Survival of the Fittest?!

I’ve written before on how blessed I am to have many solid female friendships.  One of these groups are the wives and/or friends of all the guys I hung out with in high school.  Essentially, I’ve dumped the dudes and kept all the women that they overachieved with by landing.

This weekend – all the boys were having a getaway weekend so the chicks decided to have our own weekend up north and lug all of our kids with us.  Read this a few times – we had 8 kids under 9 and 5 women.  Our other friend who completes our circle doesn’t have kids yet and in a bit of good luck for her, got held back in the city with some IT issues.  Personally, I think she was lying and was wisely laying at a spa and eating bonbons.

There were many meltdowns and many laughs over the course of the 48 hours.  Some high and low (you figure out which)??

*losing two kids for 5 minutes or so in the Village

*strawberries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*not having to drive myself and having Will entertained by kids in the backseat.

*bedtime 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*handcuffs and knives (yes. reread that)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I learned a few things this weekend and reflected on a number as well. 

I learned that I don’t function as well as a parent when I’m not in my own space or in control of my own schedule.  I had a miniature meltdown on Sunday morning brought on by lack of sleep and not getting moving out of the place until after 11.  Why? Because I’m so used to just doing things my own way.  It is – as I used to see it, now I’m not so sure – one of the joys of parenting alone.  In hindsight, it seems to just make you a control freak and could turn you into an alcholic.

I learned that my friends are all different and amazing parents and that I can learn things from all of them.  One of my favourite moments of the wekeend was watching my friend April lie on the couch with her eldest and have a weekend debrief.  She asked him all kinds of questions, ‘What did you like?’, ‘Would you like to try this again with all the kids?’.  You could see his wheels turning as he thought about the questions and it made him feel important to have his Mom asking his opinions.  

I spent some time reflecting on how it’s these types of weekends and moments that I never thought I would have as I kept getting older and just wasn’t meeting anyone.  It reminded me how having Will was the best decision I ever made.

I learned that Bob Dylan is a reggae singer; Flavour Flav has a brother who is chef on Food Network called Flavo Flavin; and that when asked to name a musician ALWAYS start with Jon Bon Jovi.  (Ever played Celebrity???)

On the Sunday morning, we headed for the beach – in the rain and cold, but the kids couldn’t tell.  The husbands came and met us to arrange drive homes etc.  I had mixed emotions…

One guy ran off to help the kids build some sandcastles and I was melancholy, thinking wow, wouldn’t that be great to have someone to hand them off to for a break right now (as I chased after Will who was single-handedly pissing every child off on the beach for trashing castles!)

Then one of the other dads, slumped down at the table and announced, ‘I’m exhausted!’.  And I smiled, happy that I wasn’t going to be the one to verbally berate him later for his cluelessness….

**Sidenote.  The boys thought the weekend was a huge success and that we should all do it again soon….take a moment to guess our responses to that!**

So… Weekend One of Will’s Big Summer of Fun – massive success for the boy; Mom needs to work on control issues.

This coming weekend, the tour continues and Will and I are heading to Clevelands House in Muskoka.  Twenty years ago I was a child supervisor there…let’s see how I fare on the other side of the coin!!!!