Escape

What a week. What a week! I swore when I became a mom that I would NOT be one of those parents that kept their children super busy, meanwhile spending most of my days running around all over town in our car. And now I know better. Sometimes, it cannot be helped. When you have three kids, there are just going to be times when you're taking them places. A friend's house. Music lessons. To and from school. It adds up. With Carver in middle school, my afternoons are shot. I pick up Z and Lily and we play on the playground for a while, then I take them home and leave again to go get Carver. I bring Carver home and then throw food at everyone and take whoever to whatever activity they have. And we're not even busy! We're not. We're not signed up for everything under the sun. Plus school meetings and David's evening commitments and the occasional run to the store because we've run out of toilet paper (AGAIN!) and suddenly it's my bedtime. I want my kids to have the best childhood ever, so we won't do anything that takes away from that. Any sport they play or activity they participate in is because they love it. But that means me being the taxi driver. Which is ok. That's the season I've suddenly found myself in. I just wish I could look inside their brains and see their intelligence expanding as they're exposed to all these fabulous opportunities, because my brain is shrinking. I'm losing brain cells by the thousand every... single... hour.

Which is why I'm dreaming of this. London. Just a year and a half until we go. And I need every bit of that time to plan our trip. There's just too, too, too much to do there and we won't have enough time. But what I'm losing in brain cells this year, I hope to regain during our trip across the pond.

photos by Jason Hawkes, with me slandering them with hot pink writing