Some Nights and Days

There are some nights when you need to get the kids in bed early and curl up with a gigantic mug of tea and a bar of chocolate (and maybe some marshmallows--if I'm being honest) to watch Great British Baking Show and listen to the wind roar past the RV and your next door neighbor's awesome new wind chimes tolling faintly like far away church bells. You need the kids in bed early because they've been total hooligans and the two year old has learned how to hum Darth Vader's theme song which adds a certain level of doom to the entire day.

One of my hooligans

Then there are other nights when you let your sons stay up late to watch the TN basketball game, and then are surprised by a phone call from your husband (who was out of town) only to find out that he's calling not to talk to you...but to your nine year old. So that they can commiserate over their inability to breathe and the ulcers that are rapidly developing in their stressed out stomach linings. It's hard to be a TN Vols fan.

This was not the kid getting ulcers.

Then there are other nights where you work hard until 930 and reward yourself with a hard earned (and very large) cup of tea only to promptly spill the steaming tea all over yourself and three layers of bedding. You prepare yourself for a very long day of laundry the next day.

Cat snuggles make everything better...
even school work.

Then there are nights when you're positive you keep hearing a kid call your name. You're even pretty sure you know which kid it is (Bruiser--it's always Bruiser). But it turns out, it's only a weird squeak in the washing machine. Then you go to make your tea and are positive (absolutely positive) that you put the tea bag in but end up with only a cup of hot water. It's also on those nights that the no-see-'ems make it into the RV by the horde. And where you find yourself startled by the shadow of a tiger creeping around a corner only to remember the motion activated footlights at strategic intervals around the RV that make your house cats look like jungle beasts.

***

There are some days when the rain comes down in sheets, sounding like a snare drum on the roof of the RV. You build a blanket fort and snuggle with books and try to keep the two year old from drawing on everything with marker. You have the time to do your hair in a fishtail braid, but wreck said braid the fifth time you fix the twins' fort. The dog collapses into a shuddering heap of terror and you spend most of your morning trying to get him to stop shaking in between fixing the tent and re-braiding your hair.

Reading that great literary classic, Dog-Man.

Then there are days you pile the kids in the car and drive to the beach to go walk the dog and get a change of scenery. You bring your book with you (because it's due the next day), and you underestimate how many times you are going to have to keep your five year old from breaking his neck and your two year old from soaking herself through.

Twinkle likes to share her hermit crabs.

There are other days when you make a double batch of cookies, baking them painstakingly, one cookie sheet at a time in your tiny oven while putting the napless two year old back in bed twelve times and letting the nine year old finish school with the other kids. In your defense, you're just preparing him for his future as a teacher. Although his teaching tactics (Tiny! Smack yourself in the face! You're not paying attention!) may not fly in the real world. Your afternoon is spent delivering cookies, bopping around various libraries, and meeting someone, who asks what your long term plan for housing is. Because most people assume you'd have to be crazy or desperate to keep five kids, a dog and two cats in an RV for any extended amount of time. You may be both, but it seems to be working.

RV wall art...because many things are over reactions,
and there's rarely time for That Kind of Nonsense.

There are days when you run out of coffee and end up falling asleep at 930 in the middle of the twins' reading lesson. You acknowledge that you have a problem, and buy yourself a coffee on the way to the commissary to buy more coffee...as you're pretty sure you can't survive the commissary with five kids on no coffee.

***

There are good days, and there are bad. There are quiet nights, and ones with more excitement. There is grace, and there is growth, and there is beauty (if we are willing to look for it), and there are definitely hard spots but also ones that make us laugh. You will discover new things about yourself and your children and your husband. You might also discover new things about God. This latter one will be the part that matters most.

Not beach walk reading, but the best book I've read in a while.
Also, the best long suffering beast there.

This time is so short. A year here, and then a year there. The kids grow up so quickly. The dog gets a few more white whiskers around his snout. The wrinkles on my forehead get a little deeper from continually making faces at the Man. My long term plan has nothing to do with an RV. My long term plan is eternity. But I don't mind living in an RV for a little while along the way.