The Outing

Our family stays home a lot. We generally take our kids out to do something about once every two weeks. There are a lot of factors involved with whether or not we decide to go somewhere. We learned quickly when our third arrived they would could no longer "plan" to do anything. Every time we plan to do something one of our kids gets sick, it is almost a 100% guarantee, so we no longer plan anything. The more children we've had the harder it gets to take them anywhere, but it seems that about every 2 weeks we can't stand being cooped up anymore and we start to consider it. Now I say consider it like we just walk out the door. Before we decide to go somewhere, we way about 1000 different factors. We consider individual moods, sleep schedules, bowl movements and the phase of of the moon, just to name a few. For example, we have learned the hard way not to take our children anywhere during a full moon. So anyway, we weigh our options carefully because one miscalculation and we are in for a torturous day. Just thinking about all of these factors is so exhausting that often times we decide not to do anything because it is just too hard. But once in a while we wake up optimistically and think, "we can do it." I suppose those who like surprise would like to go on an outing with us because you never know how it is going to end up. Sometimes there are laughs, sometimes tears, and sometimes puke. You just never know. Today we decided to go to the pumpkin patch and after 2 hours of getting ready and packing a bag, we were ready, or so we thought. When we arrived we saw that there was 6" of snow on the ground and when we left home there was none. We were not prepared for this. With tennis shoes on and socks on the baby's hands we got out of the car. Optimistically we plodded on through the snow determined to have a good time. The first thing we did was go on a hay ride, which was fun, a little cold but the driest thing we did all day. While on the ride I got to hear my 6 yr old tell the girl next to her that her sister, Molly was "special" and that she thought the wagon was magically floating along,and also that she understood English but did not speak it. WHAT? I almost died, it made me wonder what she says about me? We then played on very wet toys and a soggy hay fort, a freezing bouncy house. We did everything regardless of soaking wet mittens and feet, it was totally miserable, but no one complained. And then it hit me, the reason why we are willing to put ourselves through all of this for a little fun is because when we go and do something like this, no one complains, no matter what they don't complain............what a beautiful thing!