She whispered for me to shout Happy Father’s Day!

No, no – I’m determined to do this my way.

I won’t speak when I’m told,

But I’m proud to be part of your fold.

I’d really rather help you bail hay.

Today we celebrate you at the farm,

And so far we’ve not caused any alarm,

This is where we like to play,

And where we like to say,

Thanks daddy for keeping us from all harm.

We hope you know how much we love you.

How much we appreciate all that you do.

We love that you make us laugh,

We love going with you to pet the calf,

Scoring you as our daddy was a real coup.

Thanks Daddy.

We love you.

Happy Father’s Day 2013!

 

I live in Texas where we are always grateful for rain.  So in the universal sense of appreciation to the heavens for the rain all day Sunday, I was grateful.  In the short-sighted, mom solo with three three-year olds trapped inside all day staring out at the pool, I was less grateful.  Everyone had attitude issues, including mom, though hopefully not as much as the restless three spinning in circles (literally and figuratively).

But it was fun too.  The truth is, we generally don’t find ourselves trapped inside together with nowhere to go or nothing to do.  At the end of the day, the baby said, “What a fun day, Mom!  We did puzzles and played little people and watched a movie and played Simon Says and running and built a fort and did dance party….We did everything!”  He’s right.  We did do everything.  

Not wanting to hurry Sunday morning with imminent weather, I opted for Sunday School in a circle in our play room.  We sang three songs, we talked about the Bible, we learned a scripture and I told a story about sibling kindness and pleasing God.  Then we basically followed that “structured time” with hours of unplanned free play.  As you might guess, we don’t get much of that.  I have two days a week with the kids and we often have haircuts or parties or errands.  There’s downtime, but not hours of it.  Today was all downtime.  One of the things I marveled out was their imagination.  Here you see them all playing with aspects of the “little people” related items, but they were each imagining their own scenarios and own story lines and they were relating them to no one in particular as I just sat back and watched.  The eldest had an elaborate pirate story unfolding, little bit was enmeshed in some sort of zoo event, and the baby had a transportation theme. 

I loved watching it all play out.  They also largely stayed out of each other’s way even though playing so near one another.  It made me want to channel my inner imaginative child.  I think we could solve the world’s problems. 

Oh, and I don’t know about you, but just after this action wrapped up, I had some major childhood memories:  The Fort!  Now, the baby said, “IT’S NOT A FORT!”  But that’s only because he doesn’t know what a fort is so we called it a tent.  But at the end of the night, they were calling it a fort.  We tried all sorts of ways to create this fort/tent.  I used to love making forts and filling them to the brim with my stuffed animals.  We propped up kid chairs and draped different materials, but ultimately we settled on the beach towels I’d brought in from the patio when it started raining and that spot in between Bray’s chair and our crummy old playroom sofa.  It worked perfectly and even allowed a spot for ole mom to crawl right in there with them.  We’re already planning on surprising daddy when he arrives home from his fishing trip – I’m sure he’ll never guess where we are with all the towels draped over the chair.  Don’t you just love this view from inside the fort – aren’t you jealous??

The rain was good for Houston.  But it was also good for us.  Even with cancelled play dates and stir-crazy trappings, the wild imaginations and uninterrupted time was worth it all.

As a young adult, I had these romanticized notions of what being married with kids looked like.  Everyone was carefree and you were swapping backyard cook-outs with couple friends and all marching off to church on Sunday morning dressed like you stepped out of a catalogue.  I realized, even before I got married, it doesn’t often look like that.  But a girl can still dream. 

And so……..this was my perfect weekend.   I came to work this morning tired but sublimely happy.  Friday night, one of my favorite working mommas hosted us at her house for a cook out/swim get-together.  Her two young children played with ours and our husbands prepped fajitas and we evaluated replacement tiles for her family room.  This may sound mundane if you’re 20 and loving single life, but for this married working mom, it was bliss. 

As if I could even take more, the weekend just got better.  All five of us lazed around the house on Saturday morning before running errands.  Then we hosted a few people at our house for a cook out.  A dear friend of mine is back in the States so we had another family over to celebrate with swimming and hot dogs (and my Pinterest-worthy mushroom feta chicken burgers). 

Sunday morning we did indeed get all cleaned up and head off for Sunday morning church, errands, and then……took the increasingly rare Sunday afternoon nap.  Plus I got to sneak in an upscale girls dinner that night with a precious girlfriend of mine while Bray handled the bedtime routine.  Ahhhhh……

I had a two part series I was going to debut today, but instead I wanted to preserve this perfect weekend in my memory.  And since my memory is somewhat lagging, I’m recording it here for posterity.  I wish I had pictured but we were all having too much fun to even reach for a camera.  Everyone got along.  We saw lots of my favorite people.  We got together with other families with young kids.  We slept.  We ate.  We loved on each other.  What an absolute wonderful way to kick off the summer.

Do you know this game?  I grew up playing it.  You were given a task, jump forward on one foot, walk backwards, take 5 baby steps, and you asked, “Mother, May I?”  In response you heard, “Yes, you may.”  If you forgot to ask, then back to the starting line you went behind your friendly competitors.

As a mother of three year old triplets, we’ve just begun experimenting with this game.  Along with Simon Says and Red Light/Green Light, we’re teaching the kids to play Mother May I.  The winner has to get all the way from the play room to the front door first.  It’s pretty funny.  And the reality is, most times they forget to ask Mother, May I.  I haven’t had the heart to send them back to the starting line (or the patience – I’d be playing the game for 12 hours).

I’m not sure what mother invented this game, but you know she probably did it to subconsciously teach her kids (a) to ask their mom before doing something silly, and (b) manners.   If you played the game enough times, then surely that “Mother, May I?” process would bleed over into non game-playing areas of life.

I’m guest posting over at Alecia Simersky’s place today, click here to read the rest of my motherhood revelation….