The Summer of Daddy

The second theme I noticed in our pictures from this summer, was the many different activities that DADDY (Wade) was present for!  This was the most "home" that Wade has probably ever gotten to be since the summer we were first married.  With three years of grad school in the summer, and then a few years of varsity coaching with related duties that kept pulling him away during the summer, he hasn't had much of that "summer off" that people talk about with professions in education.

For a good chunk of this summer, he was home with the kids 3 days a week while I was working.  He frequented the pool with the kids, either at the Y or at his parents' new house (at their development's pool).

He was able to take a whole week truly off with us as we road tripped to Atlanta to visit friends, from there to Chattanooga to visit more friends, back through Atlanta, and to the beach with my family.

Another pair of hands to put on sunscreen, brush teeth, give baths, read books, fix meals, dole out discipline & instructions, answer the kids' 182083387 questions a day, dress, wipe, clean up, even brush & dry Lindley's hair!  It was magnificent!

I know he was around more by the fact that the kids have started mistakenly calling me "daddy" when they're calling me or talking to me!

I know he has loved getting to have more time with his family this summer, and hopefully we'll work to keep a better balance, as best we can, into the school year.

One thing Wade is MUCH better than I am at doing is *teaching* the kids things (go figure lol!).  He is so much more patient, more willing to let them make mistakes and learn from them and not have things be perfect at the end.  He would invite Caden to help him make eggs, while I still cringe at letting the kids help me with anything in the kitchen (I'm trying to let go, I really am!).

He got to do a lot of yard work - putting in a drainage system on one side of our house so we don't get a lake when it rains, clearing out the entire back of our lot that was brush & trees & poison ivy (he amazingly did it without GETTING poison ivy, which is actually incredible for him), staining our deck, spreading pine needles, mowing the lawn (until 2 months of upper 90s killed all the grass), etc.

So along with our kids becoming friends with each other, they also got a summer filled with memories of doing stuff with their dad.

I guess this was a pretty great summer when you sum it up!

The Summer of Sibling Friendship

So, I thought I would write a blog update tonight for the heck of it, and as I looked through pictures from the time since my last post, I noticed two themes emerge, which are both pretty awesome in the life of our family.  So I'm going to do one post on each.

The first theme I noticed was all the pictures of Caden & Lindley together... playing together, hugging, laughing together, exploring the yard and playing whatever games their imaginations came up with...

They really became best friends this summer, and looking back on the pictures helps me see that.

The daily grind still had plenty of fights, squabbles, stolen toys, tears, tantrums, arguing, etc. so it was sometimes harder to notice it on a micro level.

But there were lots of times that I looked out in the backyard and saw them absorbed in their own little world in the sandbox, or driving the battery powered Jeep around the yard in fits & starts, or shooting monsters, or jumping on the trampoline, or putting each other in a giant plastic storage container & closing the lid (had to intervene on that one, considering it was 100 degrees outside, whichever child was inside couldn't unlock the lid to get out, and sometimes the storage container was half-filled with water!).

We explored places that were new to them, like Wade's alma mater, Covenant College, on Lookout Mountain, GA.  They ran shrieking through the halls of his old classroom buildings, and got a little too close to the edge of some stone overlooks with 20-30 foot drops on the other side.

We went to the beach twice - once at the beginning of May with just us 4, and once at the end of July with my dad & sister + crew.  They loved digging in the sand together, playing in the tide pools together, asking for snacks always.  (They also loved playing with their cousins, Madelyn & Riley!)

For the 4th of July, we continued our tradition of visiting mom's grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery.  They asked who was buried in all the other graves, and were we going to dig mom up, and is she ever coming back, and why is she buried here, and where will they be buried.  They would not be still to get a good picture, so the mood was not super peaceful as I barked at them to stop pushing each other and stand still and smile and no not like that and ok Caden's smiling now Lindley smile! (and then Caden looks away) over and over again.

Caden was sometimes especially sweet to "Ninley" as he calls her - hugging her when she was upset, telling her it was ok, reading books or playing on the iPad together, sharing toys and trying to work out squabbles or teach her things.

And then there were those many times when their antics together - while great for sibling bonding - were just a WEE bit frustrating for mom... when they were so wrapped up in silly giggles that they would not listen to a word I said, when they ran rampant through grocery stores laughing and shouting nonsense at each other, when bath time turned into splash & kick time, when they would disappear into the garage and play with all the controls in our parked cars, or in the backyard dump sand in each other's hair.

All in all, though, I can look back on this summer of 2015 as a great beginning to their hopefully lifelong close friendship - always having each other's back and sharing lots of memories, laughs & hugs!