The Art of 3

There are many things that I love about having 3 kids. It fills my heart to see how much they all love each other and there is always an abundance of laughter, hugs, kisses and cuddles. But there are things that I really don't like about it and running errands ranks up there pretty high.
My husband has no problem taking out all 3 kids- the zoo, food shopping, anywhere, but I avoid it like the plague. The thought of putting all 3 into car seats and taking them out, going in and out of stores, keeping them all happy and from running up and down aisles... I'm not going to lie; it stresses me out.
So last night when I realized Kevin was leaving for the gym and we had nothing for dinner, he said, why don't you run out and grab something. I froze. With all 3?! Okay, wait, these are my kids. I can handle this. This is how it went.
I got all 3 into the car. I hadn't driven my car all day and with it being 80 degrees out, there were some gripes about the heat, but we got out quickly. First stop was Wawa. Take out money, get salads and milk. Cole was in a mood right away and proceeded to walk into me and his sister repeatedly. We had a talk by the ice cream section and he straightened out quickly. But then he started asking for different things to which I kept saying no. When he came up to me with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I snapped "no" one last time. He gave me puppy dog eyes and said, "I got them for you because they are your favorite." Damn, bad mommy moment. I let them all get apple slices which is their "special treat" at Wawa. Typically parents wait for good behavior to reward with a treat at the end of running errands but I love that they choose apples and find that getting them something in the beginning makes the trip more peaceful.
Everyone back in the car. I got almost to the next store when I realized I forgot to take out money. Back to Wawa, everyone out of the car, hit the ATM, everyone back in the car. The next stop was the liquor store. I warned them not to touch a thing. I walked in, picked up the first bottle of Moscato I saw and went to pay. Cole and the clerk went back and forth about the cost of wine and then she threw lollipops in our bag.
Next door was the beer distributor where we had to get cigars for Kevin. Cole went in first and announced "2 Rockys" to the clerk. He recognized Cole and laughed, grabbed our cigars, took my money and handed us candy. (Gotta love these clerks!)
The last stop was Giant. Dinner, hot dogs, marshmallows (for the fire pit) and bananas. They were good, asked for minimal additional items, made sure I got the things we needed and we were out of there.
All 3 back in the car, belted into car seats and they ran through the list of errands with me. Done!
We survived... this time...

A Month of Kindness

I've been terrible about writing lately, so this is coming a little late, but I wanted to share it. I had posted a picture a couple months ago of an Act of Kindness Advent Calendar that Cole and I were going to complete in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It was quite an adventure for us, and we found that some tasks were definitely easier to complete than others. With Cole in school 3 days a week, we sometimes had to play catch up with our items on other days and once Christmas week came, it was tough to get much done. However, we managed to complete almost every act on the list. The biggest thrill for me was that every morning Cole woke up and (after finding his elf, of course) he would ask me, "What nice thing are we going to do today?" I realized that this is a kid who already loved being kind and doing things for others, and every time I watched him completing an act of kindness and how excited and happy it made him, it made all the running around more than worth it. Below is a list of what we did:

1. Let someone go in front of you in line- we were at the library and someone got to the counter at the same time, so Cole didn't try to race in front of them. That was big for him!
2. Donate hats & mittens to a homeless shelter- we bought them and held them for a later date (see below).
3. Write your teacher a thank you note- this was one of my favorites. Cole wrote a note thanking his teacher for being allowed to bring a book into school. She was teaching the class about kindness, so Cole's note was hung up on the Kindness board in his classroom!
4. Tape coins to a vending machine for the next person to use- the Salvation Army guy didn't seem to understand why we weren't putting the money in his bucket. Oh, well. Hope someone enjoyed their soda!
5. Buy a new book for a child in need- I let Cole pick a book and then we saw a Toys for Tots box, but he asked if he could read it in the car before giving it away. I felt bad, so I let him. When we went to drop it off later, he really had a hard time letting go, but he knew it was going to a kid who needed it.
6. Send a holiday card to a service man or woman- thanks to my FB friends, we found 6 people to send cards to. I wrote a note explaining what we were doing and Cole signed his name. I hope they got there and were appreciated!
7. Set the dinner table for your family- we were at my mom's, so Gram let Cole help serve his cousins.
8. Give a water bottle & snack to a homeless person- this would have been really tough without going into the city, so we bought stuff and put it into our stash for the later trip to a shelter.
9. Make a bookmark for someone at school- another one of my favs, Cole chose to make a bookmark for his best friend Mason. They were both very excited about it!
10. Donate a coloring book & crayons to hospital ER- the admissions desk seemed very genuinely surprised which was really nice for something that only cost us a few dollars. They said they were going to take them up to pediatrics which was even better.
11. Gather up shopping carts in the parking lot- this one was hilarious as my little 4 year old pushed shopping carts across the lot and waved off the guys whose job it actually is were trying to help him.
12. Go through old clothes and toys & give to shelter- most of their toys are in storage, but we found some clothes to give away. I took all 3 kids with the clothes along with the food and hat & gloves to a shelter in Chester. A little bit scary getting in, but the people inside were very appreciative, and the kids loved doing it!
13. Call a relative and tell them "I love you"- it was tough to get someone on the phone at first, but then Cole ended up talking to 3 of his cousins and it was so sweet!
14. Do someone else's chore today- Cole chose to do Mommy's chore because he said I do the most, so he helped with the laundry.
15. Leave a treat in the mailbox for the mail carrier- hope he enjoyed our cookies!
16. Donate old towels & sheets to the local pet shelter- this was hard because we didn't have any to give, so we improvised and bought some dog toys which Cole got to pick. It was really fun (and a little nerve wracking) to take both Cole and Chloe to drop off the toys and see the animals. The dogs were a little too loud for them, but they loved the cats!
17. Buy a new toy & donate to Toys for Tots- if we do this in the future, I'll have to remember that pick up for these boxes is right around this date, so you can't find a box if you wait too long. We ended up giving them to a teacher friend who was doing a day of giving with her students.
18. Buy a hot cocoa for a Salvation Army bell ringer- it was so cute to see Cole hand over that cup, and the ringer was definitely surprised.
19. Bring in your neighbor's trash can- we only use bags on our street, but our one neighbor uses a bin for his recycling, so Cole brought that up to his door.
20. Hold the door for someone- Cole held the door for everyone this day!
21. Bring flowers to someone in a nursing home- this is one we just didn't get to do... maybe next year!
22. Tape microwave popcorn to a Red Box- I thought this one was fun, but we should have waited to see who got it, because it was gone by the time we did our food shopping!
23. Donate used books to the library or dr's office- we tried to do this but the library said our books were too old and the dr's office doesn't take them, so they went to Goodwill.
24. Give someone a hug today- it was Christmas Eve, so Cole gave lots of hugs that day!

Pushing the carts at Giant

Checking out the dogs at the shelter

Giving his sister one of many hugs on Christmas Eve

Unplugged

I can imagine there are tons of blogs, posts, etc. out there about how we are all too connected to our electronic devices and how we should put down our smart phones and spend time doing other things. Well, I was without my phone for less than 24 hours last week, and I never want to do that again!

Thursday night, my phone (which barely holds a charge these days) was about to die, so I turned it off. When I went in to bed and tried to plug it into the charger, nothing happened. I tried a 2nd charger and then a 3rd and still nothing. I even went outside to my car and tried that charger. I panicked. How can I not have a phone? But at 10:00 at night, there was nothing I could do. In the morning, I tried them all again and realized that I was going to be phoneless until I could get to the store which wouldn't be for hours. I felt like I was missing an appendage. Which is actually pretty accurate. Here is how my day went...


When I woke up to feed Chase in the middle of the night, I watched tv instead of browsing Facebook.
In the morning when Kevin asked me what the weather was going to be like, I just stared at him. He turned on The Weather Channel.
I went on Facebook and posted about my mini-tragedy. Because I'm very important and I knew tons of people would be looking for me. My mom got sent a private message to reach me on Kevin's phone since we were meeting up that morning.
As we got ready for Cole's school Halloween concert, I had to keep looking at a clock to know when we had to leave.
At the concert, I couldn't take any pictures. I also made an effort not to get separated from my family, because then I would never find them.
Friday afternoon, I had errands to run, including going to Verizon, although that was last on my list. Food shopping was tough without my calculator. My mind isn't equipped for math.
Our car had to be jumped in the morning, so the clock hadn't been reset, and I had no way of knowing the correct time to reset it. And since I was meeting up with someone at 2:00, I had to keep asking strangers for the time. I would imagine no one asks anyone else for the time anymore.
Several times when I was out, I thought about a question or something I had to tell someone. I started making mental notes to reach out to them later.

It was about 3:00 in the afternoon when the tech/savior at Verizon got my phone back on. My phone was teeming with notifications. In any given day, I realize that I use my phone not just for calling and texting, but for email, weather, calculator, phone, GPS, looking up information, social media, recipes and a clock. So as sarcastic as some of this may be, right or wrong, I don't know what I would do without that little electronic revelation. And I will not be voluntarily unplugging again anytime soon.

No Regrets

Every time I do any kind of exercise with my husband, he reminds me that no one ever regretted a workout. Sometimes, my sore muscles would beg to differ, but he's absolutely right. It does make me feel better. That being said, I don't like working out. There really isn't any kind of exercise that I find appealing. If given the choice, I would much rather curl up in front of the tv or with a book. But as with most people, the older I get, the more important it is to stay active in order to be healthy. So when Kevin asks me to jump rope with him or go for a walk, I find myself making less excuses than I used to do.

Chores

I hate chores. I know that at my age I shouldn't call them chores but that’s what they are. Cleaning, organizing, putting away, straightening up… any of it. I don’t find it fun. My mother finds cleaning cathartic, but unfortunately, I did not inherit this gene. I hope that my kids did, so I don’t have a son or daughter-in-law mad at me in 30 years, but in case they didn't, I thought I should give them a little push in the right direction.

We try to be consistent with them in picking up their toys, putting their dirty clothes in the hamper and dirty dishes in the sink, that type of thing. But Cole recently started two very important chores- taking care of a plant and a hermit crab. While on a school trip to a farm, each child was given a watermelon plant to take home. And on a recent trip down the shore, Cole was able to get a hermit crab like he does each time we go. (This time he got one with a soccer ball painted shell and named him Soccer Player. Very creative. Haha.) So every afternoon, he checks on Soccer Player’s food and water supply and then he checks the moisture of his plant.

Cole gets to learn about responsibility and Mommy gets to daydream about the day the kids are old enough to scrub toilets. It's a win-win!

Difficult Conversations

I love so much of what it means to be a mom. But there are certainly things that I would rather not deal with at all. Sleepless nights, runny noses, talking back... and difficult conversations. I don't know any parent who looks forward to discussing things like the birds and the bees or death and dying. So when one of the teachers at Cole's preschool suddenly and sadly passed away last month, I braced myself for questions. But they never came. I knew that the school was going to explain things to the kids, and I was grateful that whatever Cole was told was enough that he never brought it up to me. Until the other night.

We were eating dinner and discussing how people are related which is a current area of interest to my 4 year old. We established that Chase is my son and not my brother or my husband and that Chloe is my daughter because she is a little girl. Then the conversation went like this:

C- Grandmom is your mommy?
M- Yes. Just like you and Chloe and Chase all grew inside Mommy's belly, I grew inside of Gram's.
C- (Laughs.) That's so crazy! And who is Grandmom's mommy?
M- She was my grandmom who you never met. She lives in heaven.
C- She died?
(This is where I was thrown. I didn't even know he really knew that word.)
M- Yes, she did. How do you know that?
C- That's what happened to Miss Carol. (Break my heart.)
M- They told you that at school?
C- Yes. Is heaven far away?
M- Yes, it is.
C- Do you have to drive there?
M- (Hmm, how to explain this.) It's really far. You have to fly.
C- You're just kidding, right?
M- No, you do. You have to fly because it's so far.
C- Oh. Okay.

Satisfied for the time being, Cole went back to eating and Mommy picked her heart up off the floor and breathed a big, although probably temporary, sigh of relief.

Another Baby Story

The arrival of our newest bundle of joy is a story that could be taken from a movie, and I don’t want to forget the details, so here it is.

On February 17^th, at 3:00 in the afternoon, I was at work and started to feel some contractions. They lasted about an hour, and I told my husband, who was in Charlotte for his every other week business trip, to be on standby. But after an hour, the contractions stopped, and I continued to work. I finished up some things and went home early (by the request of my boss). I was tired but with no contractions for several hours, I had an uneventful night with my kids.

At 1:00 am, I woke up in active labor. I wasn’t sure at first, but the contractions were strong and after I started timing them and realized they were coming every 3 minutes, I knew this was the real thing. I called my mom, who was at work, and she told me to call the doctor, which I did, and I was told to come to the hospital. I tried Kevin but got his voicemail. I tried not to panic as I called his mom to come be with my kids and took a shower. At this point, I still hadn’t reached Kevin, now it was snowing, and my contractions were getting worse, and I tried to hold back the tears. I called the hotel, and they said that their computers were down and told me to call back in 10-15 minutes. Sure, no rush. My mom left the hospital and was at my house within 30 minutes. She then called Kevin’s hotel and insisted they go to wake him. When they finally did, he called and asked if the baby was coming and if I could wait until he could get home. I knew this baby was coming whether or not we were ready, so I told him to do what he could.

The ride to the hospital was scary as the snow was really coming down, and I was having strong contractions as we slid down every road. My mom took me into the ER to be taken upstairs, as she parked the car. They made 3 calls before the slowest woman in the world came to get me. (Another person in no rush.) Upstairs, I was hooked up to the monitors and checked, and it was confirmed that I was definitely in labor and would have the baby some time that day. I was happy that my doctor was on call but getting increasingly nervous that my husband wasn’t going to make it.

Meanwhile, in Charlotte, Kevin booked the first flight home which was scheduled for 7:25. He got to the airport so early that security wasn’t even open yet. We talked via Facetime at 5am, and it was the only time I’ve ever heard an airport so quiet. Seeing his face sent me into tears (again) as he sat helpless at the terminal, wanting to be with me as much as I wanted him there.

My labor was progressing slowly (coming in at 4 cm and only getting to 5-6 in the first few hours), but I was thankful for the time as I awaited Kevin’s arrival. The story of the husband stuck in Charlotte spread quickly to the staff, and although everyone tried to be supportive by telling me I could do it on my own, I was sad and nervous and praying that we could hold out long enough. As I lay in bed and listened to the monitors, I noticed that the baby’s heart rate sounded slow whenever I had a contraction. After checking on me, the resident doctor decided that the cord was wrapped or caught somewhere, and they performed an amnio infusion to correct the problem. Talk of a c-section worried me, and I hoped that we wouldn’t get to that point.

My doctor was scheduled to be off at 8am, and we were approaching that point, but after the relationship that she and I have built over the past 5 years, she decided to stay and see me through this delivery. I will always be grateful to her for that. She had a conference call scheduled for 8:30, but I knew that Kevin was going to land around 9 and could be at the hospital by 9:30, so she pushed back her call, and said we would make it work. The infusion helped, and the baby was doing great, so my doctor checked me around 8am and found that I was completely dilated. I begged to wait as long as possible for Kevin. However, looking at my mom’s face, I knew something was wrong. Kevin’s flight hadn’t taken off and he didn’t know when it would. I was devastated. It didn’t look like he would make it in time, and there was nothing we could do. I called him, and we cried together over the phone. I told him that the baby and I couldn’t wait any longer. Both of our hearts were hurting. He told me that he bought a WiFi plan and if they made it to 10,000 feet by the time, he would be able to FaceTime us during the birth. Everyone on the plane, like everyone at the hospital, knew our story, after Kevin cried to the flight attendant, and told the crew that if they didn’t take off soon, they would have to open the doors and let him off the plane.

Since we knew Kevin wasn’t going to make it, my sister arranged for a neighbor to watch her kids, so she could be with me. As she raced to the hospital in the snow, and ran from the parking garage into the hospital and up to my room, she kept my mom posted. It was nearing 9am, and I knew we couldn’t wait much longer for her. She came into the room at 8:55, and I started pushing at 8:56. Our son was born 8 minutes later, at 9:04 am. Kevin’s flight had finally taken off, but the connection was bad and all we saw were frozen pictures of each other. When I held my son for the first time, I cried tears of happiness over meeting him, but also sad tears from missing his father.

It was important to have Kevin meet his son before sharing any details. I didn’t tell my mom or sister the baby’s name, and no one outside of that hospital room even knew the baby was born. Kevin landed about half an hour after the birth, sprinted through the airport and didn’t even go to get his car, opting to take a taxi from the airport. He told me later that the driver got out to clean off his windshield and another driver shouted at him to get this man, whose wife is in labor, to the hospital. I can only imagine that scene.

Around 10:15, we heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall, and Kevin burst into the room. His face was red and he was drenched in sweat, and we both started crying again at the sight of each other. I told him to go meet his son, but he kissed me first, and then went to get the baby from the nurse. The room cleared, and I watched as my husband fell in love for the 3^rd time with one of our children.

Kevin asked me if the baby would hold it against him that he wasn’t there. I laughed at the thought, because I knew that this incredible father was the only one who would hold himself accountable for what happened. I told him that the only thing that mattered was that he would be our son’s father for the rest of his life. And I thought about what a crazy but wonderful birth story our baby would now have.

It wasn’t until my mom and sister returned to the room that we finally called our son by his name for the first time- Chase Michael Tinsley. A perfect little miracle that was somehow meant to be, and we are now forever changed.