Sadly, I have no pics. to represent this story, but you'll understand why. The day started off with swim lessons starting at 9am. Not a big deal, I had all my kids fed, dressed and loaded in the car and at my
SIL doorstep at 8:30am. The plan was for me to take all 6 children to the YMCA. The oldest 5 children are taking lessons at 9 and 9:30. I was going to take little
O's to the "Y school" (day care), take
Brayden, Ally, Ellie and Dani into their lesson at 9, have
Keegan read, or draw while I swam laps until his 9:30 lesson started. Good plan huh? I knew it would all work out because the kids LOVE the Y and they LOVE swimming lessons.
I jammed all 6 into the van (Phillips Bus), and we rolled into the YMCA. As I was unbuckling everyone and trying to gather 6 swim bags, purse, Y cards etc.... I got out of the van to walk to the other side to grab more stuff when Ellie slammed the door shut. Not a big deal... except the keys, my phone, 3 bags and the Y cards were LOCKED IN the van.
So....here I have 6 children standing in the grass, me with no phone, or Y cards or keys. (Luckily the kids were wearing their suits. I calmly (which I am so proud of myself) walked everyone inside, where EVERYONE STARES at us. I'm thinking it's not because we're so cute, it may be because I am alone with SIX kids: two 5 year
olds, one 4 year old, two 3 year
olds and a 2 year old. :)
Luckily all of the nice ladies at the desk see us almost everyday and they were able to let us use the phone, check us in, give us towels and lots of nice, encouraging smiles. I immediately called Sarah and asked her to bring Kent's spare key to us, no answer. I figured she was in the shower because she had just finished her workout. I called their house phone (Kelly had the day off), no answer. I called Kent to get Kelly's cell phone number, no answer. Sweet!
I calmly left several messages, hung up and figured if nothing else, we would be at the Y for a few extra hours, but I couldn't check the kids into the daycare without their cards. All seven us walked/ran/skipped/hopped and some of us even stripped while entering the pool area.
I just have to mention that in the mornings there are two water exercise classes that take place and ALL the old people grin and smile at us when we walk in (it's very sweet), but today all of their mouths fell open and they laughed out loud when we all traipsed through.
Brayden and Ally immediately took their places on the side of the pool. Dani and Ellie sat in their spots and were ready to go, until they realized they were going to have a BOY teacher. Uh-oh......they did not put more than their toes into the water the ENTIRE 30 minutes. I didn't get angry, I enjoy spending $60 for them to be observers....
Keegan even tried to coax them in and Ally told them, "You don't have to be
scaredy cats because it's a boy! That's silly!" Hopefully they will at least SIT on the steps tomorrow, or maybe even put their face in.
I sat with Owen on my lap (who was a perfect angel) and talked to
Keegan while the first lessons were taking place. When they were done I sent
Keegan to his spot and went to get the 4 children changed and dressed and into the Y school. By the time all of this was done, I had 15 minutes to do some laps, better than nothing, I guess.
After
Keegan's class ended we changed and I realized I didn't pack my tennis shoes, I just had flip flops to work out in. Perfect.
I was in no hurry to get all those kids back into the van. (I failed to mention, Sarah saved the day and dropped the keys off by 9:15, so I could put everyone in the daycare)!
I decided I would do some weights and then head out. So I was doing the circuit and the YMCA man comes over, looks at me with a disgusted look and says, "Don't you have any other shoes?"
I bit my tongue, didn't tell him what I had been through in the last hour and just said, 'I forgot them. I will be out of here in 5 minutes. I am just going to do a couple more machines, I'm not doing any free weights.'
He says, "Yeah, well you can still get hurt." I wanted to be angry, but then I thought, the way things are going I probably will somehow break my toe on one of these machines.....then I was on my way to pick up all of our angels.....
As we were all finally heading out the door my darling son turns to me in the middle of the lobby, where everything echoes (especially when he talks) and screamed, "Mom you are such a LIAR! You just lied to me!!!" He was super angry and I tried not to die from embarrassment, beat my son and/or laugh out loud. Apparently he was a little ticked off because I had told
Keegan that he could sit in the front seat (because all of the other seats were full and it's legal when there's no more room). B thought since he is the oldest (by a whole 3 months) he should be the only one allowed this privilege. He continued to scream and rant all the way to the car, yes he is almost six years old and VERY loud. Needless to say he spent a good portion of the afternoon in time out.....as did I. :)
If you're still reading I know this was super long and tiresome, but it is such good therapy for me and it seems to me, I haven't had a session in quite a while. Next post....happy thoughts....
This is Madge (?) the Moose at the trail head. A local author wrote a book about a moose and a mouse (peaking over the antlers) and the adventure they go on in the city. You can actually follow a trail and find them throughout downtown. I am thinking we need to do this soon, Brayden is very interested in it. For now, they got to stand by it. :)
Hiking up the hill (it really is actually a rough terrain) with Couer d ' Alene resort in the background. It was overcast, but still beautiful.
We chose a huge rock to sit on and enjoy our picnic lunch, it was a tad windy.
And we all made it back in one piece! We had a few falls, no, surprisingly it was NOT me, but the kids got right back up and continued on. I think we will be doing this again. This adventure was a success!
