Stewing in Your Own Juices

As many of you know, this weekend included the arrival of a very special new addition to our family: the hot tub. I have been waiting many years to make this dream of mine a reality and now - ta dah! - dream actualized. Very exciting. And yes, the first soak made it incredibly clear to me why I have wanted this for so long. What is more lovely than taking a super hot bath and being naked in your own backyard as powerful jets massage away your upper back tension? It's all glorious and heavenly. Until the water starts to smell. Really really bad. 

It turns out the pool store I bought my chemicals from (and relied on to fully instruct me in all ways of hot tub care and maintenence) seemed to have someone under qualified working the desk the moment I popped in to buy my chemicals. Bad advice and lack of my usual internet prowess lead to an unfortunate build up of imbalanced spa chemicals after our first three days of Roman bath-like hot tub use. It turns out that the hot tub is not actually a mini pool for kids to jump in at their leisure (much to their dismay), and you can only sausage so many people into the tub so many times a day before you really need to manage the situation. Otherwise you end up with a tub that smells eerily like the YMCA locker room on a Saturday afternoon, and water that resembles alka seltzer. Not good. 

The good news is that all hope is not lost. I returned to the pool store today and replenished my supply of chemicals, and insisted on a full length tutorial from a new and seemingly knowledgable salesperson. I got home and spent the better part of the afternoon rectifying the situation, and the water is now sparkling clean and smells like water. Lesson learned and I'll be back in full on soaking action tomorrow.

The Traveler Stays Home

It's official: I have shocked myself with my own lack of traveling ambition. 

A quintessential part of my personality is that I love to go places. This is no secret, anyone who knows me knows that I am always loading my kids up and heading out somewhere, or (more likely) daydreaming about my next adventure. I think that was why I was so surprised this morning when I woke up and thought "I just want to stay home." 

It doesn't help that both kids and I woke up feeling a little under the weather. Nathan has the kind of cough that makes you think that he might get knock-down-ginger-ale sick, or could be fine tomorrow. For now it is all just a tickle of sickness, but somehow that's all it took for me this morning to forgo our four day trip to one of my favorite towns in Pennsylvania with one of my all time favorite people. Pretty unheard of for this gal, but it's true, I just want to stay home today. 

Perhaps it is the craziness of the new school year. Or maybe it's the fact that construction is going to start in our living room in a couple of weeks and then being home will become royally unpleasant and I'll be scratching at the door to get anywhere I can find an open door or a spare cot. Whatever the reason, for now I am sticking around, a choice that may be regretted after just one day of inevitable whining and fighting, but so be it. 

Keeping up with the Cosmes

Forget the Kardashians. These days I am barely able to keep up with my own family. I feel like someone should give me a reality show, except that it would be the most boring show of all time as every episode would take place inside my minivan, with the exception of a few hours spent in a preschool gym. This might still be preferable to the fashion dilemmas of the collagen-lipped Kardashian sisters, but not by much.

This school season our roster increased with the addition of my lovely stepson Carlos to our year round household, and I am shocked at how exponential the busyness is when you go up from two to three kids. Yowsers. Football, soccer, gymnastics, swimming, dance, playdates, sleepovers, school, appointments, and oh yes, work. Total insanity. I am unsure if we will ever have a meal together again that isn't in the car on the way somewhere. When am I supposed to make dinner when there is barely time to take a crap? Maybe those things could be done at the same time, but then no one would ever visit us for dinner again.

Are all families like this? Is this chaos universal in the modern day household? If so, there is a major flaw in this plan. When are families supposed to decompress and spend time together? This hectic lifestyle does not seem conducive to a healthy life.

I know that I feel this way at the beginning of every school year, and every year we get into the groove eventually, but I can never remember when that happens, so I am hoping it's soon. Until then I will keep on checking my calendar to make sure I'm not forgetting anyone, and try like hell to savor every moment of down time that comes my way.