It's called an adventure...

7 am, Mother's Day 2007: We were all sleeping nicely in our tent at Assateague Island National Seashore. While the Atlantic Ocean water was a bit chilly for swimming, all I wanted to do was lay out on the beach and relax for one day. (You'll have to excuse my "pictures", I didn't think to take any real photos since I was trying to relax and all.)

Us sleeping in the tent with the beach and ocean less than a hundred yards away:



7:30 am: It was lightly raining and the wind picked up. I figured it would blow over, meanwhile looking forward to my husband cooking breakfast and relaxing.

8 am: Disaster!



A tent pole snapped due to the high winds (35mph or so), the ground stakes came out and half the tent collapsed. The kids freaked out, my husband was unhappily woke up due to half the tent now being on top of him, and I was thinking, there goes any relaxing.

9:30 am: While fighting the wind, sand, and light rain, we managed to pack everything up and load it into the van. (A real photo, taken by my husband while I drove.)



12:30 pm: Back home after an uneventful drive across Maryland, we unloaded the van in our driveway under a brilliant warm sun and no wind. Stupid weather. We began the long boring task of shaking the sand out of everything.

5 pm: Thinking ahead, I had already prepared our dinner before we went to the beach and it only needed a few hours in the crock pot to warm. Course 4 of the 7 people in the house then refused to eat it. I briefly considered throwing a fit about my lack of relaxing so far.

All and all, it didn't turn out to be the Mother's Day I had planned. There wasn't any relaxing, there was a lot of grumbling (not all by me, hehe), and after spending Friday and Saturday outside at the beach, Sunday was the day I got sun burnt at home. But I figure it was a good example of mothering in general. The cute little newborn has colic, the sweet toddler throws a temper tantrum at your sister's wedding, the adorable kindergartner hits his teacher, and so on. Nothing ever goes as planned and the most important lesson I've learned as a mom is to take life as it comes, it's all an adventure anyways.



Katie Fleck is a stay at home mom of five, Zach (9 years), Emily and Ally (8 year old identical twins), Kyle (5 years), and Kelly (4 years old). On a quest for a self cleaning house and 27 hour days, she writes at Ramblings of a SAHM