It is going swimmingly!

People often ask how is life on the road.  My reply is varied as the weather, today however I would say it is going swimmingly.  This camp ground we are at requires me to be with my 11 and 12 year old constantly.  I am not even sure they are allowed to go to the bathroom by themselves.  Before you judge me these are the last  two of eight children, I know very well what my kids are capable of.  But I digress.  So the last two days I have spent a couple of hours at the pool.  Yesterday I got in for awhile and did a little exercise, today I am shivering wrapped in a towel.  But as I sit here watching them play I am excited for what they are experiencing.  At the beginning of this adventure a fine and knowledgeable woman told me that her greatest joy of this endeavor are that her children were each others closest friends.  At the time I couldn't comprehend that but seven months later I see it beginning to happen.  My kids will tell you it is because there is no one else to play with, to which I reply I don't care how it happened, I am just happy it did.  The change is coming slowly.  They are playing in the pool together playing video games together.  Sometimes they even hang out and talk in the trailer because there is nothing else to do and I find as I watch them that this too is one of my greatest joys.  Siblings is a forever relationship.  So these games of tag and rescue the drowning swimmer are more than just play, they are the best kind of living.

Legoland

If these pictures do not express the day of fun we had I do not know what would.  Asher and Austin got to meet some great friends.  Adam hung out with a great group of teens and well As you can see Alek was picking up the ladies.  I may have ended up a little sunburned, but a sunburn in February is a sign of a good life in my book. 
For those of you concerned with my children's social lives there were 150 people at this roadschool event. They all met great friends and had a blast.  We are off to more great adventures. 

Clean???

If I asked you which one was clean that would seem like a silly question right.  Well these two puctures are both definitions of clean to my two teenagers on the road.  And you would be surprised at which was which.  I was.  My teenager who leaves everything laying around a swath of droppings from the front to the back actually cleaned the kitchen.  The one who always puts his stuff away so his brothers dont destroy it, and has his stuff perfectly organized was the messy one.  What more proof do you need that my ways are confusing to theor young impressionable minds.  I am just thankful that the clean kitchen is the one who has to clean the kitchen this week. I shall enjoy it while it lasts.

Savoring the Marrow

I spend alot of time lately just staring at my children.  I know it sounds creepy but they are literally growing up right before my eyes.  The subtle changes in their Jaw line, height, or facial hair leaves me in awe. I can never get back these last seven months, but guess what. I don't need to.  I play games with them, laugh and cry with them, and play with them.  I am savoring the marrow of what I have left in the world of parenting children and it feels marvelous.  Today we blogged about a crane, shot a game of pool, and learned to make biscuits and gravy together.  Today.  I missed so much of my first four children's lives.  While I do get to peer through the small window of their adult lives I am grateful for this time.  This time I have to truly get to know them as children.

Crane

These birds walk past our home everyday.  Yesterday Asher took some video of them.  So I told him if he took that video and figured out what these beautiful birds were and wrote a paragraph about it, that could be his school for the day.  I thought he would be excited.  He just had to take what he was already doing to the next level and it was simple just a little googling.  But apparantly I was very wrong.  It led me to a few hours of school pondering.  Mainly, how do I turn my kids into those kids, you know the ones I am talking about.  The ones who have their own YouTube channel with 1000 followers, who are doing a scientific project on lowering our footprint, while writing a children's book, all while being extremely sociable and humbly cheerful.  As my mind created this child whom I have yet to find,  I realize my goals have take on a life of their own.  When I do this, which happens more than I car e to admit, I like to take a step back and count the blessings.  Here they are my children have youtube channels.  They are accomplishing schoolwork, my husband has a job,  my kids are getting along better than they ever have.  They socialize with each other, which is more important to me than their having friends, and not something they did before we got on the road.  While they fight me constantly on projects they have to get done and chores, this proves they have fight and tenacity they will need to navigate the next 15 years which will be some of the toughest. 
So if you are still with me while I ramble on you will have learned that my children are absolutely normal and flat out amazing all in the same breath.  I am grateful for each and every one of them.

Rewards

We are settled nicely into our home for the next two weeks.  Our system of me nagging the kids to do schoolwork and chores while they run in every direction possible firmly set in stone.  I have decided to include things that make me better in every part of my day.  Not just my kids who make me look like the world's best mom, but me.  The who I am when they aren't around.  You would think that at forty I would have this figured out a bit, but I have found at 40 is the time to figure it out.  Now I have already established in my 20's and 30's that I am not a housekeeper.  The keeper of the home that anyone can swing by and see in perfect order, not me.  In fact I am the home where you wonder what that smell is, most of the time it's boy, but sometimes I find other menacing smells.  However I have found that if I spend a small amount of time focused on this each day in my tiny house that things don't get away from me.  I wish I could blame it all on my kids but I am as equally responsible.  I don't put things away as soon as I am done.  I don't make things a home as soon as they come in, and I don't put everything away nice and tidy.  This however doesn't make me a horrible person, it simply makes me human.  So in an effort to fight this inhumaneness of my humanity, I have decided to write a list each day of things to get done.  I did this awhile in my 20's and it seemed to work for me.  Unfortunately in my current life I rarely have anything that motivates me to accomplish the list.  I am not motivated by the crossing off the list. I am mostly motivated by food.  Which I am trying to eliminate as a reward.  So I need a new list of rewards for doing things that I should find joy and accomplishment in just doing for my family.  So bring it on, how do you reward yourself for a job well done?  How do you pat yourself on the back for doing those things that don't give you joy and happiness in the task? 

A tale as old as time

So are you tired of hearing about my car issues?  Well I am equally tired of having them.  Believe it or not we went to a mechanic be for we started we got everything fixed and ready to go and still have excessive car issues, but what can you do with a. Vehicle that has 250,000+ miles?  So until we can sell her, we push forward fixing and patching and moving forward. This week we spend the week parked behind a wonderful family friends car shop.  We are far enough back that we are out of sight and to top it off the car has been in the shop for the Better part of a week.  Oh and did I mention a computer died?  So I am trying to educate and entertain my children with one computer, no water or sewer hookups, and extremely nice neighbors.
I keep reminding myself it could be worse. It could be freezing cold or insanely hot.  We could be paying an arm and a leg for an rv spot that doesnt like kids.  We could be completely out of income and no way to make money.  All of these possibilities are fears.  Instead we fight boredom, go on insanely long walks and try to get as much schoolwork done as possible, and we play games lots of board/card games.  This isnt the picture perfect life I had envisioned but it is everything I wanted in real life HD!