I love summer

We had the loveliest weekend. Which I so needed after Friday. Let me back up a bit.

Jessie got out of school on Tuesday. Wednesday, she had a playdate in the afternoon, and then my mother picked her up. She spent the night at my sister's house (staying up far too late watching - ironically - Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen) and then spent the whole day at the lake with my mother and three of her cousins. I picked her up that night at my mother's house, along with two of my nieces and by the time we got home and them settled into bed, it was really late again. Friday, I had several thousand extra children here - and Jessie had just reached the limit of how much she could handle. Over stimulated, over tired, whatever applicable excuse I could come up with - she was beyond epically miserable. She cried, almost non-stop, for three hours in the middle of the day. (She finally pulled it together around two, just in time for Sam to start sobbing). She was just wrecked. At one point, I was outside with all the other kids and she was inside, crying. We live on a dead end street on a second floor apartment, and she was standing at the window, sobbing and gazing down at us. I went in to get freeze pops for the kids, and tried to coax her into joining us. She looked up at me, with tears streaming down her face, eyes all swollen, and told me that she knew I didn't love her, I used to say she was one of my favorite children, but I'd been faking it for seven years and she knew the truth now. She was so earnest and so devastated, but on the same hand, so unnecessarily dramatic that I just had to laugh. I gave her a hug and lugged her down and she snuggled with me for a while. Friday was Marc's gym day, and by the time he got home, I was so tired and the house was not pretty. Jessie had cried herself to sleep, and I hate having to do that do her, but really, she was so exhausted that there was nothing else I could do but send her to bed and let her sob until her eyes finally shut. Julie was doing the non-stop nursing and Sam, God love Sam, he needed a bit of attention too. It's hard when I'm home alone with three kids, especially when one (or two) are demanding 100% of me. Someone always gets the shaft, and then I'm overwhelmed and guilty.

But Saturday was delightful. We stayed home in the morning and cleaned, and then picked up Lilli and Sarah and headed down to the State Pool in Clinton. Julie needs to stay out of the sun, so for the most part, Marc took the kids into the pool and I sat in the shade with the baby. This may be the best year ever for the pool, because Jess is old enough to swim without being held, and Sam would much rather be in the big pool with Marc than playing in the baby pool. Every other year, we've had at least one kid who wasn't big enough for the big pool, and kids who are too big for the baby pool. After we left the pool, we went out for dinner, and then home. Sunday, we did pretty much the same thing - only instead of going to the pool, we went to my mother's house. We hung out, had a cookout, sat in front of a little bonfire - it was wonderful.