Roses and Sunshine? Sometimes Not.

On occasion, I have made blog posts of the difficulties that arise regarding the complexities of family life.  (My last Mother's Day post in 2012 comes to mind.)  I am able to write through my aggravation.  I find it therapeutic to do this on the blog, because when the kids look back through the yearbooks (if they do) they will hopefully see that it is okay and normal to feel disappointed in your family at times.  You can't have sunshine and roses every day.  If you remember your childhood as all roses and sunshine, then it can be difficult to measure up to that when real life smacks you in the face.   On the flip side, I would hate for the legacy I leave my children to be one of kvetching and bitterness.  I feel mostly balanced and I hope that translates and my kids are able to see balance.

I don't usually write about anything until I have gained a little perspective...meaning I have slept on it and am beginning to feel better anyway.  And by then, I am beginning to be able to see the humour in the situation and am feeling much less hostile.

On Facebook, the impulse to write while hostile is too tempting for lots of people.  The observer doesn't usually see a whole picture from just a couple of sentences here and there.  Then with the commenting feature and the immediacy of it all, it turns ugly quickly. I am mostly weirdly entertained by some people's Facebook arguments, I certainly didn't want to be someone else's entertainment while my feelings were still quite tender.  So I usually just refrain from using social media at all when things are feeling angry or I am sensitive about a situation.  Consequently, it probably looked to most people that we were happily bumming at the beach when in fact, there was lots going on behind the scenes.

Our house in Cincinnati was about 1300 square feet of living space (not including garages).  Which is quite small in some people's point of view for five people to live in.  Going from 1300 square feet down to about 144 square feet wasn't without its drama.

For example:  Phillip had said that we should eat sandwiches and stuff all the time.  Like things people can fix themselves.  Which means we shouldn't cook food.  That worked for a while.  Cereal and sandwiches.  Sandwiches and cereal.  More cereal.  More sandwiches.  I got done with sandwiches for every meal pretty quickly.  So our first huge argument was about food.  We ran out of sandwich stuff and I bought 'cooking' stuff instead.  And then the kids got hungry while *he* was in the camper, and in charge.  And he had to cook it.  Holy, moly. Drama ensued.

One of the downsides of living in a small dwelling with canvas walls is that everyone can hear whatever you are doing.  Yelling at kids, yelling at spouse, you are pretty much on display for the whole campground to observe.  And since it is so small inside there, you are most likely doing whatever it is that may cause a spectacle outside.  I think our neighbours got an earful that afternoon.  Some people seem to revel in their spectacle-ness.  I do not.  I like my arguments to be nice and private.  That was a very difficult for me...feeling like I was on display at tender-hearted moments. 

I remember going down to the beach in a huff to take a nap (and a break from family) and I don't know what he did all afternoon.  At the end of the day, we got past it, and we didn't eat sandwiches all month long either.  I say the end of the day, because you just don't have enough room to be mad at anyone for very long.  We mostly ate 'starch in a box' foods like Zatarain's Jumbalaya and other rice dishes.  Lotta rice.  And chicken.  And rice.  Of various flavours.  And more chicken.

I struggled with small snippy stuff that was blown way out of proportion due to drastic family changes and wearing our feelings on our sleeves.

There were other 'just camping' sort of challenges to overcome as well.  Some of them were more difficult than others.  

Our camper fridge broke pretty soon after our arrival at the Island.  It froze everything in the fridge.  Then it thawed everything in the fridge.  You could tell it broke from the smell of bad food when everything thawed.  Ick.  So we shopped for a new dorm fridge.  Which broke at Presley's.  But that's another whole story that I'll share later.

We were using a cooler for refrigeration and the new dorm fridge.  We ran through ice like mad.  Keeping clothing organized was an exercise in futility.  Who knew what was clean and what was dirty?  Fortunately, none of us are fashonistas and are perfectly comfortable wearing the same clothes more than once.  Or twice, or even three times.  We're camping, after all!  And where to put it all, anyway?

The bathrooms at Dauphin Island aren't exactly clean.  I am almost positive the campground folks only cleaned them when one of us had to pee really badly and the bathrooms were 'closed' for cleaning.  Perhaps if we had to pee really badly more often, they would have cleaned them more often, because those seemed to be common denominators.  It was hot in there, sandy and there was the occasion when the sewage seeped through the shower drains.  Happy Day.  No adventure comes without its price!

Actually, I never noticed how icky the bathrooms were (well, except for a few times!) until we got to Presley's and the bathrooms were so clean!  And air conditioned!

One of my favorite parts about Dauphin Island was the laid-back, small town atmosphere.  We felt okay letting Archie ride his bike up to the store, go fishing by himself, and roaming around.  The playground was excellent, and was Lawrence and Lydia's favorite spot.  They'd get up first thing in the morning and run over and play in the sand at the playground until breakfast was ready.  They had lots of friends to play with (the most notable was Wheeler, the little boy with the slowest, drawliest, Southern drawl you ever heard) and were constantly busy on the playground when we weren't swimming or on the beach.

The biggest change I noticed immediately was in Archie.  The kid who was always king of the playground, suddenly didn't want to socialize with any other kids, and seemed visibly uncomfortable when other kids his age were around.  I know the move was difficult for him, as he was in Cincinnati for over half his life.  While he was excited to be around family again, he was really not happy about leaving our little posse of homeschooling friends and church friends.

It turned out that while I wasn't looking, we had created a life up there with people that we would miss!  Its funny how when you don't make a concerted effort to plant roots, they just grow of their own accord, whether you want them too or not!  

We were definitely in a new phase of life which had its own difficulties as well as exciting adventure!  Lots of roses and sunshine.  But sometimes not.  And that is okay.