laughed even harder when it seemed a whole lot colder than the forecast had promised.  We almost went the wrong way from the second we stepped out of the car and asked each other almost the whole hike if we were going the right way any time it seemed like a while since we’d seen a trail marker.  We debated back and forth who would make a better meal for the other if we’d gotten lost and ate all of the food we had brought.  We thought we’d reached the top about 4 different times and took “selfies” with the “selfie stick” our mother bought for Sara each time we fake-summited.   I laughed uncontrollably each time Sara tried to hide her selfie stick as other hikers went by (I would also like to say that my poor computer keeps underlining “selfie” in red as if to plead with me that, “this is not a word, moron” and I am laughing all over again).

When we did reach the top it was amazing.  It was worth it too.  That is, until I remembered that we had to hike the same 3 miles down that we had hiked up.  Down was scary, but equally funny. When we reached the car, we were spent.  We chatted a bit on the ride home, Sara telling me about her ideas for her Christmas card this year and me trying to seem engaged but thinking whether or not I would send one and how you word a Christmas card that is missing a tiny person whose picture and name should appear. She must have read my mind, because suddenly she had my hand in hers and kissed it and it quieted my mind.  Overall, it was the kind of day you need to have every once and a while to recover from a dance with a giant.

You see, the thing that is easy to forget sometimes is that David beat Goliath.  He brought down the giant.  He won.  And I also forget that, when it comes to bad days, I’ve got a 100% track record of surviving them.