Juggling

Ever since I became a parent, I've had to juggle.

Schedules. Transportation. Money. Priorities. Childcare.

When I became a single parent, I had to add holidays to that list.

Ex1 and I split just before Thanksgiving, so we immediately had to decide who got the kids for the holiday and who got to spend the day alone. Then Christmas, then New Years....on and on it went until all of the paperwork was signed and dated and we got into a routine.

Even when we did have a routine, things always changed. He has local family and I don't - so I've always tried to be flexible so that the kids didn't miss holiday celebrations with their extended families. Then other kids came along, and ultimately other schedules - and for me, trying to keep all of my kids together for holidays became a huge juggling act no matter what day we actually celebrated whatever holiday it was.

I admit that I tried to be difficult about it at times. Sometimes I got my way, and sometimes I didn't. But somehow I always managed to squeeze some sort of holiday celebration into whatever time the 6 of us had together.

Yesterday, The Dude and I had to make another crazy road trip to Kansas City, and at some point during the drive it suddenly dawned on me that Easter is this weekend. EASTER IS THIS WEEKEND. How did that happen?

My brain went into overdrive while I tried to figure out how to make Easter happen within the walls of the house since it was obviously going to happen in the real world no matter what. I already know that I have no chance of having the older 3 kids at all during the weekend because Ex1 and his wife are returning from a weeklong missions trip out of the country and her parents are in town, so they're going to want the kids. Alex's father already made plans to take him for at least a day or two and I'm not going to stand in the way of that. So maybe we can do Easter the following weekend - but I'm running a half-marathon that Saturday, so I'm going to be useless for the rest of the weekend. So maybe we can do it during the week instead and who am I trying to kid because that would just be insane.

Then suddenly it dawned on me......wait a second. Friday. The kids don't have school. They'll all be here until about noonish when the older 3 have to head back to Ex1's.

The solution was as simple as breakfast. We'll have a huge breakfast Friday morning, like a big Good Friday/Easter breakfast, and they can get their Easter baskets and we can be pigs and eat junk all morning and then the older 3 can go where they need to go and we got our time together for the holiday (and then realistically, I don't have to cook a big dinner because we had a big breakfast so I'm actually getting off easy here) and it's all good.

So while I was in the kitchen prepping cinnamon rolls for tomorrow's breakfast feast, Emily teamed up with the Easter Bunny to fill the baskets (including the eggs that we dyed earlier tonight) and then I got the kitchen cleaned up and ready for morning - including loading up the coffee pot so that it's ready to go.

The constant juggling is hard. There have been times when I've felt as though I've had 87 different things up in the air all at once - some of them were on fire, some of them came at me like bricks while others floated around like feathers, some of them crumbled into dust as soon as I touched them, and some of them slammed to the ground and shattered because I didn't have enough hands to catch them all.

I think that the most important thing that I've learned over the past decade+ of single parenting is that no matter what, everything is going to work out in the end. We might not get exactly what we want but sometimes the best gift we can give our kids is to show them that we can be flexible and make the most out of any situation. We might not get our big Easter dinner as a family, but we're going to have a hell of a breakfast together before they go off in different directions.

And then I'm going to sit back with a giant cup of coffee and relax for a little bit. Just because.

Good Friday egg hunt

The kids were off school again today....you know, because the week off for snow and the week off for Spring Break last week just wasn't enough for me to lose my sanity. But anyway, they actually slept in a bit today (shocker) and honestly, we didn't do a whole lot of anything. We hung around the house (which the boys trashed) and we went to the library and then we went to a big Easter egg "hunt" here in town.

I use the term "hunt" very loosely because that would lead a person to believe that the eggs were actually hidden. But, they were not.

They  were all spread out in a big field, with areas divided for 3 age groups to help keep the little kids from getting trampled. When we got there, we scoped out the situation and I asked one of the workers if we could go to the opposite side of the field where it wasn't as crowded - and with her approval, we did exactly that. So you see that huge crowd of people on the other side of the field? Yeah. We weren't in that. We were with one other family on OUR side of the field.

I gave the boys the standard lectures - don't trample anyone, be nice, don't steal eggs from anyone else (especially someone smaller), and for crying out loud watch where you're going!! Emily was on her own in the next area with the older kids so I only had to keep my eyes on the boys, who thankfully all fit into one age group.

Acting goofy.

On your mark...

Get set...

GO!!!

Free for all!

Careful....

Daniel made sure that no eggs were missed.

Even with our logistical decision to go to the opposite side
of the field, we they still didn't end up with a ton of junk.

4 out of 5 kids agree that it was worth the hassle.

I'm wired. And I have hand grenades. And candy.

It's been another crazy day around here. Not so much in the physical-here, but in the blogosphere-here.

In bloggy news, I was contacted yesterday (was it yesterday? I think it was yesterday...) by a gentleman by the name of Roy Wood who writes for wired.com. He wanted to write an article about the Tooth Fairy letter and so we emailed back and forth a few times and talked about the specifics. I told a few friends about it, and they all had pretty much the same reaction.

"OMG DO YOU REALIZE HOW BIG THIS CAN BE?!?!?!?!"

Uh, apparently I didn't.

I can honestly say that before yesterday, I never even looked at that website.

I'm looking now.

Mr. Wood published his article this morning and emailed me with the link to it. I didn't realize it right away because for whatever reason, my phone has decided to quit notifying me about emails from that particular account. When I got the email from him with the link, I immediately went to read it and was really happy with what he had to say. Even the nasty comment that another reader had left didn't bother me. So I went and posted the link to his article on both my facebook page and my personal profile.

A little while later I figured I'd check the stats on my blog and see what was happening.

There might have been some hyperventilating involved at that point. Today was probably the third highest day for traffic on my blog since I started it over 2 years ago.

And it blows my mind. Seriously. When I wrote that letter, I expected nothing to come of it. Maybe a few giggles here and there. I'm amazed that it's still floating around out there and that people (for the most part) still like it.

But the increased traffic is stressful for me in a way. I've said it before - this blog has been so small for so long and I was used to that and comfortable with that. Getting this much attention is a bit unnerving. It makes me question where I want to go with it (I'm still pretty much dead-set against advertising) and if I'm good enough to keep going with it. I don't pop off with things like the Tooth Fairy letter or the food stamp post or the Boy Scout post very often and those are what have brought the majority of people here. But if they're looking for that on a regular basis, they're going to be waiting for a while and will have to tolerate stories about my kids and my crazy days and mountains of laundry and stuff like that in the meantime.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to keep on going the way that I have been for the last 2+ years. I don't know where I'll end up, but I'll just keep plugging along.

I had this discussion with The Dude tonight. We took Daniel and went out to eat and then did a little bit of shopping after so that I could get some stuff for a project, plus a few odds and ends that I needed wanted. My next project includes hand grenades, candy, yarn, and glue.

Because those are the ingredients needed for the perfect Easter surprise for the kids. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Don't worry - you'll see them when they're done. Unless they're an epic fail.

I know this was supposed to be a holiday, but...

...sometimes holidays themselves are just a little bit anti-climactic around here. Since the older 3 kids left yesterday morning and we had the egg hunt and party at our friends' house yesterday, today just seemed like any other day. I had every intention of going to church this morning, but the boys slept in and then they LET me sleep in a little longer, so we ended up not going at all. We hung out around the house and I cleaned and did laundry (as usual) for most of the day.

But later in the afternoon I started to get restless and so we walked to a nearby park so that they could burn off some energy and I could get some fresh air. Unfortunately, it appeared that 2 different family units had opted to use the same tiny little park for holiday gatherings and so it was more crowded than I preferred. I think what annoyed me the most was that there were all of these kids running around on the playground equipment - unsupervised - while the dozens of adults stood huddled in the shade of the pavilion drinking. But, for the most part, the kids all stayed under control, and Daniel and Alex actually ended up playing with a big bunch of them so they were having a ball.

So it ended up being a good day. It just didn't seem like a holiday.

Easter festivities

So the kids got their Easter baskets this morning since the older 3 had to go back to their father's house for the rest of the weekend. I had to make a special deal with the Easter bunny to get him here a day early, but it was worth it.

After I took the older 3 to their father's, we grabbed The Dude and headed out to some friends' house for food and an Easter egg hunt. My friend Dawn came with her kids, and she did manage to rope The Dude into taking a look at some issues that she's been having with her car.

The kids played outside for a while before we dragged them all inside so that the adults could hide the eggs. Finally, we turned them loose!

All of the kids made out like bandits and ended up with way more candy than they really needed, but that was part of the fun. After we left there, we went over to The Dude's house and hung out with him for a while watching silly YouTube videos for a couple of hours. Daniel fell asleep while we were there and so by the time I brought the boys home, they went straight to bed and crashed - hard! Hopefully they'll sleep a little later than usual tomorrow.

Love days like this!

Easter preparations

I had to pull some strings and bribe the Easter bunny, but he's coming here tonight instead of tomorrow night. The older 3 kids are leaving in the morning to go back to their father's house, so we colored eggs tonight so that they can have their baskets tomorrow.

Of course, they were banished to their bedrooms early because of a lovely stunt they pulled outside, but I allowed them to come out long enough to eat supper and color eggs - and then back off to bed they went.

I did have a moment of terror when I opened the one package of Easter egg dye and found this...apparently the little tablets somehow managed to get wet, even sealed in their little plastic bag. But, a quick google search later and after digging through the pantry for the food coloring, we were on our way again.

And then I got to spend the rest of my evening finishing up the "crack cupcakes" to take to a friend's house tomorrow for an Easter egg hunt/get together.

Of course, the Easter bunny just remembered a few minutes ago that the baskets still need to be brought inside and filled with goodies. Darn it.