Zach was born and raised in Valdosta and was always very set on raising his own family here. It’s a great place to raise babies! However, here lately we’ve had some negative attention coming our way. Two years ago a student died at the local high school…I can’t even find a simple news report to link to about the story b/c there is SO much drama surrounding it all. It’s really unfortunate for many, many reasons. Back in April we had an incident occur at VSU campus. A student was protesting and stepping on the American Flag. Some of the stuff he said freaked me out as I’m sure it did many other parents and families in our community. Our area put together a peaceful rally in support of the flag. While I loved what the rally represented, I was also nervous about what might occur. It seems so often in today’s world things can’t just stay peaceful. Even though our kids don’t go to school near where the rally was being held, Zach and I agreed we just felt better keeping them home that day. I’m a stay at home mom…they didn’t need to go to school. It wasn’t like I had to miss work to keep them home or something. And even though we didn’t think there was a likely chance of anything happening to them, we knew we’d never regret having them skip. Whereas we could have possibly regretted sending them! Thankfully it truly did end up being a peaceful rally and there were no issues whatsoever. But I still have zero regrets about keeping the kids home that day!
That week I’d had a really tough time with Britt. She was disobeying just to disobey. Being disrespectful just to be disrespectful. I felt like nothing I was doing was getting through to her. I felt scared that maybe she had some deeper issues going on, it seemed like she was just choosing to live in a miserable state and choosing to be unhappy all the time. I bawled my head off once she was in bed on Thursday night. I vented to Zach that I was just so worried about her and just didn’t know how to be the parent she needed. (Hindsight: she obviously just was in a funk or something that week b/c she’s FINE now and I don’t have any of those concerns anymore…I also may have had some monthly hormones going on myself bahaha).
Friday morning was the day we decided to keep the kids home and I started off the day dreading having Britt with me all morning. I worried we’d just continue down that same path and that it’d be another day ending in tears for us both. I put on a happy face and thought back to the days when my mom let us skip school. We got good grades and she always said it was fun to have a skip day every once in awhile. I couldn’t agree more! I wanted to make the day FUN for us all! It was like a bonus day and if you are gonna miss school then you gotta live it up!
First stop: donuts for breakfast, ice coffee for mommy!
While Tess napped the kids watched a movie and after I nursed her we had an early lunch so we could SWIM! The water was still too cold for my liking (and too cold for Tess) but it was time to officially open the Parker Pool for the swimming season! I pulled out the baby pool we had used for Kye’s party and put some water in it for Tess to play. GENIUS. I don’t know why I hadn’t ever done that before with my babies! It was SO much easier than having to hold her or use a float in the water. I was able to just hang out next to her pool while she played and could easily watch the big kids play too!
Britt was being such a sweet big sister making sure Tess was well taken care of!
It’s going to be a SUPER fun summer with these two!
She LOVED it!
My happy, silly girls 🙂
After naps I took all three kids to Publix for the first time. I read an article recently that talked about having 3 kids and said that an advantage of having three is that even completing the simplest of tasks makes you feel like Super Mom. This is SO TRUE. We walked through Publix and I was constantly saying “Kye stay with me. Britt where are you? Guys stay with me” and I was talking baby talk to Tess and kinda talking loudly so people would see her and see my cute kids haha! We left and I felt SO awesome about myself. I mean I rocked that outing like no one’s business! Kye kept track of the list for us and Britt was an ANGEL. Of course Tess was her easy-going happy self too!
When we first debated about keeping the kids home I was basing the decision on their safety. Even though it ended up not being a safety issue at all…I’m SO glad I kept them home with me that day. We had THE BEST DAY. It was one of those days where everyone got along. Everyone was respectful to each other. Everyone was sweet and happy and it was just a flawless day from start to finish. I realized that I needed that day. I needed the bonding with Britt, to see her back to her normal self. I needed the reminder of how blessed I am to have my amazing kids and how thankful I am to have the opportunity to spend every day with them. I needed to be reminded that I’m doing a good job as their mom! I needed the time with Kye, knowing that the fall will be here soon and he’ll be gone all day at school. I needed the simple pleasure of seeing Tess smile and watching others smile when they saw her. It was just a day that brought me so much joy and peace. I think we may need to make skipping school a yearly tradition!
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