31 Days: Groove Blockers

 

I know you're wondering how on earth I could title a post Groove Blockers and then put this picture of my beautiful children at the top of it! Surely I would never group my own precious children into a category that I would dare say are the reasons that I often struggle to be an open, honest and regular blogger. Surely, Shirley! My next post will be this ridiculous laptop that randomly selects everything on the screen and causes me to lose an entire post right as I'm ready to hit publish...I digress!

The Wades have had an interesting year and a half or so. 20 months ago Cpt returned from his first tour in Iraq. 16 months ago we moved from El Paso, TX where we had lived for a little over 3 years to Lawton, OK where we knew we'd only be for 6 months. 10 months ago we sort of moved to our current location in central TX. I say sort of because Cpt continued living in OK for 6 additional weeks after we relocated here so F6 could start the second semester of school here. Since we've been in central TX, Cpt lived here full time for about 2.5 months before setting up residence in the sandbox again! We've just found out that his current stay is going to be shorter than we originally anticipated! Praise Jesus!

Obviously it's been a challenging time in our lives and I wouldn't wish this chaos on my worst enemy. The days of being a single mother have been long and difficult! I thought as the kids got older these separations would be easier because they would be in better stages of life. I could never have been so wrong, nor could I have imagined how much craziness a certain cute as a button 2 year old girl would add to our lives. I survived terrible 2's with the boys, but nothing could've prepared me for her shenanigans. Wow! She has done things the boys never even dreamed about in their wildest and most rebellious dreams. Think bright pink nail polish all over granite counters and ceramic tile and grout! Think whole bins of clothes emptied out for no apparent reason within moments of the nail polish incident! Think of  a child who already knows exactly what she can do to drive her brothers absolutely nuts. Remember, she's cute, really cute, though, and she's only a 3rd one-third of the equation! The other two-thirds bring their own bags of wild to the party.

Needless to say, there are nights when all I want to do, and usually choose to do, is sit and watch mindless movies on LMN to enjoy those quiet hours after the little people are all snug in their beds. It's hard to think of much worthwhile to put to words on the screen when I'm emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted from attempting to meet the needs and referee the brawls of the 6 and under crowd. Do people really want to read about 2 kids who fight over who is going to drive the gator or how some days my best parenting tactic is to tell the boys to do whatever it takes to keep their sister from screaming? Do you care that the most stressful moments of my day are those I spend feverishly looking for the infamous and always misplaced dolly that is necessary for a peaceful night of sleep?

These are the days of my life and those of the children with whom I get to spend them. To find my groove again, my words on the screen need to be real and true to the life that we live. The good. The bad. The ugly. All are what our memories of these tough phases of our lives are made of. We may not laugh so much now or in the middle of the chaos, but one day many of the things put to blog will be laughable. No time like the present to prepare for future laughter, right!

2 days down...