The Tuesday before my hubby left for India (he left on a Saturday) I took a pregnancy test and of course it came back positive.  As always he was over the moon and I was just relieved to know that my ongoing nausea was not a sign of insanity or illness.

But I was also not really impressed with the timing.  This is my fifth pregnancy and historically the first trimester is hard for me.  I always get all day morning sickness and without my partner to be home to cook for me at weird times and hours and not to get upset if I then couldn’t eat said food, I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive.

Also it has been six years since I was last pregnant.  So I am almost completely in a different body. A body that remembers giving natural birth four times before, three of which were at home.  A body that grows strong baby girls (my smallest was 8 pounds 1 ounce) and while I am miserable my babies are always healthy and perfect.

 Also we tend not to share this exciting news with many people until after the first trimester.  I had to share with my close girlfriends and my eldest daughter because I knew I was going to need support.  My 7 year old couldn’t sleep one night and ended up reading the word baby over my shoulder. So she was sworn to secrecy for about a week.  

 These days technology has changed a lot since I was first pregnant 13 years ago.  And being 39 this time around checking out the number of chromosomes this baby had was important to us.  There are screening tests you can get at 10 weeks now that are just a blood draw and can look at fetal blood and count chromosomes.  Which means you can also find out if there is a Y chromosome or not.

 This being the 5th time we are over surprises and assumed we were having a girl anyway.  And true enough the test came back and girl number 5 is due in January.

 To say it has been a hard summer is an understatement.  To say that a lot of my plans have been derailed from what I was originally thinking is also true.  I had originally thought I might paint the kids bedrooms and do a bunch of other stuff and besides taking the kids to the lake, and seeing friends regularly so I can get a wee bit of a break, this summer for me has mainly been about survival.  Sleeping when I can, eating when I can, not puking and just trying to keep everyone alive (Minus one dead duck, meat chicken and turkey I have managed).  

 We haven’t even announced the news on Facebook yet, though now that my hubby is home we will probably do that soon.  I feel huge because once you’ve had one baby your body is super excited to expand almost instantly so by the time it’s number 5 well I feel like I look far more pregnant than I actually am.  Of course my perception is probably off.

 Hubby missed the worst of this pregnancy and has come home in time to start feeling her move around and all the fun of second and third trimester.  I have survived. And we will be raising one more girl soon. Now to come up with three more girl names, we have already used 12 as each of my girls have two middle names.

How has your summer been?

We have been waiting for days

Days

And Days

And Days

It’s not quite as exciting as Christmas

Or maybe it is if you start counting at say

Halloween

It has been such a long haul

Your youngest has gotten

So angry with you that you have been gone

For so long that she doesn’t think

You are actually coming home

I have had to deal with weepy nights

That weren’t just my own

And tired eyes as no one is sleeping quite

As well as they do when you are home

An unforeseen complication

I miss your cooking

And being able to say, hey can you be

In charge of the kids for a while

I am tired of negotiating all my

Time away with the almost teenager

And not being able to leave at night

I miss your smile which is not quite

The same one a video call

When you are halfway across the world

I miss holding you when you’re sick

When I am sick

Or when I’ve just had a bad dream

We miss you

I miss you

There is a new kitten to meet when you get home

And things to fix and repair

And cuddles to share

And movies and tv shows I have been saving up

To watch with you

While I show silly old movies to the kids

I miss having your back up at meals

And temper tantrums

And hormonal explosions

I miss having you hang out with our friends

And I know you will be home really soon

But each day still feels like a marathon

Each day closer earned like a new scar

While the days tick down to single digits

Yet you still feel so far

Far away

Be safe my love

Travel home safely

We are waiting to pick you up

Sooner rather than later.

There is a conversation going around among my mompreneur friends about how much we get our kids to do.  How much responsibility, chores, if they are teenagers – why should we be responsible for the schedule, etc.

I find the conversation interesting because I know that we have always asked more of our kids than our parenting peers ask of theirs.  I am not saying we ask our kids to do more than we were asked to do as kids, sometimes I think they get away with less because there are more of them and therefore there is not quite as many jobs each person needs to do.

I know I complained about some of my chores, and occasionally put them off.  But I don’t remember having to be constantly reminded to do them every single day.  It was more like weekly complaining is my memory. But I am sure it is at least somewhat faulty.

However lately (and maybe it’s exasperated by being the only adult home, and maybe it isn’t) I feel like it truly does take more energy to remind my preteen to do what she needs to do every single day than it would be to just do the thing myself.  We have employed timers to remind her to check on that laundry in the washer, and I have even hung it up on the line to help the process happen. But it is still a daily struggle and I am sick of it.  

My almost teenager does a bit better and it’s really only washing the dishes by hand that she puts off for days.  And the communication between the child who empties the dishwasher and it getting reloaded by said teenager has lots of issues.

The five year old is actually unloading the dishwasher all by herself lately which is amazing and we have been just staying out of the kitchen and letting her do it, because previously she has hated and dug her heels into any kind of chore other than getting the cats food.  And at 5 we expect a bit more than that, especially since all of her older sisters have had to do a bit more than that.

Is it because it is summer and it’s been a hot one here in Maine that they are suddenly so lethargic?  About the only time they pitched in with little complaint was when we were getting ready for the Harry Potter party they wanted to have.  But that was a week and a half ago and the house is back to looking pretty trashed, try as I might to keep up with it.  

I did finally get ice cream treats again so I will give them a list of things to do to earn said ice cream treats while I am gone at my doctors appointment.  Hopefully at least some of them will happen. I think I will take away media until they happen too. Seriously, if you sweep the floor everyday it doesn’t become a big deal.  Same with the dishes. And I get that it’s hot, I’m hot too.

I also need to get some fly tape because we seem to have extra flies this year.  Or maybe hubby was just faster to get the fly tape up? I remember we had eat birds in the basement for a while and all the flies were down there, so maybe they are just attracted to the kitchen instead.  However there were like a dozen in my room last night, and there isn’t any food up here.

Someday I’ll have kids that just pitch in and help right?  That’s the end goal. That and them having the skills to pitch in and help other places.  Not just the ability to pay bills, make phone calls and those kinds of life skills, but also how to not live as a slob.  Yep. That would be good too.

I truly believe that schedules have to be more flexible in the summer.  At least if you don’t live near the equator and you get some daylight shift throughout the year.

I totally broke a rule yesterday.  The kids had been begging me to take them to our local spring fed pond for some swimming and cooling down from all the heat.  And I was going to do it, until I came downstairs and saw the absolute mess. That no one had done anything about cleaning up.  And then I was like, no we can’t go to the pond if this is how you treat the house. It’s just not a possibility.

So my kids were completely pissed off and stomped around while actually doing their chores.  I complained on social media while counting down the days until their father gets back so he could be the  “Mean One” to go back to Mr. Grinch

I folded laundry so that I could say I was contributing and the littles and I picked out different songs to play.  My eldest started water for pasta while washing and drying each dish.

After dinner I broke my rule and said let’s go for a fast trip to the pond.  The girls put all the animals to bed and we drove the 7 minutes to the pond. We were there only about 15 minutes, because the water was starting to get really cold, I had goosebumps on my arms and legs, but it was really nice to cool down and they got a chance to burn off some of their energy and anger.  We came home, and I returned a phone call and they watched one show and then it was off to bed. With new audio books and hopefully a slightly better mood.  

 

This would be harder to do if we had someplace we had to be the next day.  Which does happen even in summer. Last week I had three days in a row where I had to get up at like 5:30 and it just about killed me by the time we got to the third day.  

 

Other rules I break during summer:

• Making hot meals, that often flies out the window.  I would much rather say, here have some veggies and make do than actually turn the oven or stove on.  

• Reading practice, it has just been too hot to sit there and listen to someone struggle over their reading, not a popular one, I am sure but OMG I am only one person this summer

• Getting up early, yep don’t care for that one this summer either, and I’m letting the almost 13 year old sleep as long as she wants in the mornings

• Regular activities, it is really nice to not have to be schelping people to classes, programs, etc.

• Back to back play dates, we often break these up, but as the only parent this summer I will take all the help I can get.

 

It is not all bad.  We have been listening to some shared audio books on drives, including some nonfiction ones.  It is nice to know I am staying home all day except maybe a trip to the pond and not having to put a bra on.  Or even really get that dressed. It was hilarious watching my older two getting into a pillow fight yesterday while their dad giggled from India since we were on a video chat.

What rules do you break/bend in the summer?  Does your life have a different flow in the different seasons?  Or do you just stay constantly busy?

I don’t know how single mom’s do it.  Or military families. Or long distance truckers or anyone really.

Today is day 35.  We are at the halfway point, and hubby comes home in 35 days.  It is supposed to get downhill from here. However, the way the girls are acting it feels like it might be uphill.

Mercury is in Retrograde which might explain why the communication I am having with the girls and they are having with each other is fucked up, to say the least.  And as the only parent at home, I am getting really tired of it. I am afraid after a while my patience wears thin for the ugly crying about things I can’t fix or that they just don’t want me to fix.

I am tired of being the parent that has to uphold the chores, and bedtime (especially in the summer when bedtime feels so wiggly anyway).  I have been getting them together with other kids regularly this week.   

I am so tired of telling the 5-year-old to put the kitten that decided to show up and move in with us down and to stop moving her around.  The kitten doesn’t seem to know any better and just puts up with it most of the time. She is also smaller than the other two cats but still manages to win the fights with the crotchety older cat over who gets to sleep on my bed.  I’d rather the older cat win because she can open the door when she wants to leave and the kitten can’t and I am tired of the light from the hall coming into my room.

And as I am writing this all four of my daughters have landed on my bed.  One is in a puddle of tears because I asked her to do a chore before tv. One is playing on my phone, the other two are just hanging around not helping and stirring the crying one up.  

To say it is hard to think straight is an understatement.  To say that because this is what the last 24 hours have been like I don’t want to do anything fun with them now because the only break I have gotten I slept through feels like a guilty confession.  And a failure and just the never ending nature of being the only adult around right now.

We spent the day at a friends house.  I kept my friend company while she did some sorting and the kids played with her son.  They appeared to be having a good time at the time but it has been a constant meltdown of someone since we got back.  So I am guessing that they need to stay home for a few days. Maybe I should lock them all outside? That’s what happened the last time I left for the day they managed to lock themselves out of the house.  

I am trying to come up with the good bits.  The girls have gotten tired of pizza which they don’t normally get to eat that much of as their dad is allergic to cow’s milk and the alternatives get more expensive.  I am tired of cooking. I had gotten used to hubby cooking 4-5 dinners a week and cooking for food that I know he and I will enjoy and now I am cooking for the picky horde of hormonal monsters.

Yes, I am not taking that line back because that is what they have felt like lately.  We don’t have that quiet Dad testosterone to calm them down, give them another lap to sit on or the occasional raised voice to get them back in line.  

Good bits, none of the animals have been too much trouble this week, the pig seems willing to stay in her pen as long as we keep her in fresh hay to play with.  The gander keeps taking himself on walks but is staying in the yard so that works. The kitten gets fixed in two weeks so she should settle down at that point. Blueberries are starting to come in.  

Also, I will hopefully not be doing another 10 weeks alone any time soon.  While I know hubby may need to go back at some point, hopefully, it will be for shorter periods or maybe next time we can come and visit him at the end of it.  We already have our passports after all.

Hopefully the crying winds down today.  I have stuff I need to do and dealing with all that crying as an empath can sap a lot of my energy.  Especially when they are my kids. It can be so much harder to ignore. But sometimes that is what you have to do.  That and triage. Maybe I was a nurse in a former life? Because I feel like a lot of my day is spent triaging, both the kids and what I need to get done for that day.

I can’t believe that I am finally releasing my book into the world.  I first conceived that it needed to be a book in the winter 2017/18 and started working on it at the beginning of 2018.  In fifteen minute batches about three days a week I wrote the book that I know hold in my hands and that you can hold in yours (or on your phone if digital is more your style).

They always say that books take love, sweat and tears to create and while to some extent I agree, I would say that tenacity, determination and being willing to keep showing up were more my experience.  Now creating the landing page which you can find here took a lot more sweat and hard work than often writing the book did.

Because I just wrote about my kids.  And parenting, and partnership and what was going on in my life that particular day.  I ranted and raved, and wrote the occasional poem and wrote the occasional essay for my kids instead of just about them.  You have seen pieces of it here on the blog, though far more of it was kept for the book.

Like sending a kid away for a sleep over the first time, or off to spend a day away from you, I have all kinds of feels about my book coming out today.  Pride, relief and hopes that people will enjoy it.  Celebration for getting this far and actually completing the process.  And now sending it out into the world.

If you’d like to learn more about it you can check it out here.