A week at the beach....it use to sound so blissful. so relaxing. so refreshing. when i said or thought the word beach, other words like, tanning, reading, sleeping, lounging, bikinis, spa trips....those words came to mind. not so much anymore. there are new words now, such as, life guard, drill sargent, overprotective mother, 30+ sunblock, nap times, lack of sleep, swim wear that children can't tear off of me as they claw their way up my body.....yep, times have changed.
this was our first year to go as a family of six. i really felt like adding one more wouldn't be too different. i mean, we already had 3 little ones, what's one more, right? throw her in the mix, let's move on! but no, one more makes a big difference. our car was filled to the gills with kid "stuff". so much so, that heath and i had to leave behind our most cherished piece of luggage for these types of trips. our pillows. yes, we didn't have room for them, actually, we didn't want to make room for them. we wanted to pack as lightly as possible. without even putting a single item in the car, we already were starting with four car seats! yep, four car seats. i've actually been asked by a girl at the starbucks drive-thru if i run a daycare service. she'd seen the inside of my car and assumed. really?....
as soon as we entered the condo, echo decided that she was going to become a full time walker. she walked and walked and walked. it was so funny as we unloaded all of our suitcases to have this fourth little head bobbing around with the others as she walked around with them. it was like she'd been holding it in all this time and it came out as soon as we got to the beach. she felt the freedom of vacation, i guess.
the week went by way too quickly. the kids loved the beach, heath and i were literally pulling children out of the waves, left and right. i seriously felt like i had 40 kids at some moments. my heart was pounding out there and all i could think was, "who trusted me with these kids?" do you ever feel like that? don't you ask yourself, "i have HOW MUCH responsibility now?!" it makes me laugh and cry at the same time.
there is still something that i'm dealing with right now. it's a new thing. i'm starting to see echo as my own. of course. i don't see any differences in her than my others most of the time. or, at least i don't think about it. every once in a while, we'll get asked some questions by curious people, "where did you get your daughter", "where is she from", "is she yours also", "are all of these children yours". one day at the pool, a little 6 year old boy came over and was asking a ton of questions about her. "why did she look different", "is she yours too", "where did you get her", "she has really chubby cheeks".....he was only 6, but i wanted to body slam him. terrible right? i should have seized the moment and told him all about my calling, my love for the Lord, my desires to help a child....but mother bear came out instead. i wanted to claw him. why was he looking at her differently? why was he asking so many questions? couldn't he leave well enough alone? i'm not sure why it bothered me so much, but it did. it cut.
there is a really big part of me that is so proud of her differences, her uniqueness, her own story. but there is another part, deep down in me that wants to protect her and my other children from these questions. i'm going to have to learn to deal with them. i signed up for this, i know that it was my choice. i will face it head on and i'm okay with it but i need to figure out what i need to say to each question. a standard answer? a new and different answer to each question? maybe every once in a while i'll look puzzled and say, what do you mean? they are all just alike. also, i'm starting to see that people ask questions about echo and there are times that they don't say hello to the other three tiny faces staring up at them. these are strangers and, of course, wouldn't understand my other three children and their desire to be seen and heard. but, it's something i've noticed.
there are a lot of things that i will learn from all of this. just like we learn from each of our children on a daily basis. don't you just love the lessons you learn from your children. it's funny, isn't it? the mirrors that they throw up? i've been blinded by those mirrors a times. reese is her mother's daughter and she is usually the first to throw up that mirror. scary.
so now that we are back from vacation, we are trying to pull it all together again. heath and i have sat down with our calendars and lined up this week's events. the days are numbered and we have so much to do. we certainly didn't have time for a beach trip. but we took the time. i would say that we have pictures to look back on the great memories, but, we were seriously so busy that we hardly took time for pictures. i guess we'll have to explain to our children one day that this vacation hit us up side the head like a 2X4 and we couldn't even see straight. it's the truth. the first of many crazy and wild adventures.
i need a vacation.
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