Monday, July 2, 2012

Beginnings Can Be Exhausting



     Day 1

It's official.  We live in a camper.  Not just any camper.  A camper with no working fridge, shower, stove or toilet.  It is about 25 feet long, 7 feet wide, and its home, for now.  I figured that many of you would be wondering what in the world we are doing, and so, after a dear friend suggested I start a blog about it, here I am.

It is going to be an adventure.  At least that is what I kept telling myself yesterday, over and over and over again.  And by the end of the day, when I was ready to pull out my hair, scream and shout, and stomp and pout, I stopped.  I put a movie on for the kids, and took a deep breath and thought through the day.

The day started off with a several children making mad dashes for the bathroom inside the house.  The door, by the way, is kept closed with a wire type thing wrapped around the door knob and then a nail on the door jam; it is very much not complicated, in any form.  The kids mastered it in one try.  I, on the other hand, took several attempts before I figured it out. 

Next came getting dressed.  Four different bags, in various places, each crammed full of clothes.  Out fits picked out, one particular little girl eager to wear a dress, and a little boy wanting to wear black jeans, even after he was told it would be near 80 degrees outside.  Then we proceeded to breakfast.  I found the stash of paper bowls and plastic spoons, and then set to finding the coolers with the food in it.  By this time daddy arrived home from work, and bags needed to be moved, and pillows and blankets tossed aside, so he could find a place to sleep for the day.  We all ate breakfast together and said "good night" to daddy.  I gathered up the swim suits, and towels, for we planned to go to the beach for part of the day.  This is where the little snafu came in to play.  No shower....I am NOT going to grace the people H-town with the presence of my hairy legs.  I don't care how much of an adventure we are on!  After much deliberation, I decided to try the garden house and a bar of soap on the porch steps.  I was able to go unnoticed for the first leg.  Then I started hearing, "Mooooommmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I am sure all my neighbors put their heads out of their doors for the show after that.  My three kids then proceeded to watch in awe and I finished the other leg.  This was a new experience, all in itself.  But, thankfully, the water was not cold.  I did not need to use much, and it was warm from sitting in the hose in the sun.  I was so giddy about this I wanted to high five some one.  But my kids were too confused by my need to remove the hair from my legs.

Finally we all loaded into the van, and headed to the beach.  This was truly an enjoyable event.  I was able to breathe deep and relax.  There was only one moment when my heart seemed to leap into my throat.  There was a dock the older two As were jumping off of.  The eldest A went to jump, and slipped, and was a millimeter away from smacking his head on the dock before plummeting into the water below. 

I even got into the water for a few minutes.  It took me about 10 minutes to finally get my whole body under.  While there I made sure to slosh water around every inch of my body, realizing it would be the closest thing to a shower I would get for a few days.

The end of the day was more chaotic than I would have ever thought possible.  I had the brilliant idea of bathing my kids in a rub.  The water was cold, but it didn’t seem to bother them at the beach earlier in the day.  They wouldn’t be in it for long.  It all went well; until it was my eldest daughters turn.  Her hair was a mess of tangles.  I groaned as I looked at it.  I had been trying to convince her to let me cut it for weeks.  She just does not take care of it, and it is always a pain to comb.  I asked her again if we could cut it, and she, having a moment of weakness, I guess, said, “Okay.”  I grabbed the scissors and went to work, much to her horror.  She wept, I mean WEPT over her hair.  I had no idea she would be so sad.  She cried for 20 minutes.  But, it was 20 minutes she would have spent crying from me pulling all the tangles out of her hair.  It is a breeze to comb her hair now, praise the LORD! 

Well, by the end of the night, Josh was at work, and I had put in a movie for the kids to watch, and I sat there in a stupor.  What a day.  An adventure for sure!

2 comments:

  1. LOVE IT! So glad you're blogging about it! I miss you so much & it makes it a little better to read about your adventures. How short is Abby's hair now? Is she feeling better about it now?

    Go Pips!! You will rock this. Think Jericho. I can't wait to hear more stories. <3

    Pipi

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    1. It is pretty short. I pulled a "Tangled" (from the movie) and grabbed all her hair in my hand and hacked at it with scissors. I did trim it up afterwards, I bit, but it is pretty butchered. BUT IT IS SO MUCH NICER! I can comb it with ease. PRAISE THE LORD!

      She is a little more happy about it now that we tell her it looks like tinker bell's hair. :)

      LOVE YOU!

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