Friday, September 7, 2012

Rainy

 Yesterday afternoon and evening it cooled down quite a bit.  Wanting to take advantage of the gray skies, I told the kids we'd eat breakfast at the park this morning,  When we left the house it wasn't raining, but I brought an umbrella anyway.  After we crossed our street, it started sprinkling.  By the time we got just down the road to the park it was a full-on monsoon and we were frantically ditching the bike and scooter and high-tailing it to the covered tables.  The whole thing took about three minutes.  That's how fast monsoons come on here in AZ.  We huddled together and ate our blueberry bran muffins.
 To the tune of "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine," Brynn started singing:
           We are eating a muffin in the rain,
                                 a muffin in the rain,
                                 a muffin in the rain.
           We are eating a muffin in the rain,
                                 a muffin in the rain,
                                 a muffin in the rain.
Then Bryce informed me that he was soooo cold (I thought it felt wonderful), so I told him to wait just a couple of minutes to let the monsoon let up to a normal drizzle.  They ventured out in it once or twice looking  for "shelter" (read that word in a very dramatic Brynn voice) at the playground.

Finally, we were ready to head home, but first we had to find Bryce's shoes in the waterfall/pond.  Of course.  I can't believe how fast these drainage areas can fill up.



Lately I've been feeling very torn in my mothering style.  Torn between wanting to be the spontaneous, enjoying-every-second mom who has play-in-pajama-days and who drops everything to chase a lizard down the street and the consistent mom who pushes her kids hard so that they can learn responsibility and independence by completing a "good routine."  The last couple of months we've had a morning and nightly routine that includes things like making beds, devotional, practicing, preschool/homework, among other things.  I think it's good for the kids, but I've been pushing them so hard.  Two days ago we went to the library and as we were going through our books deciding which to keep or take back, I realized we hadn't read many of them.  I thought, "What's the point of going to the library if we can't even make the time to read the books?"  You can't win as a mom.  Just as I was feeling so good about the "routine" I realized we weren't leaving enough time for other things.  So I think we'll let up on Fridays and enjoy being a kid (which is something I never thought I'd have a hard time with).

Balance:  the seemingly unattainable.

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