Tantrums, Ne-Yo, and $3 Ice Cream...

Last week I was on vacation with my family in Stone Harbor, NJ. It was the first leg of a much needed three part vacation that Nate and I will be on the next few weeks. My family has been vacationing in Stone Harbor since before I was born. I am getting ready to turn 32 this fall, so that is a pretty long time! My uncle owns a beautiful beach house which he so graciously allows our family to invade for a couple of weeks. This year Nate and I were only able to be there for 6 days, due to a youth event that was going on during the available dates, but those 6 days were packed in!

Vacation tends to be a time where we create memories that last a lifetime. We are family that is rich in tradition, so we tend to do the same routine when we are in Stone Harbor. We get up, ride bikes on the boardwalk, go to a few stores, fix lunch (with the same kind of rolls every year), pack up our beach stuff, head to the beach for a few hours, come home, fix dinner, and head out for the night to either Cape May, Wildwood, or Downtown Stone Harbor for Ice Cream.

Here is the thing...when you throw 3 kids into the mix (this year it was a 2 month old baby, a 2 year old and a 4 1/2 year old, those traditions get tweaked just a little bit. Everyone says that you don't do the same things when you have kids, but in our family, we do them, they just look a little different. I felt myself imagining next summer a lot on on this vacation...hoping that Nate and I will have brought home our own family by then. If I am honest, at times it was hard to watch my own sisters with their families, because I want that so bad for myself. At the same time, they are so inclusive of Nate and I in their own family's lives, that I feel incredibly blessed. Not only are they inclusive, but our entire family remains so sensitive to where we are at, and together we navigate this journey of adoption, hopeful that next summer will include two little ones from Ethiopia gracing the beaches of Stone Harbor. In the mean time, I watch my sisters, my brother-in-laws and my parents, and am thankful for the amazing role models they are to Nate and I as Christian parents and grandparents. So on that note, here are a few things I learned from my family this vacation...

1. Kids pick up everything...one day we were sitting on the boardwalk eating Pizza in a restaurant when a Ne-Yo song came on. I heard this faint singing in the background and looked at my older sister who looked at my younger sister and said, "Is Sadie singing that?" Sadie is the 2 year old. Kris quickly said...I think it was Emma (the 4 year old). Sure enough it was Sadie. My sister Kristen about died of embarrassment while Heather and I had to be picked up off the floor because we were laughing so hard.

2. Kids force you to be thrifty...Springers, the ice cream place we go to in Stone Harbor is a little pricey ($4 a cone). They were selling this mug that you could buy for $10 and then refill each time with ice cream for $3. My sister Heather decided to do this, and each night would bring her own box of ice cream cones, purchase the $3 of ice cream and split it into 3 cones for her and the girls. Let me tell you...this is ghetto...but thrifty. She conveniently chose blue cones to which people asked, "Why didn't we get blue cones?"

3. Babies can do some serious damage in their diapers...there isn't too much to expand on this, other than I need to grow some serious tolerance in the next few months for the smell of whatever comes out of babies. My niece Quinn can't be more than like 13 pounds and...well...I am gagging as I write this...I have a long ways to go.

4. Tantrums are inevitable when kids are tired...I saw this with both Sadie and Emma, and I am not going to lie, when it's not your kid, it can be funny. My sisters said all week long...wait until it's your kid next summer! Honestly, I am impressed with the level of patience both my sisters have with their kids and I can only pray I will have that same kind of patience.

5. Little Ears Have Pitchers...Just look that one up! My mom swore that it was a true saying and she was right. And let's just say, kids hear everything you say. They are constantly listening to what's next and they don't miss a beat.

6. Kids can cause Pop-Pops to do some crazy things...we were riding in the car one night (our new car because it holds 8 people and has a sweet DVD system), when my niece Sadie became obsessed with a My Little Pony DVD. There are these head phones she had to put on and she just kept repeating over and over "I hear ponies...I hear ponies...I hear ponies." After about 10 minutes straight of that, my Dad took the headphones and put them on his own head crying out, "I hear ponies...I hear ponies...I hear ponies." I am not sure who was funnier.

7. The greatest gift a child can be given is a family filled with love...I guess the thing that stuck out to me the most on this vacation is just how loved all three of my nieces are. I watched as my parents loved on those kids like they were their own each day. I watched as my sisters cuddled with their kids at night, picked them up when they fell, and laughed uncontrollably with them. I watched as my own husband took every chance he could to let the girls know he was "Uncle Awesome," playing with them at the beach, singing in the car with them, and hugging on them. They have been born into a family that is full of love.

There was one morning that my mom, my sister, my two nieces and I were all laying on my Mom and Dad's air mattress just hanging out together. I again imagined our own children being thrown into that mix. It makes my heart full to think about that day...a day where two kids will enter into their new family, one that is filled with an immense kind of love to give. I pray that that day would come soon.