Salt of the Earth

I was on duty on Thursday because it was my husband's birthday and if I expect to continue to be treated like a Goddess on my birthday (birth week), then I have to push special treatment on him, wanted or not. He does not want it.  But he accepted my bare minimum birthday treatment:

-sleep in (this is mandatory); take the day off of work (unless dire circumstances)

-prepared breakfast (I went with a big plate of bacon. It was veggie fakin bacon bc that's what I had but he nicely accepted it anyhow)

-present- a new videogame, which he played with the kids for almost 2 hours

-all household and childcare chores done for him so he could relax

-most of the packing for our trip done for him for same reason

-early dinner at an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant in Annapolis 

Thursday night we arrived at our friends' house- James, Lisa, and adorable 20 month 0ld Sarah. My kids were crazy- really out of their minds excited to be there. C. took at least 90 min to fall asleep after we finally left her on her own at bedtime. (this was very stressful for all of us and involved a lot of attempts at calming her and rocking her to sleep)

It was nice to have a night to chat with friends without kids (mostly). We never get a sitter just to hang out with people- it's always for an event or a wedding or something and we only have a few friends that come over and hang out with us at night after the kids are asleep.  So a sleepover is really in order to make this work.

On friday Lisa went to work 

and my husband went to a conference so James and I took all three little girls to jump in mud puddles (see pic of poor C. in head-to-toe mud puddle), then play at an amazing Salisbury playground and tour the beautiful free zoo that they have there.  He is a stay-at-home dad and it's fun to see how similar our lives are, being at-home-parents. Then our other halves come home and share similar stories too, being a doctor and a lawyer.  We all knew each other in undergrad at St. Mary's College of MD but we never knew how much we really had in common, on the surface and also deep down, until our lives started to run parallel.  They're good people and we really love spending time with them. 

 C. was a horrible sleeper again on Friday and I was up again with her at 5am on Saturday.  As long as we were on MD's Eastern Shore, we wanted to visit the ocean.  Lisa was on-call so we had to have a fun day without her.  We went to Assateague Island National Park (to escape the crowds at Ocean City) and it was gorgeous. Brown ponies, sand crabs, sand castles, jumping in waves, long walks on the shore, warm sun, cool breeze, our senses filled with the ocean. I don't think it would work if we weren't evenly matched- 3 parents, 3 kids. I don't think we'll make it to the ocean again this summer so I'm glad it was so perfect and memorable.

best moment of the day: hearing C. laugh at the waves hitting her feet while watching my husband swing J. in the waves in front of us.

worst moment of the day: 5am, Saturday morning

thoughts of the day: Ocean City is free if you can find parking. Assateaque Island National Park costs $15 per car.  As a rule* we NEVER pay for what we could get for free. Even if free means it's more complicated or takes longer or isn't quite as good but it's still ok.  But we went to the ocean that costs money bc we didn't want to deal with senior week at the beach and it was a GREAT decision! 

Still, we're lucky enough to be at a point in life where we can choose the recreation that costs money. That's a lot to be thankful for. And it means we're over 30 bc the me of my teens and twenties would have choked on $15 to sit on the beach! So what's our new over-30 social class? Are we Bourgeois? Are we Yuppies? Hippies? Yippies? Bohemians? Bo-bos? (bohemian-bourgeois) 

I think people watching us in our day-to-day clothes would not guess correctly about who we are or what we stand for, not to mention what we do and how we live. Probably that's true about most people, but I often question the image that we portray when I try to look at us in other people's eyes.

*Note: there are exceptions to this and every rule. Our motto is "hard work made me quit" which, when used as an excuse, automatically gets him or me off the hook with compassion. Also, gross overrides free. For example, we don't eat dumpster cookies.