F.A.M.I.L.Y. Vacation

Guess who's back, back again
Mama's back, tell a friend
Guess who's back Guess who's back
Guess who's back Guess who's back
Oh my stars, what a refreshing tune.
Well HELLO FRIENDS! Long time no blog.
First of all, thank YOU for your prayers.
We just got back from our beach vacation and had such a  great time!
It was our first visit to the little state of Rhode Island, and I must say, we loved it.
As you may have already noted, I was not eaten by a shark.

I did think that I saw a shark lurking in the waters at one point, but it turned out to be a sailboat.

I'm sure you can only imagine what an anxiety ridden moment that was.
We spent quite a bit of our time away at the beach, and I realized very quickly that avoiding the water based on my fears was a foolish notion. You can't just sit on the beach without getting in. It's way too hot and besides that, you need a sand rinse every now and then.
So I came up with a plan.
I decided that I would go in the water, but instead of keeping to myself, I would sort of tread water near others who would make a heartier meal than I.
Call it Weight Profiling. Call it cruelty if you will, but this was strictly a game of survival.
Look.. don't let the stick figure thing fool you.
 I'm more of a Lane Bryant than a Diane Lane, ya hear?
I'm working on that though. Well...I didn't work on it during vacation, unless you consider the strain of lifting a half pound hamburger towards my jaws to be legit excercise.
But I am working on it, and I even went down a size!!!! YAY!

That's SOME work ethic right there.

When I was in the water, however, I did make it my goal to find others who appeared more satisfying and delicious than myself and strategically placed myself near them. I figured I could make a swift getaway while they were being eaten, which in no way deems me a selfish or heartless person.

That is MESSED up.

The first time I did this, it was not my original intention. I was hanging on to my kids' boogie board, floating along near some other swimmers.
I was actually feeling rather liberated. I was filled with joy at how fun and relaxing it was to simply bob along in God's great ocean. I could hardly contain myself!
I saw a woman bobbing along near me, and thought since I was in such a great mood, I'd strike up a conversation!

I'd say that on a scale of 1 through 10,  her interest in having a conversation was not even on the scale.
Well, maybe it was a one.

No it wasn't. It wasn't even a one.
It was a little embarrassing.
But then I imagined her as a leg of chicken, and my shame dissipated. I continued to swim near her for survival purposes.

Some people are just really not friendly, are they.
There was this one lady I ran into at a different beach. Ironically, she was also of sizable proportion, and I found myself swimming calmly within her vacinity. She stood up in the water and looked at me and said loudly, "Are there any jellyfish out here? There were some in Weekapaug."
"A week ago?" I asked, not understanding, because, as a mere tourist I'd never heard of "Weekapaug" before.
"WEEKAPAUG!!!!" she shouted, visibly irritated. She glared at me and slowly turned in the other direction.

That was the end of that conversation.
 I silently bobbed around in the water, waiting for a shark to come and carry her away.
One thing I was reminded of on our trip is that our outlook on things really can  determine our attitude.
Let me explain.
As you may well know, traveling with little children is not exactly what one might call "relaxing". I mean, your life is no longer your own.
You may want to speed on over to your travel destination with minimal stopping, but say goodbye to that idea when you drive somewhere with the little guys.
You know the drill.
Peeing, pooping, vomiting, hunger, strong bouts of thirst, the compulsive urge to walk around - all of these things must happen NOW, often simultaneously, for the carbound child.
These things are a hinderance to the determined parent.
Steering wheel grippage, road rage, red faced angry demands for silence, driving in a heightened state of annoyance, day sweats - all of these things may happen NOW, often simultaneously, for the carbound adult.

You just want to GET THERE. ASAP. In one piece, all of you.
"But life is not about the destination! It's about the journey!" the wind seems to sing as it blows merrily through the trees on the sides of the freeway. "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass! It's about dancing in the rain!"

In response to this gentle reminder, you tell the wind to shut the hell up, you put the pedal to the medal and let that bird fly high!!!!
But could it be there's something that you're missing?
Dan and I were plagued by these feelings at the start of our trip, particularly during our first few outings after we'd reached our rental house.
Our first big outing was to Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.
This place is really interesting and fun, but after the first hour , I was hit with the most intense form of lethargy that you can possibly imagine.
I used to have much more energy than this..and it's not just because I weighed less.
Children seem to move at two speeds: painstaking snails crawl and hyperactive hummingbird.
Each pace is exhausting, so pick your poison.

Do you know how hard it is to draw a blur? Super hard.

It comes out of nowhere, this feeling of extreme exhaustion. If given the chance, I would have no problem at all laying down right there on the spot and falling asleep.
In fact, I actually have an incredibly worthwhile idea to offer the Board of Trustees at Mystic Seaport: I would like to suggest the availability of Spontaneous Nap Cots at your beautiful location.
Here's how it works.
You will station Nap Cot Carriers all around your fine seaport.

 These are people who are standing around, holding cots in an alert manner, on the lookout for tired people the way lifegaurds watch for drowning people at the beach.
When they see a person who is exhausted, they spring into action and run over to them with the cot and a light blanket (heavier blankets shall be available during the cooler season).
The person does not need to pay a fee or leave a tip. They don't even need to say anything. They simply collapse onto the cot and fall into a peaceful sleep. Then the Nap Cot Personel will transfer them to a Nap Cot Station, located somewhere near the seaport shore (but not too close). It should be a breezy location where someone is lightly playing a mandolin or maybe a pan flute.

How I wish the Nap Cot had been available during our Mystic Seaport visit!
After leaving, Dan and I made one of the best decisions of our lives. We chose to scratch our itinerary for the rest of the week and do the following things instead:

1. Go to the beach
2. Eat food
3. Go to the beach
4. Eat food
5. Go to the beach
6. Eat food.

And so on and so forth.
Yay!!! Now we get to relax!!
 This is what we told ourselves. Because we like to live in a pretend world.
We forgot the whole part about lugging 50 pounds of beach neccessities through the hot sand, keeping the baby happy on the beach, keeping the kids from drowning, running little ones to the bathroom over and over and over, and me nursing the baby on the beach (ALWAYS a treat. ALWAYS). We forgot that the weather may not be completely perfect .. that cloudiness and wind and flying sand would maaaaybe put a damper on some of our beach time.

On the third trip to the beach, I was sitting under the beach umbrella nursing Miabelle for the millionth time, when I started to feel very, very sorry for myself.
Why was I stuck in the shade under this umbrella? Why was I having to sit there and nurse the baby for such a loooong stretch of tiiiiime???
Oh yes, poor me! Here I am suffering on a pristine BEACH under an UMBRELLA that some cabana boy pounded into the sand for us, two doors down from where Taylor Swift just bought a 17 million dollar house in May. Oh WAAAAH, my life is so difficult!!!! Oh how I suffer!!!! Oh if only the Hand of God could reach down and lessen my burdens!!

It's lame, I know, but I was truly sitting there feeling so put out...and I felt that dangerous feeling within me. The feeling you get when you know you're either about to destroy something with your bad attitude or you're going to change your attitude and make the best of it. And in that moment, by the grace of God, I sincerely prayed "God, I just keep seeing this as a miserable experience. How do YOU want me to see it?"
And then ya know what? He opened my sad little ungrateful eyes, because at precisely that moment, I was shaken out of my own self pity by the sound of my kids laughing.

They were running towards the water where Dan was standing, shouting and giggling and squealing for joy with their buckets and shovels in their hands, and as I watched them, the thought occurred to me: My kids are HAPPY. They're having FUN. This vacation is not just about you, oh poor downtrodden one. This is a FAMILY vacation.
Let me rephrase that: it was a F.A.M.I.L.Y. vacation.
You've heard that before, right? Forget About Me, I Love You.
It's the title of a song by Father Stan Fortuna, CFR. Do you know this guy?
If you ever went to a Steubenville retreat, you probably do.
 He's the priest that raps and plays jazz music.He used to have cornrows in his hair. He can break down church teaching and papal documents to just about anybody, and he does it all in Bronx ebonics.


Nailed it? LOL. I tried, Fr Stan. But after 20 minutes, I gave up.

You look up the word "cool" on wikipedia (yes, wikipedia. Times have changed) and you see Fr Stan's face smiling back at you.
This man is a priest forever LIKE A BOSS.

When I was younger, I had a very, very embarrassing obsession with Fr Stan and the friars in his community.
Have you ever gone through a weird phase? I mean like where people see you from a distance and they mutter, "Oh damn... here she comes."

 This was a time in my life that I wish I could erase, but basically it reached a real low point when I began wearing a grey hoody everywhere and started sleeping on my bedroom floor....like a friar.
Like a man.
I mean, don't misunderstand...I did not want to be a man. I just thought the friars were cool and I wanted to be around them. Like ..ALL. THE .TIME.
There were lots of people from their own neck of the woods that would do this, but they at least lived close by. I lived about 400 miles away.
 There's no excuse for this. Go home.
I would call them, write to them, and visit. I went to more than my fair share of Youth 2000 retreats. I became what I believe is known as a "friar groupie" which is not a title that anyone should be proud of.
Eventually I got a life and moved on... but the scars are there, people.
Anyway. Fr Stan's song. F.A.M.I.L.Y. - Forget About Me, I Love You.
As I was sitting there on the beach, I remembered that. And I remembered why we were doing this vacation to begin with..to create some fun memories with the kids and to have a good time. And that was happening!

Chaste Pam.

No matter how I FELT in the moment - that life wasn't fair because I wasn't prancing along the waters edge like a chaste Pam Anderson, or bobbing along in the waves beside my "tastier option" peoples - Dan and the kids were enjoying themselves.
F.A.M.I.L.Y., baby.
Some people out there will read that and think, "You are so OPPRESSED. All those little kids and a BABY...you're not FREE."
I disagree with you.
I'm free-er than you think.
Freedom isn't simply a feeling. It also doesn't consist in doing whatever I want, whenever I want. Freedom consists in doing what I ought to do...that's when I'm really free. True freedom comes from God, from doing His will in your own life, whatever that may be.
Yeah, maybe I'd feel more relaxed if I was living some really carefree life. But just because something feels relaxing, that doesn't make it freedom.
There's plenty of grown men out there who sit around on their porch steps all day drinking a brew instead of going to work..they feel mighty relaxed.
But they ain't free.
When I put others first, I am free. When I give a sincere gift of self, I become free... and I find myself. My REAL self.
Being a wife to my husband and a mother to all of my children has helped me to see who I really am.
In fact, I have never been more free than I am right now.
Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Luke 9:23-24 NAB
When I put myself at the center of everything, I feel empty and alone.
In my own experience, when I deny myself, it doesn't simply end in death.  In the end, even if it takes awhile, I find joy.
Serving is not just about dying. Christianity is not just about dying.
 It's about dying and rising again, being made new, being whole...that's what Jesus did. And when you're following Him and dying to yourself, He will make you whole, too.
So the funny thing is, when I finally realized that I needed to do a little F.A.M.I.L.Y., my day got awesome.

Instead of trying to get the baby to go to sleep for the millionth failed time and throwing confetti at my own pity party, I scooped her up, grabbed my chair, my nursing cover and headed down to the water with everyone else... and we ended up having a blast.
That snail's paced crawl that kids do - whether through walking slower than us, or wanting to nurse an afternoon away - can be torture, but it can also slow us down in a much needed way.
We went to the beach every day and ate lots of delicious food.
We found an ice cream stand that we LOVED.
We spent alot of time digging in the sand and one day we made a big sand castle with the kids.
Dan and I took turns going in the water.
We bought lobsters and made them at the house (delicious yet slightly traumatic).
We played a few board games.
We had some great laughs...one afternoon JP and Lucie decided to rename Jude. They called him Henry Wilkin for the rest of the day. It was weird and we didn't understand why but it was pretty funny anyway.
I will add that one day when it was raining, we visited a place called Smith's Castle. It's not really a castle, but a historical home in Rhode Island.
While touring the home, our guide brought us into the master bedroom and showed us something which I can only decribe as an adult potty chair.
Yes. A potty chair. For adults.
For some reason, which I can only imagine to be some sort of sick Victorian punishment, the chair was placed in full view of the bed. Like if you were in the bed, you now had a front row seat to the most terrible show on earth.
The cushion was removable. You were to sit on the chair, which was placed above the chamber pot, and do the deed.

As I stared at the chair with my jaw hanging open, I could only reflect on one thing and that is the IRONY of men not wanting to go anywhere near their laboring wives during childbirth, yet having no problem dropping the kids off at the pool with their wife present in the room, watching from the bed..
WHAT MADE YOU THINK THAT WAS OKAY, SIRS?!
How did you not feel like a total insensitive creep when you mosied on over to the chair at night for the sole purpose of doing that??
Just a question. PS If anyone could help me out with that, I'd appreciate it.
All in all, we had a great time on our vacation.
A little dying, and alot of being made new.

PS(S) During the writing of this blog post alone, I have had to learn the  lesson of dying to myself at least 100 more times. And I failed probably 99 times. But guess what? Now I'm all done and I have JOY. So woohoo for that!