Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Lemonade Stand

My kids want a lemonade stand.

Actually, they want more than a lemonade stand. They want a "Homemade Stand," where my daughter can sell her homemade postcards, and possibly some friendship bracelets and things she's knitted, and my boys can sell a few of their hundreds of baseball cards for unreasonably high prices. They'd like the lemonade ("and chocolate cookies, too, Mom, don't you think?")--both homemade, of course--to be the main thing that draws in customers. Once at the table, these customers might purchase a few more things than lemonade and cookies.

It's the end of the summer. I'm searching inside myself, scraping the marrow inside my tired bones, for the energy this lemonade stand requires.

Usually I've got it! I'm THAT Mom, who can bake with her kids, let them get the kitchen messy with sprinkles, clean up after them, and sprint to their sports practices with the greatest of ease! I can make bento-box-like school lunches that inspire and energize! I can read chapter after chapter of any book anyone wants!

But this summer has left me laid out flat on our filthy living room rug, made dirtier by the cute new puppy who drug in a whole plant--dirt-encrusted roots and all--and chewed the leaves and roots and dirt to pieces. I'll vacuum it up later, maybe, after I've peeled myself up from these gross fibers. It's not as if I'm much cleaner than the rug. Showers come second to more cups of coffee and trailing after my trio as I find myself in newborn stage, round four, with this Sunny puppy.

It's not just the puppy. This summer we relocated from Virginia to Washington State, and I never thought once about flying the kids out there. No way! This mom doesn't fly! I took the opportunity to DRIVE the distance, most of the time with just my three kids! We would see the country, I insisted to every incredulous adult before we shoved off from the East!

And see the country we did--we had an awesome time driving from city to city, covering 1,000 extra miles (to the already impressive 3,000 miles the drive required), going to National Parks and family's houses, hiking and swimming and sleeping in different places every few nights. We watched movies, listened to XM radio, told jokes, and got annoyed by each other the whole way. We lived from Suburban like happy hobos, eating hamburgers 75% of the time, and just the right number of ice cream scoops.

(Point of clarification: the puppy came after said road trip. I'm crazy, but not that crazy.)

During the past two weeks, the prospect of being The New Kids at their new school sobered them from the joy of the road trip and new puppy. Each kid had their moments of being alone on the playground or scared to walk into the classroom or unsure of how others would react to them. It's scary stuff, this New Kid thing.

So the lemonade stand seems to be their last request, at a time when I'm just. out. of. energy.

But luckily, we moved to the land where espresso shops are more ubiquitous than the evergreens that color our landscape, so I think I'll just fake my way through the making and the baking and keep my fingers crossed that these new neighbors of ours buy a few postcards and over priced baseball cards while they much on cookies and sip on lemonade.

Wish me luck, and don't judge me, please, when I leap into the air with excitement as they pile out of my much-used Suburban and I go home to take a nap with my puppy.