They Need To Re-Charge Too

Monday was Columbus Day which happened to put our two littles in school and our 3 bigs out of school.

Sidenote:  For Harper’s writing prompt this week she had to write about whether she thought Christopher Columbus was a hero or a zero and support her thoughts…she chose a zero.  Josh Kelley and myself thoroughly enjoyed her full one page of supporting facts.  🙂

 The three of them feel like my “first baby”.  I don’t remember much of my mothering journey that doesn’t include all three of them.  Harper and Hudson are exactly 18-months apart and Hudson and Solomon are only 4-months apart.  I remember I would put Solomon in a sling around my body, carry Hudson because he couldn’t walk and hold Harper’s hand when I went anywhere solo with the three of them.  Sweet times with my first group of babies.

Monday I let them plan our day since it is so rare for us to be together without the littles in tow.  They were super cute all brainstorming together on what the day might look like.  There was talk of the movies and Chickfila and bowling.  So many combos were thrown out and in the end they landed on the library, lunch with Dad at the farmer’s market and putt-putt.

I seriously had the best time with them.  Please don’t ever be fooled by us in the fact that our kids fight, Josh and I fight and any combo of parent VS kid fight as well.  We can fight hard and love harder.  We’re a mess everyday…a bunch of big and little sinners all living together in this crazy world so again, we’re a mess.  When I say it was a great day, it really was a great day.  Was it without any of my own frustrations or having to mediate arguments or break up a fight or two or ten?  Nope, but I loved being with them.  I loved them being together just the three of them.  They don’t remember life without one another and I absolutely love that to my core.

They would choose the library over almost anything because it is our one stop entertainment shop.  I think that’s how the saying goes 🙂  Books…check.  Movies…check.  Computer time…check.

The Nashville Farmer’s Market is the perfect lunch spot for big families who all have varying food pallets.  Solomon is by far our most adventurous eater.  His daily breakfast consists of eggs and hash browns cooked with onions, peppers and jalepanos topped with lots of pepper and sea salt.  Monday he got a hot dog and devoured fried okra and as we left declared he was definitely ordering from the Ethiopian veggie eatery next time…and he totally will.  This is Solomon.  Hudson enjoyed Chinese solo, while Harper went with a burger and fries and Josh and myself hammered some barbecue and grits.  Dessert was a no brainer with Jeni’s in the house.  Hudson cannot do dairy so he and I set out to find a non-dairy treat which landed us in the international market purchasing some hard candy from India for .99 cents…which we’re not quite what we thought they were…imagine a kind of off caramel taste with spices…I don’t even know…but they earned him a pack of skittles all to himself while we played putt-putt.

We knew Amon would be bummed upon learning we had fun without him so to soften the blow we snagged some small pumpkins before Josh headed back to work and we headed to putt-putt.  Amon Kelley is obsessed with all things fall and Halloween and especially pumpkins.  He calls every pumpkin a “punkin pie”…we don’t even know, but it’s ridiculously cute.  I wish I had videoed his reaction when the bigs showed him the small pumpkin they picked up for him.

We wrapped up our time with putt-putt.  Harper had never been before.  The boys had been once with a friend and Josh took them once while Harper and I were in Africa.  She was super excited.  I just kept thinking, they are fun.  I really like being with them and seeing them interact and talk and enjoy each other.  We just had fun.

 Our littlest adds not only so much joy to our family, but also hard things.  That’s just the truth.  Foster care is not easy.  Kiddos come from hard places and our entire family is learning how to be a soft place to land.  She’s not the easiest…as are none of us…and sometimes everyone in our family just needs a little time to re-charge from the daily grind of simply being a family.  I found myself being so smitten with our time together and realized that’s exactly what those 5 hours were for all of us…including Harper, Hudson and Solomon…just some time to re-charge.  God is teaching all of us about love, grace, compassion and empathy and it’s not easy, but so needed.  Harper said on the way home, “No offense to the babies, but I had the best time today.”  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Happy Friday.