Scrub Days.

Some days, all my best laid plans and ideas for the day just. aren't. working. Getting little minds and hands corralled into any activity is like trying to herd drunken cats. Or juggle them. It's difficult.

I used to end these days crying after everyone was asleep, in my favorite "comfort" pajamas over a carton of vanilla greek yogurt, asking my cat questions like: "Why is this so hard? Why can't I get them to follow this awesome plan? Am I failing all my kids completely? Why do I SUCK?! Do you even care?"

Then, on one of Those Days, I noticed something. I'd stuck everyone in the car and released them into a big park with a field, in effort to not yell at anyone harshly out of frustration. (Don't pretend now. We all do that sometimes. ;oP ) They meandered into a giant pavilion with a sandpit and so immersed their minds in play and their toes in sand that they stayed there happily for 3 full hours. It struck me that this is probably what they needed all along.

So now, when a day's just not working, I scrub all plans. Done. There's now nothing on the docket, except sitting and waiting for the day to tell us what needs to happen for us all to find our balance again. The answer always presents itself, eventually, and it's usually the youngest of us that discovers the truth first. (More often than not, if you let the youngest member of the family set the barometer for the day, things are bound to be more successful all around, in my experience, which sort of flies in the face of conventional wisdom I suppose.)

Sometimes, the solution is a day doing nothing but reading in bed together. Sometimes, we have an impromptu trip to the park. Often, it's building elaborate tents and tunnels with quilts and chairs and tables, and pretending until people fall asleep under a hideout or indoor makeshift hammock. Another favorite go-to is gross motor movement activities like tree climbing or building dams in streams with rocks or scaling giant wood chip mounds. Almost invariably, sour moods are put right again, tempers stop flaring and the pointless urgency of the atmosphere drains lazily out of the day like water out of a long, luxurious bath.

Grace and Lark's bear cave

Sometimes, we simply toss pillows in the floor and watch movies together while eating popcorn (everyone gets their OWN bowl.) If we need to run out and grab snacks just to get through that day, so be it. (And who says anyone needs matching shoes anyway? There are days for nice outfits and matching shoes, and then there are days to celebrate the hilarity of being a little ridiculous!)

Most importantly, there's no pushing through or powering ahead when everyone's got a bad case of "the stupids" (you know, the days when every instruction is met with a blank stare), or the grumpies, or when the whole family is just restless in general. There's only stopping and trying to find our bliss on Scrub days. And that's OK.

It's OK because Scrub Days are about finding something our routine made us leave behind. Relationship. Connection. Alone time. Fantasy. Imagination. Our inner monkey. When we give ourselves time to honor the part inside us that's screaming for air and sustenance, so that we can become balanced people again. Then we can move forward and think about words like "accomplishment" and "rhythm" and "planning".

 All work and no play makes Jane a dull/grouchy/spaced out/whiny/incomplete girl. So instead pecking away at the impossible, we relax and let our Muses carry us effortlessly to where we needed to go in the first place. Does it look indulgent and lazy to others? Sure. Who cares! We know it's wise. We know it works. And that's really all that matters.

Getting lost in wonderland.

Our favorite hot weather activities

We live in a part of the world that translates the word Summer into "burning, oppressive cauldron of hellish doom". Least that paints a charming, lazy picture in your mind, let me assure you: the sun here can be doggedly miserable.

Early last week, we were getting up early and hitting the blueberry fields before noon rolled around and sweat started trickling freely down our backs, and that was cool. We could slide the canoe into the water on the weekend and go fishing in the shade before our skin started to sizzle, and that was reasonable. But this past little while, the afternoons have been around 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and the heat gauge from our oven thermometer informed us sagely that unless we preferred life at a crispy 200 F inside the car, we'd better stay OUT.

So, we've done things indoors. It's been fun inventing ways to not go insane, and I mean that with no sarcasm. Like a snow day, with much, much, MUCH less snow.


One day, we invented a massive "playing doctor" drama, complete with nametags, X rays and a "cast".

The process went something like:

1. Cut old National Geographics into strips. Also cut fabric into looooong strips. Print off most accurate-looking version of a leg-break that matches your pretend scenario. (Ours was a woman walking her dogs and slipping on a banana peel on the sidewalk.)
2. Invent doctor personas. Mirth and Lark went with Bones and House, MD.
3. Enact banana slippage, hopefully without hurting yourself, and be forced to drink about a gallon of "precautionary antibiotics", aka, water with Rescue Remedy in it.
4. Have cloth wound around foot as a protective layer, and then watch "Drs" apply glue-soggy strips on top to form a cast.
5. Endure several episodes of Walking with Cavemen while you wait for it to dry. (If we ever do it again, we'll be rustling up a plastic babydoll with no household responsibilities or toilet needs. )

We also had good times with cheap masking tape. There were several murals and an obstacle course, and the play lasted for an afternoon and an evening until bedtime. (Lark decided a helmet was needed for the obstacle races, "just in case".) I love that masking tape comes off hardwoods without a hitch, and it all comes up in about 4 minutes. Can't beat that for $3.

We also baked cookies in the car. I kid not. They were all the way done after 2.5 hours. (I used a gluten free mix with coconut oil, but I doubt that would effect the results much). The girls were amused, and I was pretty impressed, as well.

about halfway through baking process.

Ding Dong Ditching Day.

One of my current happy places online is Poppies at Play, and, at her behest, I took my children ding dong ditching this afternoon. In my defense, she made a REALLY compelling case.  We used GF brownies with coconut oil instead of ding dongs. Since we only bothered our friends, I figured we'd better not hasten anyone's early heart attack. XOP The same generous blog also offers the free printable labels pictured below.

Mirth made the brownies herself, and everyone suffered politely through a "test brownie" apiece before she caved and said, "I think I did something wrong. These are NASTY!" {cough, choke} Indeed, they were. We figured out that estimation in a baking recipe makes for very funny texture, and tried again aiming for precision with much better success.

We had a blast. Mirth and Lark decided that disguises were kind of a must.

So, a wonderful week of family vacation is over. If any of you are parents, you'll know I use the word "vacation" really recklessly.

Originally, we'd planned to go to some themed park, but on examining gas costs, time spent in car, hassle, we decided it was the better part of wisdom (is there an ugly, worse part of wisdom? That colloquialism always confuses me..."Hey, there, Bill, looks like you got the crappy half of wisdom. Better luck next time, old boy!" No sense.) to stay at home.

Almighty Pinterest has deemed this the "stay-cation". I got a tick or two more stupid just typing that out.

So we stayed at home. For two days, my shiny-exciting-things-loving self really had a tough time with it, I won't lie. I wanted marvels and the novel. Instead, I got a novel and some marvel comics on my own crumb-filled couch. Sadness ensued.

After I had my pity-party (yes, I, the mama had the worst pity party, even though the decision was self imposed. There's no accounting for feelings, sometimes.), I started really enjoying my family and our time together.

We had an epic water balloon fight, during which I may have nailed my oldest daughter just a touch too hard with a water balloon filled with green water. I was going to feel guilty, but then surmised that a woman has to grab a harmless chuckle where she can. And since Oldest Spawn deemed it "The best water war EVER!!", I didn't feel too badly. For a glorious, sneaky, water-drenched 20 minutes, I felt like an eight year old again, tearing around the yard whooping like a banshee, the sun slapping my skin and making it red, grass clippings sticking randomly to my wet (ghostly white) legs.

A big first was taking the girls fishing for the first time. "It'll be great!" Nafe said. "You can drive one motor raft and I'll drive the other." Turns out I'm a slow learner on the water, and ended up driving in circles for a while, until I finally got the hang of it: left to go right, right to go left, with the smelly old Tananka motor gurgling and sputtering and chortling behind me. We caught one fish, with a little whining and bickering, while Electra played with her feet in my lap and ...

...and decided to call it a day after an hour or two, at which point dark clouds had started to blow in over the back stream where we'd dropped our lines in. It immediately dropped 20 degrees or so cooler which was a welcome sensation from the lazy heat. And then, halfway down the river, it started to sprinkle. Nafe tossed a sheepish "Isn't this FUN?" grin over his shoulder. It *was* fun. It was overcast and cool and the water was making ripples and waves from the breeze, and the trees coating the curves of the mountains were a luscious, glorious silvery green. Magic. It seemed like a good time to loosen up and have a little fun with my newfound steering skills, and Lark and Grace burst into mad giggles as we did donuts on the waves.

Then, it started raining harder, and I felt my eyebrows furrow. About the time the motor coughed out from too much gas (oops), the bottom fell out of the sky. Torrential sheets of water is the only sufficient way to describe what started dumping from the clouds onto our bodies. And the thunder started rolling. The miserable hilarity of my children curled up in fetal positions to keep the rain off their faces while our weenie little motors tried to fight back to the dock against the waves had me laughing. Until I realized I'd have to drive all the way back home in a sopping, dripping sundress all the way home once we (read: Nafe) got the rafts deflated and folded.

So the kids were toweled off in the bathroom and changed into an odd assortment clothes we had stashed away in the care for a rainy day, and I was standing outside the car with them buckled in, with random strangers from the dock standing around. I could NOT drench my car that way. No sir. My car already smells like the inside of a daycare's laundry basket. So I did what any reasonable, still-carrying-a-post-baby tire woman would do. I stripped down to my underwear and bra and drove home half naked. Right there in front of God and everybody.

The kids came home, and Nafe taught the big girls how to clean, cook and eat a fish third world style: eyeballs, brains, roe and all. And mama threw in a little splash of backwater AL, and demonstrated how to eat the crispy fins and tail. They had huge fun with it, and ate the poor little fish down to a skeleton.

We also baked bread, picked blackberries around the house, went to a birthday party, watched Mythbusters and did whatever the hell we wanted to whenever the hell we wanted to. And it was *dreamy*.

Now, life goes on. I think I'll let the children in the house (I kicked them out for the morning). They're now at the front door, back door and a window, pounding and pawing at the glass like little hungry zombies with sunhats on. "Juice!! Juuuuuuice...." Life goes on.