Hitting Homeruns

This weekend we took our littlest, otherwise known on this blog as Peaches, to spend a week with her grandparents a couple hours away; her school doesn't start until after Labor Day, but her dad and I have to work and her brother, Rooster, is already back to school, so J's amazing parents came to our rescue.

The kids love going to see Grammy and Grampy. The grandparents are wonderful, loving, kind, and smart - what's not to love? Their home is beautiful and full of amenities we don't have, like an amazing media room, and a pool. But what I think is the best part is that we all DO THINGS together when we are there. We do FAMILY things, not just survival things. We do HEALTHY things, good things. At the risk of sounding completely melodramatic, this doing things business is what I live for, this family-doing is what I feel like I've waited for all my life.

We do things at our house, too, but somehow the two kids seem to outnumber my husband and me. Sure, mathematically that might sound to you like it makes no sense, but it's still true.

This weekend, Uncle Richard was there with Grammy and Grampy, making it 5 grownups with two kids, which somehow gives us almost just enough hands for what it takes with my two kiddos. Trust me on this.

But my favorite moment this weekend was when I was the only one whose hands weren't needed.

I walked out to the yard and watched as Grammy and Peaches played a paddle ball game in one corner while Grampy, Uncle Richard, and my husband taught the Roo to play whiffle ball. I'm no good at either, but would gladly have played along, only in those minutes, the DOING I needed most was to stand, watch, appreciate, and remember how lucky I am. How lucky we are.

Peaches had fun with her Grammy. Rooster had all the guys on his team helping him connect with soft pitches. I cheered for Rooster. I cheered for Peaches. I yelled, "Good job!" I yelled, "Nice try!" I yelled, "So close! Almost!" I yelled, "Score!" All the yells were the good kind while we DID stuff outside! Everyone felt good about themselves. Everyone was learning, trying. We were happy. If I'd had a camera handy, what you would have seen was love.

Fifteen or twenty perfect minutes.

You hear so much about the hard stuff. I had to share these perfect minutes with YOU.