Annie Valentine

I’ve been planning a big celebration for today. It’s been on my countdown and my dream board and has pulled more than one hopeful sigh out of me. I thought that today my life would finally begin again.

Today? Today is the day I put June on the school bus for the first time.

I didn’t expect to cry.

My girl. She has challenged me more than my other three kids put together. We have butted heads and toes and knees and shoulders, argued about zippers and tank tops and shoe selections and chocolate. She has tested my mettle on a daily basis and I haven’t always lived up to the challenge. She’s such a big person. This house is caging her in on every side, the girl needs to fly. Jason called at noon and asked how I’m doing without her and I realized I haven’t felt upset or frustrated once today.

This morning was a big deal. We tried on a few different outfits but I really let her choose something she felt confident in. We didn’t fight about hair or shoes or her lunch, and we hugged a lot and said a lot of happy I-love-you’s. She wore her new locket that she worked so hard to earn (she had to learn that cleaning her bedroom doesn’t involve stuffing everything behind her closet and under her bed) and her new light up tennis shoes that have been sitting in their box for three weeks.

And when I stood at the bus stop (I usually dump my kids in the village while still in my bathrobe) and waited for the bus to come, I could feel the apron strings finally start to let go. This is what she and I need. She needs independence from me. She needs to come home at the end of the day and tell me about her life, then get up and go live it again tomorrow. Being home and underchallenged is misery for both of us but especially her.

I wanted to take her to school her first day. I wanted to walk her to class, hug her one last time and slip out the door while she wasn’t looking. But June? June insisted on riding the bus. “It’s okay, Mommy, I can ride the bus with the boys,” she says on Sunday. I had to smile. I can remember another girl who insisted her parents drop her off at the airport and let her find her way to college all on her own. She didn’t need anyone to hold her hand. I think I was the only girl on my floor at BYU who didn’t have a mother hovering while she unpacked. I found a friend who could “give me a ride to college” and I was on my way.

My girl. She’s on her way as well.

There is nothing worse than sitting in church listening to a lesson on being a kind and patient parent when you know your recent behavior has not been kind and patient. You know the teacher is right, you know you should be gentle and thoughtful and all things Jesus-like in your parenting, but you also know that sometimes situations involve dog puke and being kind and patient gets lost in the vomit.

Last week I listened as a darling girl taught about reacting with gentleness and poise to your children when, for example, you find crayon on the wall. Absolutely, I thought. Crayon no longer phases me anyway now that I’ve stocked up on Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Crayon I can handle.

But vomit? I lose all rational thought when there are large quantities of puke present.

We got home late on Saturday night and hurried everyone into showers and baths. Somewhere along the way the dog lost his stomach contents all over the floor in the hall at the bottom of the stairs.

“Jason!” I yelled, “Oh my gosh, this is disgusting!” I group dog puke with things like severed limbs and seeping wounds.

Immediately three of the kids were on the scene to check out the large pool of puke. We sent Harrison off to get some paper towels and disinfectant and stood back to survey the damage.

“Just don’t touch it,” Jason was saying to the girls, “Harrison is going to–”

And before he could get another word in Rex came flying down the stairs, through the crowd, and landed feet first in the pile of puke. Of course his feet didn’t hold and in one more second his newly showered little self was flat on his back scrambling around and trying to find purchase in the vomit.

I am sure that more righteous parents would have gently lifted him from the cesspool and ushered him back to the shower, cooing and comforting the entire way. But we didn’t handle it with as much charity as the situation warranted. I yelled, Jason yelled, Rex cried–it was a mess.

Parenting is all about leading by example. Do as I do is the mantra we unfortunately live under and there’s nothing worse than showing your kids the wrong way to handle a situation. Poor Rex, his incredibly tender little feelings were so bruised and our yelling at his mistake had embarrassed and belittled him. It was one of those parenting moments where you wish you could rewind the situation and respond with anything but anger.

Rex got cleaned up and Harrison eliminated the puke while Jason and I put the girls to bed. I felt so rotten. I could hear Rex quietly whimpering as he got himself ready for bed. There was no way around it, we owed the boy a serious apology.

I sat Rex down on the couch and put my arms around him. I’m trying to be better about giving straight out apologies these days, not the standard I’m-sorry-buts that are so much easier to give but far less effective. And I was sorry, we never want to make our kids feel stupid.

We talked about my mistake and what I did wrong and I apologized. We didn’t talk about the puke or being more careful when you enter a hazard zone because that part of it didn’t even factor into the bigger issue. We hurt our kid’s feelings and he was innocent. Yes, we practiced poor parenting initially, but even those moments can be turned around and revisited as a teaching tool.

One of these days we’re going to get this right. Hopefully before they all grow up and out and away.

Today we had Junie’s new kindergarten teacher over for “tea.”

The kindergarten teachers and aides from the American DOD elementary on base take the first week of school and go house to house meeting their new students. It’s not really about the parents or seeing the home, it’s giving the children a chance to bond and have some one on one with their new teacher and classroom aide.

We decided to have a tea party.

I will admit part of this decision stemmed from my aching desire to break out the china. My man surprised me a few weeks ago with a hutch. I surprised him by finding something to fill it. I never, ever get to complain that he’s a money miser again; I have also forfeited the right to seven years worth of birthday and Christmas gifts. We got a disgustingly awesome deal on the hutch and an even better deal on the china set (Villeroy and Boch, German made, the “Rusticana Red” pattern printed in 1950 KILL ME NOW).

When I unpacked my new old china into the hutch last week June couldn’t keep her hands off the stuff. She wanted to manhandle every single piece, it about gave me a heart attack.

So, with her teacher coming we decided to shake things up a bit and go formal.

With a little help from my girl Christy and her twin daughters we managed to get refreshments made the day before. Unfortunately the dog ate them so this morning we got up and made them again. June helped mix up some yellow cake mix and we baked it in our mini gingerbread mold pan. They were little golden darlings, so perfect and she scooped them in herself.

My moment of awesomeness? The car battery died and I didn’t have time to run down to the store and back for juice (which I procrastinated doing yesterday). We had nothing but water in the house…wait for it…water and a lonely lime hiding in the back of my fridge. That’s right, we made one little tea pot’s worth of limeade to serve.

June and Georgia wanted to practice drinking and pouring “tea” all morning. Like any good lion tamer June and I talked about answering the door and how to serve the “tea” and who to offer treats to first.

I forgot to talk about not talking with your mouth full, oops.

She was adorable and timid when her teacher and the kindergarten aide came to the door. She smiled and hid behind my legs a little, then tentatively stepped over and gave her teacher a shy hug. She was so quiet and so cute, we totally fooled them.

As soon as June escorted them to the table she served everyone tea, then went and got the treats. Her little piggy sister was guzzling tea and shoving down cakes like a starving Brit. I was a little surprised when Junie told her teacher she wanted to be called June at school, not Junie.

That girl poured out tea and charm like she was born to lunch with the queen. I know she does well with teachers in general, they usually adore her. But today? She was polite, she was thoughtful…it was like I rented a kid.

“I used to go to the kindergarten in the village with Miss Ava,” she told her teacher at one point. “She was the bestest teacher in the whole world…I mean…except for you. You’re the bestest teacher, too.” Big smile.

“Oh,” her teacher looked over at me in awe and delight and said, “She is just the sweetest girl I’ve ever met, what a darling!”

Hook, line, sinker. I smiled and managed to swallow my cackle. “And she’s all yours!”

Bwahahahhahaha!

Have you ever wanted to throat punch another mom at the Playland? I know it’s an inappropriate reaction but OH MY GOSH WATCH YOUR KID ALREADY.

So yesterday I was at the playland on base with my four kids and my girlfriend’s three kids. Sounds like a lot but when they’re in a contained space it’s usually pretty simple. But yesterday the playland on base was a zoo, completely overrun and overcrowded. One of those days where you have to pay attention.

We’d been there about ten minutes and I was making fast friends with the mom next to me when June and Laney  (5 and 6) came over with tears in their eyes.

“Mom!” June cried, “Look what that girl did to us!” The girls turned around and I was startled to see hunks of skin missing and bloody claw marks on both their lower calves. What??!

They pointed the girl out and I saw that she had just left the play area and headed out to the food court where her mother was sitting with her back to the kid zone. Not even within shouting distance.

Okay, I admit I was a wimp. The little girl was African American and I didn’t want to seem like I was being, you know, snobby. I really didn’t want to make any trouble with her mom.

“Look girls,” I said, “I am so sorry, we’ll only be here ten more minutes then we can leave. It looks like that little girl left so you should be safe now, okay?”

They limped back to the play apparatus and I turned back to my conversation. Three minutes later they came running over.

“Mommy! She’s right there and she said she’s going to get us!”

Now on one hand I know that this little girl was probably wanting someone to play with and her aggression was stemming from a place of loneliness more than anything else. I also know that June and Laney can be kind of…bratty. I didn’t think they were innocent here but physical contact is not appropriate. So I stood up.

I headed over to the playland and motioned to the little girl. “You!” I said, then crooked my finger at her to come closer. I wasn’t going to yell at her, just ask her to please leave the girls alone.

She panicked and totally freaked out.

“Look,” I started to say, “Please don’t scratch–”

“Excuse me?” It was her mother. Right in my face with her finger. “Are you talking to my daughter?”

I hate this kind of confrontation. In hindsight I can think of forty better things to say to her but I went with, “Oh, hi. It looks like your little girl scratched my girls on their legs–” I had the girls turn around and show her the damage, which was significant.

“No I didn’t!” her daughter said, “Look at my nails, I couldn’t have!”

“Yeah,” the mom said, “Besides your little girls hit my daughter! If you have a problem, you don’t talk to my daughter, you talk to ME!”

There are moments when you know the only satisfaction you’ll ever get will come from kicking someone in the shin so you might as well sit down. This was one of those. I turned to the girls. “Look, just leave her alone, okay?” Then I turned around and walked back to the bench.

And there it was. I sat there trying to pick my conversation back up with my new friend but inside I wanted to puke from the altercation. I made myself think about what Jesus would have done differently, was she right? I know the girls weren’t lying, but they’re kids.

Crap, I thought, she’s right. I should have talked to her first. Would it have helped? Doubtful. But I knew in the back of my spineless head that she was right.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye and they finally got up to leave.

And so, in an attempt to be right with Heavenly Father so I can someday inherit my big mansion in the sky, I ran after that mom and apologized for not coming to her first. I didn’t tell her her daughter was a lying little brat, or  mention the fact that she should have been paying better attention, I just told her simply that I was sorry for not coming straight to her.

Then she lectured me on my poor parenting and I stood there and smiled.

If this one isn’t on the books when I come face to face with Old Peter I will be seriously ticked.

What do you call a woman who has to take her kids on every single European vacation for the past year?

Really grumpy.

Thank goodness my man has figured out that the key to a year’s worth of marital bliss hinges upon his willingness to whisk me away on a magical vacation built for two. Last weekend we left our kids with another American family (we took their four kids last November for four days) and struck out in our little hatchback, leaving all the car seats behind.

It only took 45 minutes in the car for me to pick a fight.

Seriously, what is it with me and alone time and attention? Jason and I have been getting along so very, very wonderfully. Just the anticipation of this vacation was enough to color the past week rose red, I’ve had nothing but appropriately inappropriate thoughts for the man. But you put me in a car alone with him and we spend our first five hours together arguing and stewing? Actually I should clarify. I was arguing, he was trying desperately to figure out what in the heck was the matter with me.

And this, my friends, is exactly why couples should leave their children and get away from it all. Not that it always stops us, but we can’t even have a proper fight cycle with all those kids constantly running around. You know, miss getting attention from each other, pick a fight for the sake of heated eye contact, mumble the necessary apology, find an empty room and make up for real…it’s a circle of life kind of thing.

That five hour car trip to Prague was brutal. There we were, finally away from our kids with nothing but each other to talk to and all we wanted to do was turn the car around and go home. At one point as I sat with my nose pressed against my window (yes, I was feeling that lame for picking a fight) I couldn’t decide if going home would be better or worse. Was this going to be our weekend? Fighting like newlyweds over the same three issues that have plagued my marriage since 1999?

And then I thought about last year’s vacation. In hindsight, it seems that every time we get alone for any significant period of time we have to air our marriage out. It’s like our spring cleaning, get any issues on the table right from go, beat them around a little, spray things down with disinfectant and apply a little elbow grease. We’re kind of like the Tin Man. Leave us out in the weather without any help and we get…rusty.

We pulled into the Embassy after five miserable hours together and I waited in the car while Jason got our quarters squared away. He came back out and I refused to look at him because I’m 12. When we finally located the parking structure he looked over and politely asked me to register with the garage so he could stay with the car.

Maybe I just needed to get out and stretch my muscles, or perhaps there was something toxic in the car, or maybe I just needed to pee. Regardless, when I finally came back out with the attendant and he took our vehicle away I looked at my wonderful man standing there, obviously feeling deflated that his bratty woman was ruining his beautifully laid plans, and I was overcome with a proper dose of awful self-awareness. Not the selfish kind, the get-thee-behind-a-tree-and-watch-thyself-go-by kind.

I walked over, took his hand, and we smiled at each other. Fourteen years together? The man totally has my number.

We then spent three and a half days of marital bliss, not another moment of discord colored our trip. And the six-hour ride home? We couldn’t stop talking to each other. It is so worth dating and dreaming. Keeps it fresh.

I quit. I give up, give in, give out and no longer have the get go to be any kind of civilized parent this summer. Eleven days until school starts and we have officially started our summer break. Maybe I’m still in burn out mode from Girls Camp last week or maybe I’m just tired of cleaning up the same mess 24 times a day, but I sat around in my bathrobe until 2:17 yesterday afternoon reading a book. No, not a book. A novel. A mostly sappy although not too poorly written romance novel.

It was awesome. Let the party begin.

We’ve done a decent job this summer of keeping the natives organized, work in the morning followed by an outing or activity, no TV until after 2 or 3 on a good day…good parenting stuff. But the last three days I stumble out of bed as soon as the first curly head tots around the foot board and plug the kids into Apple TV. I think we’ve been on a Curious George marathon for a week now and still going strong.

My kids absolutely love this.

Why did I fight this all summer? It’s so easy to be lazy. We have gone through a school’s year worth of paper and glue and tape and straws and popsicle sticks trying to keep the television off. I have probably slipped a disk just from picking art project debris off the floor. I finally told my cleaning lady to stay away until September because it was a waste of my money. She’d clean the bathroom and an hour later someone would come in from the slip-n-slide and leave muddy footprints on the walls. THE WALLS.

Don’t get me wrong, no TV has had its moments. Like on Monday when Harrison came to me with his journal and showed me the blue prints for a robot he’s planning to build and a rough sketch of his “Lizard Trap,” complete with dead insects on strings that he will to use to lure the lizards under the box. The real joy, however, came when he turned the page and I spied plans for his “June Trap,” including detailed drawings of his sister and an elaborate set up to rid her from his life for eternity.

And you know it’s bad when the doorbell rings at 9:00 am and someone drops off kids that you forgot you promised to babysit and you have to stumble out of bed and function. That’s happened twice this week.

Bring on the school bus.

I just got home from Girls’ Camp. A week in the Alps should be rejuvenating and refreshing, but these girls took everything we had to give and then some. I’ve got stuff to say about it but it’s going to have to hold for the moment.

This has been an incredible couple of months. I haven’t written much about our little church branch because life is continually distracting me, but it’s time something was said. Serving in the Baumholder Branch has been the greatest blessing we’ve ever had as a family. I was released a few months ago as first counselor in Stake Young Women’s (translation: Stake means region so I was on the team that oversaw seven or eight church youth young women groups) and called as the Baumholder Young Women’s president.

I have one young woman. One.

She’s fourteen and amazing and wonderful and I absolutely love her, still this is the hardest calling I’ve ever had. My poor girl has so much pressure. On Sundays as we sit across from each other for an hour and do our lessons there’s nowhere to hide for either of us. She has to answer every question and run every meeting. To add to the awkwardness she’s the only girl in the branch but we have eight or nine young men. Some girls would love this but I think it’s been a little overwhelming for her.

Up to the last few weeks it’s been a wild year. They released me from the stake but I still needed to fulfill all my Girls Camp duties so they recalled me as an assistant stake camp director. I’m the branch music person which means on Sundays I played the organ, the primary music, ran weekly choir practice (you have never seen so much musical talent in such a small group of people), substitute primary teacher, plus teaching young women’s and doing Wednesday night activities.

I’m not very good at any of the above callings.

It was too much. I started feeling like every hour of my day was centered around one of my many church hats and I wasn’t wearing any of them very well.

In July we did a project for Girls Camp where each of the members in the yw stake presidency asked a girl to do a three day Holy Woman marathon. We chose a girl then asked her to pick one area of her life and work on it for three days, asking herself, “What would a holy woman do?”

It was about this time that all the pressure started to cave in on me. I would laugh with a girlfriend about how much I was trying to do then hang up the phone and cry because I didn’t know how I was going to do any of this without mudding it up with my incompetence. Maybe it was because of our holy woman activity or just a little note of personal revelation, but during my week I realized that all these church callings and obligations, all the jobs and the lists and the crafts and the prep work, the music on Sundays and the extra meetings and practices, they were hard. But I have never been so close to Heavenly Father. I started to see that every time I said yes to something He threw a line out to my ship and anchored me a little tighter to shore.

I’m not going to go into detail right now, but I will say we have never seen such amazing blessings in our life as we have these last few weeks. Things we have prayed about for years, the stuff that seems insurmountable or unattainable is suddenly on our horizon. Blessings have come from out of the blue and I know it’s because of our time in this branch. It’s not working out like we expected, in fact we couldn’t be more surprised at how the next few years will probably pan out, but the results are more exciting and hopeful than either of us could have foreseen.

Also, we are moving to Las Vegas next summer.

If I don’t actually put this down in writing I’m going to forget we ever went there. We went to Tuscany. It was better than I expected.

Personally, I don’t plan vacations I pack for them. I really never have any idea where we’re going or what we’re doing because mostly I’m just there for the food. On this trip I tried to diet and ended up eating large quantities of Cheetos at night. That’s right. I passed up bakeries all day long then went home and consoled myself with handful after handful of floating imitation food. So lame.

This was probably our last trip with Rebecca’s family. They have been our dearest friends over here and we have visited something like 22 countries together, all with kids in tow (except for last August in Rhodes where they went and made another kid). This was also our first trip with eight children. You might think baby Jemma doesn’t count, but she soooo does.

We stayed on Camp Darby’s ghost town base, and for an additional fee of $90 had access to pool and beaches. But our unit had a kitchen and AC and it was within a reasonable distance of Pisa, Florence, San Gimignano and, most importantly Cinque Terre so I’m not complaining.

As we rolled into town after a grueling drive from Germany we decided to get Pisa out of the way. When it came time to see the “Pizza Tower” our kids moaned and whined that we had to go to “another stupid tower.” They usually associate all towers with the Tower of Terror now and everyone cries when we suggest we see one. I’m not that mom who takes amazing photos of our family on vacation. Prepare to be disappointed with my point and shoot methods.

We didn’t go to the top because A) I hate heights and get serious anxiety when my children are close to death and B) it was really expensive and we were, as usual, cheap.

The next day was Sunday so we sniffed out the local Mormon branch and took the kids. I’d like to say they were excited to see us but I think they were mostly overwhelmed. They went from three kids to ten kids in the primary and none of ours speak Italian. We wanted the kids to have the Italian primary experience but they sectioned us off and gave us their one English speaking sister and took the other kids in a separate room. Kind of a bummer, but RS was great.

After that we went to San Gimignano to do a walking tour in the hot Italian afternoon sun. Driving there was so surreal, kind of felt like we were in a movie. You can see the city on the distant hillside. This is my best friend Rebecca, and I don’t use that term lightly. I’ve had a few wonderful friends over the years and this one is right at the top. My heart will break when they move away, I love her dearly. We are, however, going to be on the Amazing Race someday because we would totally win it. She is a traveling animal, taxi drivers quake in their boots when she tells them what to do and the girl hasn’t missed a train yet. I’m, again, mostly along for the food which usually makes me pretty good company.

The village was picturesque and peaceful and quaint–until we got there. Actually the kids were all quite good, there are just so many of them. We were like an invading army searching for ice cream and contraband.

Cute girls, the kids all have such a knack for accidentally posing in great places. This is just a resting spot but weren’t they adorable. Below you can see a partial group photo. We moved through the village in a sticky wave of skipping feet and fingers that wanted to touch everything.

That Rex. He always sits down the second we pause for anything.

As we made our final pass through the city the kids took up carrying Georgia around in the fireman’s carry and singing, “Georgia, the Queen!” to the tune of Here Comes the Bride, at the top of their lungs. It was kind of hilarious, lots of quiet laughter followed them. We took a photo as we exited the city and they decided to all be very serious so we could see that they were a formal procession. I really, really hope Harrison marries Kiyah someday and we can have a real procession. They are best friends.

Don’t you love June’s dress, BTW? I had great plans to make her an entire summer wardrobe, with matching dresses for Georgia. I finished one. The end.

The next day we took the train to Cinque Terre, the world famous set of little villages only accessible by train, that I didn’t know existed. Actually, I think I’ve seen photos of them before but it was a delightful surprise to me. The train runs along the coast and you can get off and eat and hike through the villages. I would name the chain of villages we saw but I no longer remember them and don’t have the patience to look them up on Google. Feel free if you’d like to know more.

FYI, we had our camera on some funky bright mode so it’s a little more muted in real life. Still, what a day and what a view. I really wanted the kids to take a hike so I could make out with Jason but it mostly didn’t happen.

As you can see the day was not without its…difficulties. June had a few moments that lasted most of the day.

We ended up at the beach and were there just long enough to find an uncomfortable spot and let all the kids get wet (5 minutes) before the wind kicked in and we got kicked out of the water. It was cold and miserable, the low point for the day. But the train ride back was fun and I’d still give this one 4 out of 5 brownie points.

The next day was a beach and pool day. If I could have relaxed without fighting off the peddlers every four minutes it would have been delightful. They carry their wares in packs and on carts and stop at every pedestrian sitting on the sand to try and sell their stuff. It was so hard to be polite all day, one of them should try selling signs that say NO SOLICITING, I’M TRYING TO GET A TAN. Now there’s a million dollar idea.

Thank you, Grandma Diane for sending the world’s cutest swimsuits to my girls.

The next day we went to Florence. It was a wild trip, we had to take the train in and it took three tries to get on the correct train because they kept messing with the schedule and herding us from train to train. We would board, settle, then jump off and follow the crowd to the next train. The third train was the charm, it was about a 45 minute ride.

We wandered around with all eight children for a good hour before we finally found the Duomo, the big Florence cathedral, constructed under the average 200 year building contract. It was finally finished in the 15th century. Quite the building, we accidentally circled it a few times during the day.

We also went to the outdoor leather market and I got me a gorgeous green purse for 50 euro that I saw in Prague at a shop for 170 euro. It was a nice feeling.

But the big event for the day was seeing The David. I never thought a naked man could be so impressive, but in person he was really quite the thing. The kids loved it, we talked a lot ahead of time about David and Goliath and you can see the stones in his hand and the sling over his shoulder. Rebecca parked on the bench directly behind him to nurse so I stared at his butt for 15 minutes. I have a new respect.

The rest of the day was hot and there was ice cream. At five we debated whether or not to board a city bus and drag the kids to one more site, but as soon as we stepped on June started bawling hysterically and we literally walked straight through with all eight kids and exited out the back door. We took the train home.

Have you noticed Georgia’s Tuscany pose? It showed up every time the camera was turned on her. This is Georgia’s baby that she got on clearance for three dollars. It’s Italian.

Finally, our last big trip was to Luca, the little walled city with delightful shopping that we wistfully missed because children and boutiques don’t mix. Our friends left for Venice that morning. We had a lovely day–minus half an hour where Jason and I weren’t speaking to each other. I will go ahead and post a picture of us during this time. You can see that I did not want to be in the photo, I’m the one with the “do not take my picture right now” expression sitting in the backseat of the bicycle built for six. It’s an awful picture but, hey, this is real life.

We mostly made up after turning in the bike and enjoyed wandering through the village with the kids. We found these adorable local dollies and sadly passed them up, then found them again in a different boutique for a quarter of the price. We came home with two new babies.

All things considered, this was a fabulous trip. I would do it again in a heartbeat. (Also I think I’ve blocked out some of the less desirable parts.)

My husband has been TDY for just over a week. The kids seem to really like their dad; they either really miss him or know that I have no one to tattle to at the end of the day. Whatever the cause we have new seat groves and bite marks on the Repentance Bench. I think today was a family record, we clocked a total of 62 minutes in time-out.

With Dad coming home tomorrow we’ve been planning a big Last Day for the kids. Summer in Germany means festival time. Normally you walk into these events, blow 30 euro in four minutes on the one ride available and some bratwurst then go home with happy, dizzy children. It’s a great time.

After a week of summer slacking we woke up this morning and had a family meeting. Anyone who wanted to go the festival had to clean house. For three hours in our stuffy, air conditioning-free, hot European house we worked. We vacuumed and mopped four levels of floors, cleaned bedrooms, bathrooms and windows. The dishes were loaded and unloaded three times throughout the day, sheets were stripped and laundry was folded and delivered.

I have to hand it to them, even with our overactive Repentance Bench we beat our list and everyone earned an afternoon popsicle. Most importantly, we were going to the festival.

We met up with another family who’s dad is also out of town and parked our cars along the side of the road some distance from the lake where the festival was held. The lake has a gravel walking loop around it about a mile long. There’s an awesome unsafe park with a death slide and a water pump play area that the kids love to frequent.

With seven kids and two moms we got four feet from the car when the first kid almost got ran over. The rest of them went running pellmell for the lake. It was a bad start.

Once we hit the gravel our kids started in with the dust cloud. You know, look at me scuff my feet and choke the Germans out of a good time? We went over rules, then went over them again. The kids were running and screaming and kicking dirt through the crowd while acting like they’d never been allowed in public before.

We stopped at the play area so they could work their wiggles out and spent fifteen minutes trying to keep them out of the sandy water while promising that if they’d just stay dry we’d take them around the lake to the festival. They watched the rides and smelled the treats wafting over the water with giddy anticipation. I had given each of my kids 5 euro to spend on whatever they wanted, usually enough for a ride and ice cream.

We finally got everyone dried off and back on track. Things looked good. The kids were happy and excited…And then we saw the line to get in.

In order to go spend money at the rinky-dink one-ride festival it was going to cost 5 euro for the adults and 4,50 euro a child (rather unusual). It would have eaten nearly every penny of our spending money.

I wish you could have heard the weeping and the wailing from our children as we turned the show around. We fought the crowds for half a mile with a chorus of tears and an onslaught of disappointed accusations.

It was after 8:00 when we finally got to the car. In our attempt to salvage their sad reward we swung into the local grocery and picked up a fat load of ice cream bars then drove to a super lame park and let them out.

And of course they had an absolutely fabulous time. It wasn’t even a fun park but somehow they managed to play for a solid hour in the waning summer air, sticky with ice cream and covered with sand from the nearby sand pit. We had the place to ourselves.

I should really stop trying for these cultural experiences. Parks are so easy.

We recently got back from a week in Tuscany. That might sound romantic and European but when you’re toting four youngish children through the hot Italian countryside where there isn’t a toilet seat to be found, it gives an entirely new spin on the phrase, “Under the Tuscan Sun.” We learned a few new roadside tricks last week, let me tell you. This was our first vacation with a newly potty-trained Georgia (2) and that girl loves to use her skills.

Nothing brings a family together like a week’s stay in a single hotel room with two adults, four kids, and not enough beds. This is especially true in Italy where all the floors are tile and no one wants to sleep on the ground. Bedtime was a new kind of torture.

In an effort to alleviate some of the kicking and screaming (not an exaggeration) I resorted to every parent’s most tedious pasttime: telling stories about the children to the children. “Remember the time Harrison…” and “When Rex was little…” entertained them for a good hour. I had to dig deep to find relatable stories about June that didn’t involve punishment.

Our leisurely afternoons made me aware of how nice it is to get the television out of our life. June (5) and Rex (8) spent hours outside chasing lizards and collecting bugs. I was busy trying to get lost in a book when June came running up to me on day two. “Mommy! Look at all the thnailth I caught! I’m going to thell them and make money!”

I was only half listening. “That’s nice dear.”

“She caught hundreds of them!” Rex said.

“Mmm-hm….” Rex isn’t usually very good with numbers so I chalked this up to a gross exaggeration.

Then she shoved her red Solo cup under my nose and I tried not to scream my head off. There they were, a few hundred tiny snails huddled in their shells and trying not to die of fright and asphyxiation.

“Oh my–wow. Wow! Did you really catch all those?” I asked.

“Yep!” she said, “I’m going to thell them!” Without another thought she took her camping chair to the back yard where no humans ever tread and set up shop. “Thnailth for Thale!” she hollared. I watched as she pulled them out and stuck them up and down her arm, displaying her wares. Their little slimy eyes poked out taking stock and searching for a comfortable bit of real estate to stick to.

She waited. And waited and waited and waited. Fifteen minutes into her first entrepreneurial experience she learned the first hard lesson in salesmanship: location location location.

I watched her slowly pluck the snails off her arms and legs and neck and put them back in their sad red Solo cup. She hefted her little five-year-old self out of her chair and gave a big sad sigh. Trudging back into the patio area she plunked her cup on the table (ewe) and looked up at me with big tears in her eyes. “No one wanth to buy my thnailth. Now I’ll never ever get any money to buy candy!” And she burst into tears and sobbed her little head off, spilling the nasty creatures all over the dinner table.

This was one of those moments when every girl needs a hero. Jason stepped out, took one look at his daughter’s soggy face and asked what was wrong. She told him her plight and he was fast to fix it. “Oh! Well, I was just coming out to buy some snails. How much are they?”

“Two thenth a piethe!”

“Well in that case, I’ll take fifty snails.”

You’ve never seen a pre-kindergartener count to fifty so fast in her entire life.

Someone brought the rest of the snails into the house that night and we woke up the next morning to a snail take-over. It’s amazing how far they can get with an eight hour head start.