The challenges of this middle aged lady living in a house of five males is often mind-blowing and beyond exhausting! And yet, it also is full of loud, joyful noise too (as you can imagine)!

Saturday’s adventure in trying to shine on as a Mom… 

We were preparing to get packed up to head to the beach to spend the afternoon. The beach house is truly only about 5 minutes to walk (if that) to the edge of the ocean when the tide is out, so all we needed to do was get our swimmies on, spray on the sunscreen, pack up some water and snacks, organize everyone’s boogie boards and grab the towels. To get each of these tasks completed, I had to repeat myself like a broken record to each son. That was okay because in the end it would result in three or four hours sitting in the sun watching the play and interactions around me without too much extra effort on my part (you might consider this selfish, but instead, I call this necessary!).

Task one completed (only 15 minutes to get us all in our suits), I felt like we were moving along at a decent rate and getting close to leaving. Three of the four boys were sprayed and ready to go and I only had to ensure one more son put sunscreen on. Well, unfortunately for both my fifteen year old and I, the spray sunscreen (that we had borrowed from my sister-in-law) ran out and we had no other available. My son’s expression was “No big deal, Mom. I’ll be fine”. My reaction was much different. I asked him to run over to his other aunt’s beach house to ask to borrow her sunscreen. He would not. I responded with,  “You will either go ask your other aunt to borrow her sunscreen, or you will wear a shirt while on the beach and in the ocean.” Possibly my tone was authoritative as I was certainly not feeling calm and quiet in my mind. I’d like to think it was just a simple stated direction, but from his pissed off expression, I’m sure it was closer to yelling. I was hot. He was too. I grabbed the towels, backpack with water and snacks, and proceeded to stalk over to my second sister-in-law’s place to borrow a rub-on sunscreen. I may have vented a little to her in the process of asking for the sunscreen and trekked down to the beach with the other three sons. My husband led the eldest to the beach and we met down at the gathering place where all the cousins were playing.

Now is where the #shineon moment makes me smile (and tear up too, darn the guilt). When I reached the place where my eldest son was, he came over and asked for me to put on his sunscreen for him. I know that he was still annoyed with me but he also knew it was important to me to keep him safe from the sun. My heart melted from the anger and I gratefully put sunscreen all over his back. I thanked him for putting on the sunscreen and we both apologized for getting upset with each other. This moment could be looked at the moment that ruined our time at the beach, but instead, we let forgiveness lead us and had a great day building sandcastles and playing in the ocean. (And a really awesome cousin provided me with an adult beverage which made the day even brighter!-Thanks JS)

#shineon friends!

-Carrie Ruth