Spring Break Pilgrimage to the Motherland

The Hike

The sister-in-law and I drove our six kids and two cars for 14 hours each way without our workaholic husbands.

Thomas barfed 3 times in the car.

The nephew barfed once, but it was big.

So both our cars stank.

Both of our portable DVD players were not functioning.

But the trip wasn't actually so bad, because everyone was happy to be going to Grandma's house.

And then the sick ones were better. Well, the nephew was finally better after a few hours in the emergency room and some intravenous fluids.

We hiked.

We ate KFC.

We fed ducks.

We ignored our kids while they played video games and we caught up with family.

We tied a quilt for my Getting-Married-Sister.

I met her fiancee. He passed inspection, but I didn't get to know him too well because he was WAY more interested in her than in me.

Which is okay.

We scrubbed out rank car seats and hosed down chunky floor mats and prayed that we wouldn't have to do it all over again after the return trip to Portland. Prayers were answered.

We ate my all time favorite ice-cream that is only available in the motherland.

We played Farkel at midnight and made copious jokes about the word "Farkel" that were significantly more funny at midnight than they are right now.

I bowled a 121. Not the best, but I won. So there.

We let the children revel in mounds of attention from their doting grandparents, aunts and uncles.

I finally saw The Blind Side and The Princess and The Frog. I also took in an extremely mediocre The Bounty Hunter. I think I'm done with Jennifer Aniston movies.

I met my brand-spanking new baby nephew. (Note to nephew's parents . . . if you decide not to keep him, I've got dibs.)

Helped my little sister celebrate her birthday by making Better Than Chex cake. She wanted something chocolate and gooey, and I had to oblige.

Bumped into people I hadn't seen in ages, missed some friends that I was really hoping to see.

And I felt like a terrible parent when I had to wrench my weeping children away from their grandparents when it was time to return home. Sometimes a week isn't enough. I guess we'll just have to move back there.

Unreal Estate

As I've been languishing this week (I'm feeling much better, thank you. But despite my best sanitizing efforts, the kiddos all have the swine flu now, so I'm stuck here for at least another week.) I've been dwelling on real estate. This topic has been foremost in my mind because of the high likelihood that we will have to move in the near future. And then again after that . . . and probably at least one more time after that. I don't really want to move, but if I have to, then I guess I'd better think about it. I never said I'd think logically though.
Sometimes when I run I see houses that I love, and then I have to go back and take a picture. here is a small sampling of my real estate stalking:

Okay, this house isn't one that I stalked. We actually used to live here back in our Boston/Arlington days. It was a rental duplex, so it wasn't kept up very well (there was a band-aid varnished into the wood floor, termites in the basement, and the brick chimney on the left eventually fell over into the yard and driveway) but I loved the colonial style, the built-ins, the wood trim, the crown moulding, the french glass doors in the living room, the claw foot bathtub upstairs, and our neighbors downstairs.
This house was a few blocks down Mass Ave. from our Arlington house. Isn't it amazing?
I realize there is a theme here. I go for classic colonials with shutters and trim. If you stumble upon any good floorplans . . . hook a girl up. Though I really doubt any of these houses are going to actually solve our current problem, which is that we need a rental for a year and a half until Michael is done with the res.

And the inclusion of the following photos is mostly so that Amy doesn't hurt me for not posting pictures of my recent home design frenzy. Are any of these projects done? No, I think not. Consider them each an illustration of a work in progress. And also an illustration of the shadowing that can happen when I put my finger in front of the flash on the DSLR. Oops.

New/used dining table in action. The plates are on the wall behind it. I have a few more plates to hang here, hence the large white space directly above the table. I just need to purchase the hardware. That will be tricky to do this week though. Swine flu, you know.

The shelves are old ones that I spray painted black. The plates are all from Goodwill. The candy dish and little mushroom salt and pepper shakers on the left are from the sale room in Anthropologie. The peach jam is from my kitchen. The two glassware pieces were wedding gifts. I'm sure I'll get bored with it and rearrange the entire wall next week.
Finally the fabric on canvas project. I used a green trellis fabric . . . I think by Waverly, is that a fabric company?
These projects might seem a little futile, but all of them began before my landlord dropped the "sell the condo" bomb.

And reason #937 I don't want to move out of this 'hood . . . because my neighbor and I can talk on the phone at 3:00 pm and plan a barbeque that the whole neighborhood will attend by 5:30. We had a DJ, karaoke, and a busy grill. After the party some of us stayed out until 10:00 to watch The Incredibles broadcast onto the side of the neighbor's building via projector.

Good news for us, though. There may be another condo in our 'hood coming available for rent. Cross your fingers for us!

Parent Letter to the Basketball Coach

Dear Coach,  Friday, February 6, 2009

I'm sorry my son was late to basketball practice. There is a very good excuse, and here it is.

You see, it all started last night when my daughter came down with the barfing flu. Yesterday it had seemed that nobody else was going to catch it (it had been four days), so I went through the house and shampooed all the carpets. This is a fact that is not entirely relevant to my son's tardiness, but as you will see, makes me seem all the more heroic at the conclusion of the story, so I'm mentioning it anyway.

As previously indicated, we had another case of the barfing flu in the house and (formerly) clean carpets. I spent a good part of the night cleaning up and providing comfort as mother's are apt to do. Since the kiddos and I were exhausted the next morning, I didn't do much after sending Seth (who was the originator of the barfing flu) to school. The action actually began after picking him up from the bus stop. While walking home with all the children in tow, one of my sweet little cherubs decided to pick a fight with the neighbor child.  After apologies were made and time outs were rendered, we went on to do homework and prepare for basketball.

Because we did not do anything active over the course of the day, T (my two year old) became rather restless.   The restlessness was displayed in an exuberant attempt to completely empty every drawer in the house.  He was quiet, so I let him.

Another child (I shall stop identifying children specifically here to deter any inclination you or the internets may have toward prejudice for troublemakers) decided that they were hungry.  Child asked for a sandwich, and I confirmed that child could make one, ONE, one sandwich.  This child commenced to prepare a seven course buffet that spread the length of my kitchen countertop.  Three sandwiches, two toasted english muffins, string cheese and an apple should have been enough, but the child needed orange juice too.  So the child poured juice.  Not in the cup.  All over the counter and freshly shampooed carpet.  All over the bills that I had just brought in from the mailbox.  All over the valentines that another child had only just finished signing and stickering. All over my husband's medical journal that he was supposed to use to prepare a presentation.  All over.  

I didn't yell.  I just calmly stated that it would be in the child's best interest to get a towel and begin wiping while I tried to salvage the papers.  Child ran to the guest bathroom and returned with a new white towel and got to work.  After mopping up, the sweet child returned the dripping towel to the rod in the bathroom for future use because, I quote, "It still had a few dry spots on it."

While said child was eating, I pulled out the carpet shampooer and went to work.  I instructed Seth that he should get dressed for basketball practice in shorts and a t-shirt.  I specifically stated that he should not, under any circumstances put on his uniform, as he had a game tomorrow morning and would not want to get it dirty.

Seth returned a few minutes later wearing the forbidden uniform and swearing up and down that he would not get it dirty.  In fact, he may possibly return it to me in better condition after practice (apparently jerseys can be seasoned).

I didn't have time to argue as I was occupied with wresting a blue crayon from the grip of a two year-old attempting to imitate Rembrandt on my sofa.

Then the wrestling began.  I told Seth that it probably wasn't the best idea to wrestle with children who had so recently had the barfing flu. Keeping the uniform clean entails keeping barf off of it.  "Don't worry mom," he said, "I'll be gentle."  

Apparently Alice didn't get the gentle memo, because she caught Seth's nose with her knee mid-body-slam.  I have never seen so much blood come out of somebody's nose in my life.  All over the freshly shampooed carpet.  All over the formerly clean uniform.  Bloody handprints on the walls, splats on the stairs and puddles in the bathroom.  His nose bled for so long I was starting to panic.  Mind you, Seth wasn't too diligent about pinching his nose and leaning his head back.  He insisted that it caused great tidal waves of blood to go coursing down the back of his throat.

 

I called Michael.  "Come home now!"  I demanded.  "I think your son's nose might be broken."

At this point I had written off basketball practice.  We were skipping it.  But once the nose finally stopped bleeding, Michael determined it wasn't broken and things were cleaned up a little bit, Michael figured it was in the best interest of the family to remove as many people possible from the situation for a little while.

So they showed up to basketball practice 20 minutes late.  Sorry.

Sincerely,

Mandy

Seth's mom

P.S.  All these events occurred between 4:00 and 6:00 pm.  Impressive huh?

Brain Vacation

When stuck inside with a sick child on a February day, it makes me feel happy to pull up Travelocity and plan a hypothetical trip to Hawaii.

Michael and I would stay here:

I'd lose five pounds and buy this:

So we could do this:

And drink this.
And we'd call home every evening for reports from our Mary Poppins nanny who would happily expound upon the miraculously angelic behavior of these guys:

And I'd completely forget that last night I had to catch someone else's vomit in my hands.  I'd not think about the fact that my carpet and upholstery will single-handedly improve ChemDry's rating on the stock exchange by at least four points. And I will be able to go more than 24 hours without saying the words barf, Goldfish crackers, diaper, sippy cup, play-doh, bath toys, basketball practice, dance lessons, homework, chicken nuggets, Elmo or princess. 

And after a few days I will probably realize how desperately I miss it all.

At Laaaaast . . .

The kids are better. Yes, Alice wound up getting them too, though she only had one teensy pox mark on her nose . . . I only recognized it for what it was because of Seth.
So good news everybody! Immunizations aren't a complete waste of time! The pediatrician believes that Alice and Thomas were shielded by having current immunizations. Which, to correct an inaccuracy in my last report, I must admit . . . Seth hadn't actually had his kindergarten pox booster. I only thought he had, but after going over his records at the office, we recalled that they were actually out of pox booster that day, and it was my responsibility to be sure he had it next time.
Well. We see how well that went. I mean, come on, I have three kids. I can't even remember where I put my keys half the time, and they wanted me to remember to come back in three months for a pox booster? The good news is that he doesn't need one now. So both kids had free pox boosters. Woo hoo! It wasn't worth it.
Being home bound for a week allowed me to get a few things done, though. I finally canned all the remaining peaches and jam I had from our picking expedition last week.



Yes, my precious progeney and I managed to pick a prolific amount of perfect peaches yet again. This year's haul amounted to 78 pounds. To read one of my favorite peach picking posts click here.
I also finished reading the works of Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with a book written by one of my high school debate coaches, Waiting for the Light to Change. I finally sorted that huge stack of papers that has been sitting on my dresser forever, and we managed to replace our dearly departed Grand Am.
I also already have the year's quota of whine-listening filled, so I'm good there too.
One thing that has been cracking me up is Alice's fascination with all things Charlie & Lola. We've been borrowing the DVDs and books from the library, and she is completely enamored with Lola in particular. Charlie & Lola is a British children's television program, so of course the characters speak with an accent. Alice has been picking up the accent, and sounds a little too much like Oliver Twist when she asks, "Please mum, may I have some more?"
It all reminds me of a time before we had kids when I was extremely sick and had to miss a few days of work. One of the days Michael took off work also and we sat around watching videos for hours and hours on end. Of course, since I was the sick one, I got to choose what we watched, Sense & Sensibility, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (a little juvenile, I'll admit, but he'd never seen it, which was a travesty) and Emma were among my selections. That night Michael was talking in his sleep (a habit he has) with a British accent. That pretty much made the whole illness worth it.

Why I haven't blogged . . .

Since yesterday evening my kids have puked on:

Me
Michael
A basket of clean laundry
A kitchen chair
The sofa
The floor (in various locations)
Towels laid out to clean the floor
A bowl (yes!)
The crib
The pack and play
5 pairs of pajamas
3 blankets
The handrail on the stairs
And a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

I'm sure this list will need to be updated within the hour.