Sometimes the best way forward is the choose the path of least resistance. Adding 4 very active kids means that we are often trying to decide exactly how important are certain things to us? Take today, for instance. After a fairly long walk to try out a new park (very disappointing for all as it had essentially nothing to do), we decided to take some very hangry and tired kids to a local buffet rather than spending more time making food at home. The nice thing about Brazil is that they don’t charge for certain ages. So despite having 7 of us, we were only charged for 4.5 meals (the waiter wisely assessed that Elijah would be eating enough to constitute a half meal despite his age). The buffet was a thrill for the kids as options and as much as they wanted of what they wanted probably hasn’t happened too often. This buffet had grilled meats that could be collected in a separate section at the end. We made the quick decision to only have one parent grab an assortment of meats for the whole time, while the other parent kept an eye on the table. The restaurant probably ended up making out fine despite the discounts, as the path of least resistance means that mom and dad eat little bits fast in order to beat any children and be able to help them in getting food when needed (thankfully many of them could navigate this on their own, but one was a bit overwhelmed when there were more people in line).
The afternoon had us going to a larger park with one of the helpers hired as a part of our fees. The older children were especially excited and really looking forward to the small amusement park at one end of this park…it had been the talk for a few days and had the boys super excited. So it was especially crushing to walk all the way through the park only to discover the amusement section does not open until 17:00. We do try hard to minimize no’s and disappointments, especially considering backgrounds and the ways this has impacted their lives. As a smaller consolation, we ended up getting ice cream and discovered it was an ice cream buffet…a kids dream (perhaps a parent’s nightmare??). We immediately set about to being the scoopers of ice cream to control quantity while simultaneously trying to keep toppings to a set amount…trying to do this with 5 kids is a bigger challenge…especially when seemingly out of nowhere there were suddenly 5-10 people behind us in line and a few kids (not knowing it was pay by the weight) began eating their ice cream. The path of least resistance meant that mom and dad chose to get everyone fixed up and have the treat of a few moments of sitting in silence with a gaggle of happy kids over getting ice cream. On the bright side, this may turn out to be one of the more effective diets invented…the jury is still out on this one, but we will let you know how well jumping from 1 to 5 kids works on fitness (we are already moving a lot more just to answer the calls of “pai” and “mae”).
And – we can share a few photos since no faces are visible 😀 We can’t wait to share the other many we are accumulating as they are awesome! But this will need our official ruling first…speaking of which, please do continue to pray for Article 5 issuance…no news still although we were hoping Lifeline would be able to set up a call with the embassy.
Halfway Around the Globe 