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Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

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Disney Surprises

Yesterday, I told you the beginning of our Disney surprise for the three oldest children.  They had already received their first clue at home and were on their way to the second, but they had no idea where they were headed.

The prevailing assumption was that we were going to a movie theater to watch a Disney film, perhaps even Peter Pan.

But then we pulled up to Nana’s house.

“Get out of the car!” I sang.  I had been singing Disney songs the entire way but the kids weren’t particularly interested in my vocal acrobatics or my touching rendition of “Part of Your World.”  If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were blocking me out.  “Get out of the car!” I sang again.

The kids stared at me.  “Get out of the car?” Faith repeated.  She sounded a little worried that we might have arrived at our destination, and while Nana’s house is great, it certainly didn’t blow her mind like Daddy promised.

“Aren’t we going to be late for the movie?” Jonathan asked.

“I don’t know, but if you don’t hop out, you won’t get your next clue,” I teased.

The van emptied immediately.  Children ran into Nana’s house and children squealed when they saw Nana and children read Nana the first clue and told her all about the fun they’d already had.  Nana told all the children to calm down because she had to go to the bathroom.

But really, she was bringing me her suitcase to load up into the back of the van with the others.  Oh, the trickery!

After the suitcase was stashed, we lined the kids up on her couch.  I gave them each a wrapped package with a little note that read:

Bibbidi bobbidi boo!

There’s an adventure waiting for you!

You’ll need a bit of faith,

A lot of trust,

And don’t forget your pixie dust!

(Have you ever Googled “bibbidi bobbidi boo?”  I have.)

Moving right along.

The kids opened their boxes.

DIY Pixie Dust

Each child had a little pixie dust necklace.

DIY Pixie Dust

“Pixie dust!  Can we eat it?” asked the child who did not care about being able to fly.  He’s going to regret that when Captain Hook gets ahold of him.

DIY Pixie Dust

But, in point of fact, he could eat the pixie dust.

After looking high and low and trying all sorts of things to create little vials for pixie dust (including taking apart little light bulbs so I could use the glass containers, which totally didn’t work) I found these little plastic containers in the bead section of my local craft store.  They cost $0.49 each.  Score!

Plus, they came with a plastic lid that already had a hole in the top for stringing ribbon.  Yeah me!

I created the pixie dust by mixing a bit of sugar with just a drop of liquid food coloring.  I created several colors, then baked them in the over at 350 for 10-15 minutes, just until the sugar was no longer damp.  I layered the sugar into the vials, added pretty ribbons and beads, a few stickers, and of course, Tinkerbells.

Pixie Dust

I thought this might be a dead-giveaway for the surprise, but I was wrong.

With the video camera rolling, I prodded.  “So, you have pixie dust.  What do you need pixie dust for?”

“Flying!”

“Yes, flying!  So, where do you think you’re going?”

“Neverland!”

Face palm. 

“Get in the car.”

Five in Tow

These children would make terrible detectives

Nana hopped in the car too and we all headed off to the airport, although the kids didn’t know that.  The airport is all the way through Seattle for us, and I wondered how long it would take the kids to figure it out.  So far, their powers of deduction left a lot to be desired.

But, they were about to find another clue.

Kya happened to peek in the back of the van.  “There are suitcases back there!” she yelled.

Rats.

“Suitcases?  We are going to Beachwood!” Jonathan shouted.  “I knew it!  I thought of that!  I thought of Beachwood!”

“Jonathan, Beachwood is in the other direction,” Nana noted.

“Then we’re going to Whistler!  I knew it!”

“Whistler is in the other direction.”

“What’s south?” I hinted.

Silence.

“Nothing,” Faith said.

I’m sure she meant no offense to Oregon and California.

We zipped right past Providence Classical Christian School, where Jeff used to work, so that meant we weren’t picking up Kiri and Moira for a movie date.  We zipped right past the Space Needle,

Seattle Space Needle

and said many laudatory things about the glories of Mt. Rainier on that particular day.

Mt. Rainer

Too bad the children were not particularly interested in the view.  They were languishing in the backseat.  Ahahahaha….this adventure is taking forever.  Weeping and gnashing of teeth and are we there yet?

I decided to send them to Argentina.  So I took the exit to the airport.

“Are we getting off the freeway?” Faith asked.  “Are we going to the airport?”

Perhaps…

The exit to the airport curved around and put us on another freeway for a second.

“Aw man, another freeway!”

But wait…

“It is the airport!  We’re going to the airport!  Are we getting Grandma?”

Never mind the fact that my house was in a crafting state of despair and there was no way I’d let Grandma come over with it looking like that no matter how much I’d like to see her, I let the kids ponder that possibility.

I zipped my little blue van-that-does-not-indicate-I’m-a-soccer-mom right under a glaring DEPARTURES sign, but no one read it.

I zipped my little blue van-that-does-not-indicate-I’m-a-soccer-mom right past the loading zones just to tease the children and not because I misread the signs that led to parking.

“Why are we at the airport?  Why are we at the airport?  Why are we at the airport with pixie dust and a bunch of clues about Disney?”

I don’t know, kids.  Why are you?

We parked.

“Okay,” I said.  “Time for another clue!”  We tumbled out of the car and I opened the back of the van, which was stuffed with suit cases and three bags loaded with Disney-themed treats.  I handed each of them another wrapped package and started rolling the video again because surely, surely they were going to get it now.

Wrapping paper flew into the air and each child got one of these:

DIY Disney shirts

Personalized reverse tie-dye Disney shirts for Kya, Faith, and Jonathan

“Huh.  Mickey Mouse shirts.  Thanks, Mom.”

Face palm.

“Put them on,” I commanded while pondering the fact that this generation of uneducated children has no idea that Mickey Mouse is Disney.  This generation of children knows nothing of The MOUSE!

It’s a shame.

“They just don’t get it,” Nana said, shaking her head.  She was taking it hard.

“So.  Let’s review,” I said, holding on to the last fragment of hope that my children could put the pieces together.  “What do we know about Mickey?”

“He’s a mouse?”

“He has a clubhouse?”

“He’s from Disney!” Kya came in for the save.

“Yes!  Disney!  So.  We are at the airport with pixie dust necklaces and Mickey Mouse shirts…where do you think we’re going?”

The video was rolling, waiting to capture this precious moment for all posterity.

But.

They didn’t get it.

Paris Tuileries Garden Facepalm statue

Face palm

It’s Disney, people!  Disney! 

I wanted to shout it but I didn’t.  “Okay, pause,” I said, putting the video camera away. This was going to take a little more work than I thought.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another edition of, “How long will it take these kids to figure out they’re going to DISNEY?”

(Also, I’ll have a t-shirt tutorial up later this week so you can make your own reverse tie-dye mouse shirts in case you want to test your child’s deductive powers by surprising him or her with a trip to Disney).

 

Humor, Parenting 18 Comments

Reclaiming the Loo

Today, my friend Abbie invited me over to her place.  She’s a mom of five just like me, including twins, just like me.  Since Abbie is so much like me, I figured she would sympathize with one of my mom-problems: how to get the children to leave me alone when the bathroom door closes.

Am I the only one whose children think going to the bathroom is a group activity?  I think not.

Mothers of the World, it’s time we reclaim the loo.  Join me over at Five Days 5 Ways and find out my devious plan to help us do just that.

Reclaim the Loo

Humor, Parenting 3 Comments

The Trouble with Rest

Day of Rest

*100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 33

Two.  That’s the number of times this week I set the tea kettle on to boil and walked away, only to return some time later to find it bone dry and smoking.  The second time, the handle, which was made to be impervious to absentmindedness, melted off in slow agony and dropped onto the burner.

The children smelled the burning plastic and asked if I was making dinner.

I was not.

I stared at my tea kettle.  The heat had caused the metal to swell abnormally.  It was as fat as a little piggy and much more likely to explode.  Black smoke drifted lazily up from the tar-like goo on the burner.

This was concerning to me, not just because of the fact that I very nearly gave my children an unplanned lesson on shrapnel, but because it said something about me that wasn’t good.  A woman who burns her kettle dry two times in five days has issues.

My issue is this: I have trouble resting.  I have so much trouble resting, I can’t even slow down long enough to brew a cup of “Quite Moments” tea.  I run around like the house is on fire (which, ironically, was very nearly a reality) because I feel like I have to work my way to a place of rest. 

But the work is never done and rest is always elusive because I live at work.

My “office” is strewn with socks and dirty dishes and way more Thomas the Tank Engine tracks than is professional.  And while my coworker is cute and my boss is great, the subordinates tend to run around half naked and spill milk.  Everywhere I turn, I see reminders of the things I have yet to do, have not done well, or have not done at all.

Sometimes, I just want to put on a pair of heels and commute.  Preferably to Hawaii.  Perhaps then I could find a way to be done at the end of the day.

But of course, being done is not the point and work is not the problem.  The problem is not the dishes in the sink or the floor that needs mopped.  The problem is I lack the faith to rest the way God commands.  I lack the faith to be still, to be quiet, and to pursue the things that are more important than dusting the furniture.

I lack the faith to trust that my identity in Him is secure, even if my work is not done.

There will always be work.  But here in the middle of the mess, I am commanded to rest.  Rest, true rest, is what I need.  Not like when I go to bed and dream about cleaning my kitchen.  Not like when I finally get all the rooms straightened up on the same day and I collapse into the couch, exhausted.  Not like when I finally check everything off the to-do list and feel like I’ve earned it.

True rest is a grace.  It sees the work left to do and nourishes me anyway.  It sees that I am not yet done and rewards me with strength for the course.  It resets the priorities that have gotten scrambled and brings my focus up from the temporal to the eternal.

I forget that sometimes, and I fight against it.  I act like God is punishing me, somehow, by calling me to a place of rest.  I kind of think that if He wants me to rest, He should find a way to clean my kitchen first.  But He doesn’t do that.  He leaves the mess, and asks me to leave it too.

So I put the kettle on, but I struggle with the fear that if I take some time off, my entire world is going to descend deeper into chaos and disorder.  Who is going to do the dishes while I sip my tea, God?  I sneak off and try to put away some laundry while I wait for the water to boil and pretty soon, I find myself face-to-face with a charbroiled kettle.

The truth is, I can never work my way to rest because rest is an act of faith.  It requires me to act on the  promise of God that one day, the meaningless repetition of earthly work will end.  All that is lacking in me will be filled up, and all that is undone will be completed.  I will no longer live at work.

I will live at rest.

So tonight, I am putting the kettle on.  It’s a little rusty now and I can’t quite pry the lid off because the knob burned off.  I am not done with my work.  I guess that’s why it’s the perfect time to act on the belief that even in my imperfection, God’s promises are true.  Not being done is the best reason to practice being at rest.

Humor 29 Comments

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I believe you can find grace for the mother you are and help to become the mother you long to be—a mom who has the freedom to choose the better things and enjoy her kids right now.

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