How you do it, travel

I haven't done one of these for a while. People frequently say something like this to me: I don't know how you do it. My answer is usually, I don't do it very well. But I thought it might be fun (or not) to give specific examples of how I don't do it very well to make everyone else feel better when they realize they're doing it way better than me. Or I can relieve your guilt. Or maybe it is even possible you could learn from and improve on what I do.

So, travel.

I am writing this from lovely Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where I and a friend brought my 13 and her 2 children (2 vans) and my dog to visit another friend and her 5 kids (and sheep and goats and chickens and the new hamster they purchased for my 3rd daughter's birthday - hey, at least it's not mice ). That's 3 moms and 20 children. Hollar back.

We packed the bare minimum. Clothes to wear and clothes to wash, jammies if you like. Most of the kids have a back pack with their stuff, a couple boys shared a bag, and I have a bag for the 4 smallest and diapers and wipes.

We made 2 stops on the way here, one at (gasp!) McDonald's for fries and sandwiches. They frankly couldn't pay me to take and distribute soda ('pop' for you Indiana people) throughout my van, what a nightmare. We also brought a case of bottled water, pretzel rods, apples and granola bars (the kind without chocolate). The bottled waters are distributed in a very stingy fashion, not because I'm penny pinching on the agua, but because I don't want them to have to pee. The other stop for for gas and potty and some decaf coffee, because there is enough caffeine in decaf to keep me awake while driving.

I nursed the baby at both stops, but had eldest daughter drive between the two stops so I could care for the small people.

Here at my friend's house, the large children are camped out in her basement, the middle children are sleeping in her middle children's room, and the babies are with me. That way, when they wake up early in the morning or the middle of the night, I am there for them, and can, hopefully, keep them from waking the entire household.

I'm totally burning the candle at both ends, because we three moms are waiting for the moment when all 20 of them are chilled out and we can have a good heart to heart, staying up till 1 a.m., but my babies were up a little after 6. And of course, anytime the littlest squawked, I grabbed him and nursed him, so he wouldn't wake up the other ones.

Being at my friend's is a little crazy, because I think I can help with meal prep and clean up and serving and all, but really all I can do is herd the cats (small children) and nurse, and I can barely do that. And everything we do or don't do is about scale. So my friend with 5 wants to go for a walk, friend with 2 agrees, I say, "I'll see you when you get back."

But I want to be the kind of active, healthy mom that goes for walks, so I work up a small amount of tornadic activity, barking orders to any helpless big kids that happen to come near enough to my tractor beam to get sucked in, trying to get coats and shoes (or at least socks for the kid whose shoes are probably back on the counter in my kitchen) on all the humans. We fill a double stroller, a wagon and a ergo, which I really just use as a cover up because I'm nursing while walking, and walking the dog while nursing and walking.

I run a load of laundry at night so that the kid who pooped in her pants and the kids who got honey all over the front of their coats (who serves tea outside?) and the kid whose diaper didn't get changed in time all have something to wear the next time they mess up their stuff. I did not bring cloth diapers, and I'm glad.

I try to contribute, but feel like something of a leech and a burden, so I'll give some money to my host, because I know what it costs to feed a small army. I am also feeling bad about all the games we have ruined forever by losing pieces, but books the babies tore the covers off of, and the new carpet and furniture they might be looking for after allowing us to visit.

But this is a house that loves children and a family that loves us, and a friend that loves me. I am blessed to have friends that are such a blessing, and a safe place for my children to chase chickens and play games and be themselves. Sometimes we do venture out to places like the beach, or other cool Wisconsinish things to do, but only after counting the cost, not only of getting in, but also feeding people while there, and the vast amount of resources consumed just in the getting there and getting home involved.

The truth of the matter is, we don't do as much as we did when there were less of us. We try to say yes when we can, and we are trying to be the family that our kids want to be in, but we also say no a lot because we can't do everything.

We have a 15 passenger van that we fill when Daddy is with us. If we expand (meaning have even more children, and we hope we do), I think we would just take 2 cars, rather than pay all year for a bigger vehicle that we would really only need for long trips, a few times a year.

That's all that comes to mind. Questions?