National Nude Recreation Week

“Within an hour of getting her quadruplets dressed, from left, Molly, Pierce, Charlie and Spencer have removed their clothes so they can go swimming in the back yard.”

​Did you know that what was once just a weekend is now a whole week of getting back to nature? Naturalism is observed this week, allowing people to enjoy the unencumbered life of clothes-free living.
 
While I’ve never been compelled to observe this particular practice myself, there was a time when a lot of it was going on in our household. Especially the day an entire film and news crew came to stay.

When my kids were two, we were involved with Newborn Hope as kind of their poster children for the year’s fundraising events. So because of the cause, which I wholeheartedly supported (preventing preterm births and other NICU endeavors), I agreed to have some publicity which I’d avoided up to that point. We agreed to let cameras and journalists into our home to help generate publicity, and mostly because I was just stupid and didn’t know what it would entail.
 
It’s hard enough to take care of four two year olds who are potty training when it’s just yourself, but add people in your house ALL DAY watching and filming you and talking to you (and I’m an extreme introvert) and questioning everything you do and talking and talking and talking, and suddenly you’re at a whole new level of stress.
 
When you’re potty training four kids, it works a whole lot better if you just stay home and don’t put a lot of clothes on them. The clothes are only going to get in the way. Plus if it’s a warm enough day, why bother? But when there are cameras around, of course you have to dress them, and make sure they’re cute and clean and maybe even matching somehow, since they are multiples and that’s the whole reason anyone cares anyway. But somehow two year olds don’t really care much about what a bunch of strangers think about their attire. They just want to do like they ordinarily do on a given day when potty training, and that’s basically run around naked.
 
When the article came out, I was trés disappointed. Their entire emphasis seemed to be about the kids being naked, or on the potty, and how tired I was. Of COURSE I was tired. They’d been in my house all day and I couldn’t wait for them to leave. Even during nap time, they meant to sit and watch us. I got them to go get some lunch at that point, somewhere ELSE. I NEEDED them to be gone. By the time they left that night, I was ready to have a melt down. When people observe you all the live long day, you’re on edge, watching everything you say, do, and think. Of course, we should be on our best behavior all the time. But let’s get real. We moms need freedom to fail, freedom to not be June Cleaver, freedom to say, “Not now honey, I have to lie on my face in the middle of the living room and not move for five minutes.” That can’t happen with a film crew watching you.
 
Tomorrow I’ll post the whole article to see. So stayed tuned…