Its Intense

 My brother got divorced a few years ago, his wife and children moved a few towns away and he sees them several times a month, meanwhile, he has taken to traveling on the weekend with friends and hiking mountains in places like Alaska or doing a little trip in the boundary waters, meanwhile my husband and I have  9 kids, ranging from here (knee high) to here (as high as my hands can stretch) and the only way we can afford vacation is by loading up our big van and camping.

So I told him yesterday, that we were into extreme sports, and he got all interested. Yeah, I said. We go camping with 9 kids, it's in tents. 

Like when you take 9 kids away from their technology for a week and stick them in the wilderness (often there no cell service) there are going to be some meltdowns. But luckily they each take turns. One time when my oldest was freaking out, he refused to go on a hike and we when got back, written in sticks on the picnic table were the words "Take me home, now!" a few hours later and he was fine, and then the next kid in line freaked out... Yup that trip was long enough everyone had a chance to freak out twice.

For me it was when we were taking our big van into San Francisco, I found a little hotel , online, across the street from the zoo. They advertised free parking. There wasn't no way that van was going to fit in there. My sons had to duck for the clearance.  Their shoulders filled the hallways of the hotel. the beds were 5 feet long. I felt like I was taking the whole street, as I skittered out of there. My husband was amazed at how many stop signs I missed as moved as fast I could, stopping every freaking block. No wonder its is one of the cities destroyed first in every disaster film, you don't even have to build the set in miniature.

Finally, after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, we made it north of San Fransico and I kept going for an hour and a half before I felt I could breathe again. I didn't feel so bad against the Redwoods, yeah, even my sons started looking up. My van looked puny against them. But we didn't take it through the drive-through tree.

So my hair turned grey, about the time I had my last baby. I felt kind of shaken the first time someone asked "are you her grandma?" So now I just kinda roll with it. I take Thursday mornings off to bring my kids to the library programs. Several other grandmas are there with their kids, and afterward, we all spoil the kids by bringing them to the bakery and calling a donut and rootbeer "lunch." And then before their blood sugar spikes, I drop them off with their Dad and go to work for the afternoon.

Reminds me of when my Dad took my nephew to a movie and let him get the unlimited refill pop and candy, thinking he would drop the kid off with the parents after the show. He got a phone call after the show that my sister, who has an autoimmune disease ended up in the hospital and he had to keep the kid all day. He learned his lesson and now he's allowed to take my kids on Saturdays.

My mother still feeds them junk food though, she buys these Costco side bags of chips, and always sends the rest of it home with my kids. I'll be like I had a day off I actually had time to cook a full healthy meal. My kids come home with a half-eaten bag of chips and nobody wants my tofu meatloaf and mashed cauliflowers anymore. with a side a kale. 

Sometimes it seems like the healthier I try to eat the less healthy the family actually eats. Yeah, serving vegan foods several times a week seems to be fatsest way to get them to learn to cook. Pretty soon I have kids making 6 boxes of mac and cheese, within an hour of a full meal. Another one does tacos at least once per week. One of my kids even apprenticed with a real chef his senior year in HIgh School and now he never eats at home, perhaps that's because he moved 2 hours away, or maybe its the tofu meatloaf.