Mcdonalds

I wrote this during our second week in Cheyenne and never posted it.  Things calmed down and life became normal shortly after- put I post it so I will remember- and not judge in the future.......

Here are some lessons I've learned from our month stay in Cheyenne.......

1.You end up paying a lot more attention to sidewalks when you have an umbrella stroller.  Those cheap little wheels don't cut it on more than a skating rink.

3. You can only eat fastfood so many times before you HATE fastfood.

 2. Don't Judge.

 There I was, we bought a yogurt parfet that sat uneaten because it was the only item I thought I could stomach after weeks of fast food.  I wasn't hungry, but I had to buy something so the kids could play on the play place.  Quinn was strapped in the stroller with a bag of chips and cookies, anything she wanted as long as she would sit still and I could check mail, pay bills, and mindlessly surf the internet.  I ignored the girls climbing up the slide, and zoned out.  I looked like a perfectly awful mother. If I had seen myself and my brood, l'd have judged.
Baby eating cookies for lunch, tisk.
Ignoring children to play on the computer, completely detached.  Those poor children,  how are they going to turn out?
No one would ever have guessed that for the past 3.5 weeks I've spent every waking moment with my kids.  Reading, drawing, teaching, cooking for them, cleaning them, feeding them.  There is an occasional break when Quinn is napping and they are engulfed in fairyland for a few minutes.  I may get a solid 15 minutes without someone crying for me, or yelling at a sister.  So when I escape to Mcdonalds, and can feed the baby cookies while the big girls disappear into big plastic tunnels, and I stare at my ipad mindlessly for 30 minutes, I hope not too many people are judging me too harshly.

       Maybe I'm being dramatic, or putting to much pressure on myself.  We have certain rules at our house to keep the peace and a vague level of cleanliness.  I try to let the kids work out their own fights if they can, and learn from natural consequences on things like shoes worn outside (one bee sting on the bare foot for Alex is all it took to learn that one last year.)
      On the road, certain rules lax, but when visiting and staying with people, suddenly the rules multiply 10 fold.  The old standard of cleanliness can't cut it, neither can I let them scream at each other for 10 minutes while working out a dress up wardrobe issue.  The expensive landscaping can't be picked for salads, and we shouldn't strip the tree branches of leaves.  Suddenly we are are feeling stifled, parents are putting on pretenses and kids are suffocating for freedom, their own space.  They are trying (or not) to stand up to an impossible standard of childhood, and I to one of parenting.
    So here is the hope that I get this figured out, that the kids learn the rules and start to obey and I can calm down and shake off the stares from the other mom's while my baby plays in that mud puddle and the older girls play daredevil on the playground.  I'm all helicoptered out- if these kids are going to survive their childhood it's going to be God's will, because I can't chase all 3 of them around everywhere and keep them all out of everything.  So I'm sorry in advance if my kid teaches your kid to climb up the outside of the tube slide, or walk on the outside rails of the bridge.  We may end up with a few more doctor visits, but our house is already a lot happier.