Clubhouse Card Games

Some slowed down summer magic happened today...

The kids decided to clean up their old clubhouse this past Saturday. Older girl kept urging the two younger kids to go play in the clubhouse. She kind of made me laugh because she was so pushy. 

"Why are you trying to force them to play in the clubhouse?" I asked wondering at her demands.

She said, " They are going to miss out on playing with the clubhouse and get too old to want to play in it." She was remembering all the fun she had in the clubhouse when she was little.

Oldest girl is exactly what you picture an older sister to be. Sometimes I will say, "Stop telling your brother and sisters what to do."

She will say bluntly, "Isn't that what older sisters are for?" 

Anyways she encouraged the two youngers to clean sweep the clubhouse. Everything was swept, washed down, all of the plastic furniture and old bent license plates that decorate the walls were cleaned under the water hose. 

They got a clipboard, paper, and pencil and made plans of what the clubhouse should look like.

Today the older two girls went to Five Below and got some ideas to freshen up the old space with new hanging faux plants, a tiny rug, and a pretty tapestry and painting.

New batteries added the last touch bringing life back to the old lights they had strung up on the back door.

After a summer dinner on the deck with the kids I agreed to come into the tight quarters of the clubhouse and play cards. 

I got to sit in the camping hammock that they had secured with carbineers. Two of them sat on collapsible stepping stools and two more in plastic chairs. We all played rummy and UNO.  It was such a simple and fun night.   It has been a cool summer, but the last two days it was finally hot. We set all huddled together in that wooden clubhouse sweating a bit but making memories.

After we stopped playing cards and right before it turns " blue-ish" outside. This term is used by second girl. "Blue-ish" is when the sun is down and only a "smidge" as they say of light remains that turns everthing blueish outside. 

While blueish happened around us the oldest and the youngest laid on the trampoline with me. 

As your kids get older it is an unexpected and amazing feeling when they reach out to hug you or kiss you that you don't initiate. It means more because it wasn't prompted by you and you are not longer their world.  

Laying under the blueish twilight both kids wrapped their arms around me and laid with their heads touching mine and we laughed and looked at the moon. It was truly a special moment. 

I had a rough weekend. 

I experienced an ongoing allergy attack that was miserable, doctor trips, and then some words that sliced me deep...but out there being a kid with my kids huddled in the clubhouse and laying under the half moon's light letting my kids hug me without being asked I felt the love of God.

I don't know if it is always like this, but I feel like for me and for most of the world it is like this many times....
many things aren't resolved, hang on and hurt, and questions float like the fireflies above our heads blinking on and off letting us know that they are still there.

Sometimes we think if we could somehow have all of it be good or what we think would be right we would feel deep love, but tonight I felt deep love dished out to me by my kids right in the midst of pain.