Friendly Advice for Taking Walks With a Toddler

Do not, under any circumstances, place your expensive camera in the under seat basket and proceed to give your toddler a bottle of water.

Take note of the wind direction if at any point of your walk you will be hiking up a loooooong hill. While the breeze is refreshing and dries the armpits a little, it is more difficult to push a stroller and toddler uphill into the wind.

No matter how runny your nose is because it is ragweed season, try to walk with your mouth closed lest you come upon an insect riding the current. FYI, it also makes you a little chokey for the rest of the walk.

It's not the best idea to go for an hour-long walk when you are on day three of Jillian Michaels' Shred. Your muscles already hate you.

This last point is especially important if you are vastly overweight and attempting the Shred. If you insist on walking anyway a shorter walk is probably best.

Chances are you'll forget all of this by the next time you want to take a walk with your toddler. Well, all except the first point anyway.

The Day That Could Have Been Much Worse and Why I'm Thankful

Yesterday was the kind of day that would have been defined in terms of complete suckage in the past and sent me completely over the edge of reason. However, I have made changes lately and the events of yesterday took on a different tone mostly because of how I have relearned to react to things (most of the time).

It was an ordinary enough morning but as I was in the shower I remembered that my son had brought home a homework assignment to do this weekend. It wasn't a big thing, just read a very short book and answer a couple of questions. But since I forgot about it until early Monday morning it was pretty much like pulling teeth from a boy who probably stayed up too late the previous night playing Legos surreptitiously in his room long after he was told to go to sleep.

But we got through it. In time to pile into the car...Ms. D with her new ball that her cousin sweetly decided she should have because she enjoyed it at his house so much (she has brought it with her ever since)...M and K with their backpacks and rowdy attitudes. I had little hope for civilized schooling. Small prayers sent to their teachers.

D and I went on to her "school" a parent and child activity mostly unique to Minnesota. (ECFE if you're interested.) The kids in her class had started tentatively separating from their parents and now, with almost 8 months of class and practice at separating from parents for about an hour or so, most of the kids are separating without fuss. D had some issues for the first half of the school year but since January she has been completely comfortable when I've left the room.

When I returned to the room today to pick her up one of the teachers rushed to us. It was unusual and for a split second I thought she was going to tell me about a potty training success or something similar. That was where my mind was I guess.

It was not the case.

No, instead I was told that my little bitty pretty baby girl almost hung herself from a toddler slide by way of some plastic Mardi-Gras style necklaces. There was a red mark on her neck remaining from the incident when I arrived in the room after parent time ended. I was calm. She was fine. Later, as I was thinking about what might have happened I grew angry. I wondered why I was not summoned to the room immediately following the incident. I worried about whether they had removed all of the necklaces from now on. I was assured that D was never really choking and that the incident happened and was over in a matter of seconds (resulting in the necklaces being cut from around her neck.)

I could be irate. I'm not. I'm happy my child is safe. I hope all necklaces are gone. I will check today. FYI--necklaces in a toddler room are not well-advised.

Later in the day D slept for almost 2 hours. She didn't really nap the previous day so she was extra tired anyway and I suspect that nearly hanging oneself may be a little tiring. (Thank the Lord she is fine I would be even more nuts than I already am if she were not fine.) I joke but it is not funny. Had I lost my littlest one (any of my kids) I would fear for my own sanity.

I nudged D awake slightly before we needed to go pick up her siblings. She was groggy, sweaty, bright-eyed and independent. Typical child of mine.

We went to pick up her siblings. We've gotten into the habit as the weather has gotten so atypically beautiful so quickly that we've walked outside of the BIGS' school while they've finished their lessons. D pulls and resists my handhold, but we manage to reach a compromise.

We pick up her siblings and drive home. It is uneventful. Normal. I think my unusual day has past the unusual bit but it hasn't.

The kids put their stuff away. K goes out to play, M does her homework then goes out to play. I check her work and discover it's lacking so I call her indoors again.

She reworks the problems and returns outdoors.

Minutes later I hear wailing, crying, "don't tell mom!" "I'm telling mom!"

Miss M enters, crying hysterically. It takes a few moments for me to realize her face and neck are covered in paint. Not good. The Boy is sent to his room. He's clearly remorseful yet not that sure he's done something wrong. How do you know that you've done something wrong??? Especially when you're five?

I call their dad to ask how to remove spray paint from faces. He suggests olive oil and it works. My son is cowering in his room. My oldest is laughing because I've come up with ways to make her see the humor. The toddler nearly died this morning.

The day was emotional. A set of near misses. M may have lost sight because she had spray paint all over her face (thankfully missing eyes) and neck.

This day could have been much worse. I spent the day being calm. Every incident, I was calm, understanding, loving. I'm not sure that is good.

Just a Little Tip, Take a Little Tip From Me

So, let's just say hypothetically that you have a girl in second grade who is extremely social. Perhaps so social that the teacher has explained that she has several girls in her class who have very strong, confident personalities and it may or may not be stressing said teacher out. [pointed look that ensures you know your child is one of those girls]

These girls that your daughter hangs out with at school have distinct and increasingly teenage-esque behaviors that maybe are starting to alarm you a bit on occasion, though most of the time they are harmless things...just little girls experimenting with being bigger girls.

But let me tell you. Just a small tip. If your daughter has long hair and asks to wear her hair down instead of in the customary braids or "twisties" she usually wears because her and her friends want to play "beauty shop" at recess, decline the request. Really. Just. Say. No.

Because if you're stupid like me you let your child wear her hair down to school for such purpose, you might just end up spending 45 minutes of your life trying to get a tangled hair band out from several knots of hair and brushing 2682 snarls out of her hair.

Just. Say. No.

Our Impromptu Tour of the Twin Cities

My Mom and I took the three kids to the Target Center and IKEA last Friday. I needed to exchange some vouchers I’d received for free tickets to a kids’ show coming up, hence the trip to the Target Center.

We decided to go to the Target Center first to get that out of the way before we went to IKEA. The trip there was relatively uneventful. I had bought a bag of pseudo popcorn for the kids to eat on the way up so they were happily munching on that and listening to their CD players.

One, two, three, we’re in the parking ramp. Four, five, six, we’ve found a parking spot.

We notice a large construction project outside of the ramp that looks like a big amphitheater or arena or something and realize it’s the new Twins stadium. K announces he has to pee. We have no idea where a bathroom is.

So we start walking toward the skyways and follow the signs to the Target Center box office. K reminds us that he has to pee every 3 minutes or more often. I’ve kind of blocked out that part. There are no bathrooms along the way from the ramp to the box office. I think I see a sign for a bathroom but apparently it is just there to tease mothers with sons who have peanut-sized bladders.

Since we are at the box office, I get the tickets and am amazed at how courteous service people are in the Cities. Not at all the generally gruff, grouchy people I routinely deal with in Rochester.

K still has to pee.

We head back up the skyway and take a left where we would have taken a right to go back to the car. M points this out, to which I remind her that her brother has to pee.

Pee pit stop accomplished; we head back to the car. I attempt to take a photo of the stadium through the glass in the skyway instead of through the bars in the ramp but my camera doesn’t have any more space for photos and I discover I don’t know how to delete photos. Fun! I love it when I learn something new that I don’t know.

So we get everyone loaded back in the car, pay, and turn out of the ramp. There is construction right outside the ramp, which throws me for a loop, and I ask my mom for her opinion on where we should go to get back to IKEA. She suggests that I get on I94, which, in retrospect, was not the best idea.

However I didn’t know where to go and my mom thought that I94 would hook up with 494, which is what we really wanted to be on. (For the record, it doesn’t.) We drive for a while and soon realize we are in St. Paul (nowhere near where we wanted to be). We continue driving, turning randomly and finding ourselves driving by the University of Minnesota Campus, the State Fairgrounds, miscellaneous other landmarks. My mom is enjoying looking at the old houses. M is in the back seat crying because we’re lost and that’s what she does when her mother gets lost in the Cities. K is talking nonstop about who knows what and it is like a little loud mosquito buzzing in my ear as I’m trying to figure out a way back to the damned Big Blue Store.

I tell my mom to get the map out of the glove box and she does. When I comment about a street we’re passing she starts to fold the map back up. Uh. Why are you putting the map away?

Oh I thought you knew where we were.

No, just telling you what streets we were passing so you could look on the map.

Doh! So she gets the map back out and after several discussions we finally find 35W, which connects to 494, and we arrive at IKEA. M stops crying as soon as she sees the airport, which is right near IKEA, and instead starts extolling the wonderful navigation skills of her grandmother (who, I will remind you, got us lost to begin with).

Good times.

********
Aweigh post below.

Have I Told You This Already?

One of the bad things about having a blog and being on Twitter is that many conversations end before I get a chance to even get started. I'll start to tell a family member or a friend a story and they'll cut me off only a few words in by saying "oh I know, I read your Twitter" or "yeah I saw that on your blog."

So apparently I'm a little too talky here and there.

Considering I don't talk that much to begin with I am seriously limiting my speaking time by writing. Anyone else have that problem?

Thanks and giving

I find myself here, awake again in the early morning hours of days when most have laid their heads upon their pillows and succumbed to slumber. It’s not new, for me. I’m often awake long after I should realistically be sleeping.

I stay awake, making cards, writing blog posts, tweeting on Twitter, or any number of other inane occupations that make the time pass even more quickly.

It is during these nights, that I have my card-making supplies spread all over the floor, that I’m drinking a glass of wine, that the baby is slumbering on a pillow nearby, that I find my selves colliding.

I sit and cut out cardstock, or lay down adhesive and suddenly hear my son begin to cry.

He cries as he does all things: talk, sing, snore, sneeze, vomit, fart, what have you. He is, at four, already accustomed to the manly way of amping up the volume of all things emotional or involuntary.

Within moments of his first utterance, I am at his side. His voice, still a boy’s, yet holding hints of the man he will become if we are all as fortunate as I dream we are.

I ask him what is wrong. He is also, at four, still unable to express the very things that upset him so greatly.

Did you have a bad dream?

Yes!

We hug and I back rub and he seems to settle down until he’s just not settled.

What’s the matter now? I use my best gentle voice. I am worried that I will sound tense even though I am not tense. Tone plays such a large part in our lives.

I don’t know! My boy’s cries are heartbreaking and frustrating.

You know what I did when I was little and had a bad dream?

No. He’s tentative, but willing to try a solution that his old, outdated mommy might have used successfully.

I’d take my pillow, I said, and grabbed K’s, and I put it on this end of the bed.

I plumped the pillow at the foot end of the bed.

K settled in as I stroked his head.

This is the silly side of the bed, I explained. You’ll have to tell me about the silly dreams you had when we wake up tomorrow.

He settled in, this boy of mine who, not so long ago, was my baby. The baby of the family, usurped by another who dared to have the audacity to take his parents’ attentions away, who is still testing the love of his parents.

I closed the door to his bedroom as the tiny cry of his baby sister reminded us of her demanding presence and the unending call of motherhood.

For these nights, when my son cries out and back rubs soothe, when my oldest daughter tiptoes into my spot in my bed, when my baby fusses until my return, these nights I am thankful for.

The Potty Breakdown Part Two

I called K into the kitchen and showed him the box of cars. His eyes lit up. These cars were good. Oh yes they were. This was clearly the better selection of the two boxes.

Once I had piqued his interest I told him the terms:

He had to poop on the potty. If he pooped on said potty he could pick one car AND he could take it into his (now toyless) room.

He quickly agreed, but I was not done stating my terms.

IF he pooped in his pants OR if he didn’t poop at all (the kid poops multiple times a day in his pants) I would let M pick a car AND she could take any car that he had already earned should he earn one.

Okay Mommy!

Twenty minutes later? A turd in the potty. A car was chosen. The purple one. I praised his choice because if M got to pick a car, she’d have picked the purple one first. I reminded him that she could still get the purple one if he didn’t continue to put the poop in the potty.

I was optimistic, but we’d been there before. We’ve had one poop at a time. I would be more optimistic if I saw a repeat poop.

He tried to get another car without pooping by saying he pooped and flushing quickly. So the terms had an addendum that stated that the poop must be witnessed by Mom or Dad before the car would be issued.

He was not happy that his ploy didn’t work, but we still had poop-free pants.

Saturday came and K wore underwear instead of pull-ups. He’s worn underwear before, and just gone ahead and pooped in them too.

This time we had a repeat poop in the potty. AND he kept the underwear dry all day as well.

It was the same thing on Sunday. Sunday was actually a THREE poop in the potty day. And the last time K was playing with M in her bedroom. I overheard her telling him what she thought should happen next in their little game when suddenly K said Oh wait! I have to go poop! He stood up and ran to the bathroom.

I wanted to cry great, fat, tears of joy.

Sunday night K requested a chance to wear underwear to bed. He woke up Monday morning still wearing clean and dry underwear.

I was hopeful that we had had a major breakthrough. Then he refused to poop at all again all day that Monday.

It turned out, thankfully, to be a minor setback. He’s used the potty without incident since.

So apparently I just needed to empty his room of toys and threaten to let his sister pick a car before him to motivate him to use the potty. If that just doesn’t make me want to pound my skull with a hammer…

And it turns out that K won’t be going off to college still wearing pull-ups. That’s a good thing. I’d have hated sitting with his potential girlfriends making small-talk while he went to change his underwear. It would have been a little awkward.

But phew! Only one kid left to potty train…and I get a little break before I have to start on her.

K has been using the potty since he finally decided to do it. He has not had a single accident. And as with most things, my mind is already forgetting the unpleasantness of just a few weeks ago. I’m beginning to forget the frustration of his refusal to use the potty.

It’s wonderful.

The Potty Breakdown Part One

It started two weeks ago Monday. The psychotic break I mean.

Mine, that is.

You see, K turned four a few weeks ago and he was still wearing a pull-up. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have a big boy who knows how to use the potty, continually and willfully choose to not use the potty.

We woke up that day like the other days before it. The kids were fed and dressed and we took M to school. K, D and I went back home for a short while before we went to the park to meet some friends.

The park was nice. The weather was warm and the sun was shining. There was a perfect spot under a tree to sit and chat with my friends while our kids played together. There really was no indication that I would soon be losing my mind.

After the park I wanted to hit the dollar store. I told K before we went in the store that I would not be buying any toys and that he needed to be quiet and stay by me in the store. Naturally, he spotted something the second we walked in the door.

I want this Mommy!

No.

I WANT it!

No.

Rinse. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat some more until he worked himself into having a fit. Honestly, I thought the fits would have subsided by his age but I guess I was deluding myself.

We left the store amidst stares from people who were undoubtedly thinking that I had my hands full with the little terrorist 4-year-old and a baby. Wouldn’t they have loved to find out I have another kid too?

Once we got home I cooked lunch and fed the baby. K will typically poop after lunch so I made a point of asking him if he needed to poop several times because I’d told him if he doesn’t learn to use the potty they won’t let him go to preschool this year. (No idea if that’s true but I thought it was worth a shot.) He sometimes says he just doesn’t want to go to school then, but I know he really does want to go play with his friends.

K, do you need to poop?

No.

Are you sure? Maybe you should go try.

Nooooooo.

Okay, but I really think we need to work on getting that poop in the potty so you can go to school. Time is running out.

I don’t need to go poop Mommy!

Approximately 5 minutes later:

K, I think it’s time to go try to poop on the potty.

I already pooped!

Arrgggghhhhhhhhhh!

And, with that, the great you-will-sit-on-the-potty-until-you-poop-in-the-potty marathon commenced.

Which resulted in K just NOT POOPING AT ALL. For, let’s see…oh three days.

You’d think I’d have learned that I will not win if I turn this into a battle. Apparently I have a learning disability.

So then that Thursday when I had my psychotic break and took all the toys out of K’s room? I think I may have scared him a little.

The next day we were going to continue the potty-sitting, but he convinced me that he would go try to potty every time I told him to. I agreed to those terms and he did actually go to the bathroom and pee every time I told him to.

I started cleaning out our cupboards because some of them were a little dangerous both in the way of the length of time some of the foodstuffs have been in there and also in the way that if you opened the cupboard you risked a concussion.

In the process of cleaning one cupboard I found a box of 6 Matchbox cars that I had bought (along with another box) A YEAR AGO to try to bribe K into pooping on the potty. He did get all of the cars from the first box. One. Poop. At. A. Time…stretched over at least 6 months. He’d crap on the potty, get a car and be good with just that one new car for a while. Then, when he thought he’d like another car. One crap again. So that method didn’t work so well.

But that Friday I had another idea.

(To be continued tomorrow!)

Snack time

So I had big plans. Just ten minutes ago I tweeted that I was going to eat some ice cream, start making a tutu and watch the Olympics.

It was a good plan, and a tasty one too, but instead of simply getting my ice cream and sitting down to eat it, my plan went awry.

First, I wandered out to the kitchen where a half-unwrapped Reese's peanut butter cup sat on the counter, taunting me. I've avoided peanut butter and tree nuts throughout my pregnancies and when I'm nursing, so, although I love peanut butter cups I try to resist the temptation.

This cup was mocking me though. Ha ha Heather. Here I sit. Remember earlier in the night when you tried to offer me as dessert and the kids said no they don't like me? Yeah, you want me don't you? Yeah baby.

So I thought what the hell? One won't hurt me or D. It's not really peanut butter in those things anyway is it?

No matter.

Damned if that sucker didn't shoot right out of my hand and roll on the cat-hair-infested floor. Even I'm not desperate enough to eat a hair-covered peanut butter cup. With a heavy heart, I threw the object of my desire and disappointment into the trash can.

Ah well, I was in the kitchen to get that ice cream anyway.

Triple Chocolate ice cream by Breyers, to be exact. Just picked up a fresh pint this morning since I killed the first one last night. I'd hate to lose too much weight and be healthy you know.

I pried the lid loose and grabbed the scoop from the dish drainer. Three stripes of chocolaty goodness awaited me, white on the left, dark chocolate in the middle and chocolate chocolate on the right. I tell you about the stripes and the colors because it needs to be said that I like to leave my favorite taste last. In this case, that would be the dark chocolate. So, I need to scoop and plan my bowl properly so that I can end my frozen treat on the right note.

I plunged the scoop into the hard ice cream. It kept going. The ice cream bounced out of the container and did a swan-dive to the floor.

Shit.

I won't lie. I looked at the giant scoop of dark chocolate ice cream to assess whether it could still be eaten. Alas, ice cream fares even less well than peanut butter cups. The dust bunnies clinging to MY ice cream were enjoying a tasty treat.

With a sigh, I threw the tainted ice cream into the sink. Dark chocolate down the drain. Literally. What a waste.

Spirit damaged, but not totally broken I forged ahead. I was going to get my ice cream.

Scoop. Plunge. Ice Cream. Dive.

WTF? AGAIN?

I'm beginning to wonder if there is something wrong with this tub of ice cream and God is trying to save me from myself. Oh well, if He is, He's going to have to do more than that.

Be happy, be sparkly

In memory of Hannah Davis and to celebrate her 6th birthday on Friday, her mommy, Rachael, is asking us to be especially sparkly. Wear fancy clothes, sparkly jewelry and non-sensible shoes. Notice the little wonderful things in life...especially frogs or anything nature-related.

I'm sure Hannah will be looking down and smiling at how pretty she made the world.

I know something you don't know

Sometimes you just have to crack out the good old-fashioned paper and pen to write your thoughts.

The blog is great and all, but some stuff you just can't write about where people you know will read it.

Today is one of those days.

Maybe someday I will share my day with my 5 readers. (Hi!)

But for now, it's for me.

Friends

About a year ago, I wrote a very whiny post about not having any friends. It was a lie of sorts, because I regularly had contact with women who could technically be considered friends. However, my "friend" standard hadn't really been met at the time.

I'm so lucky to be able to say that I have friends now. I'm not going to identify them online, but I'm sure they know who they are.

These women have saved my sanity more often than they know. Now, our kids will be off to Kindergarten (mine, already...others in September...others will be schooled at home). I fear that we will lose touch and that our parenting and friend bonds will fade.

I picked up the August 2007 issue of Better Homes and Gardens at the dollar store (Love getting magazines there!) and found and article about "healing friendships" that resonated with me.

The article has the statistics (we all know that you can find a statistic for almost anything can't we?) that made me so happy to be able to say I have friends.

One landmark study of nearly 7000 residents in Alameda County, California, found that women who spent time with friends five or more times a month were less likely to die over the nine-year-follow-up period of the study. A second study, conducted at Mercy Medical Center in Maryland, revealed that men and women who had at least 10 friends were half as likely to have health challenges and disabilities that interfered with their daily lives as those who had only two friends.

I'm not sure that I have 10 friends, but I'm infinitely grateful for the 5 (in real life) that I feel like I can call for anything, anytime, and if they can possibly help me they will.

The article in BHG also had a sidebar about The New Backyard Fence. It related the reality of the Internet as a new connection mechanism. It told of the number of people who felt "very close" (23) to someone online and the number who felt "somewhat close" (27) to someone online. Seriously, the blogosphere and miscellaneous bulletin boards really do become "friends" to many. I'd say that I have several online "friends" that I have never met in real life. The best part of this sidebar gave me hope. What's more, instead of the popular image of a lonely person hunkered down in front of a screen, the Pew study found that those who make contact online are 50 percent more likely to have in-person contacts as well, than those who never touch a computer. Computers, it seems, are simply another way to make even more friends.

I'm convinced that this is the phenomenon that is keeping Rachael at Life with Hannah and Lily going. She has hundreds of new online friends to join her real friends to help her through her nightmare.

My friends have helped me in ways that they don't know. I'm sure that they don't. I can only hope that I have helped in the same way.

From the article again: "Our biology likes positive relationships," says psychologist Teresa Seeman, Ph.D., associate chief of geriatric research at the UCLA School of Medicine. "We're still trying to unravel why this happens. Among younger adults, [younger is not quantified in the story] it's the spouse who seems to have the biggest effect. But as you age, that doesn't seem to be as true. It's your friends."

I think I'll try to maintain all relationships, just to be safe. And because I rather like my husband...and my friends.

I have to say thank you to my husband AND all my friends, whether in real life or online. You've added much color to my life, and it is much-appreciated.

Everything I need to know I learned since M started Kindergarten...

1. The plastic lunch box was the way to go. What does she do to the box at lunch that I need to scour it each night?
2. Lunch? Apparently a few Goldfish crackers and a stick of string cheese are all that's needed to sustain a talkative Kindergartner.
3. Some children think it's okay to crap on the classroom floor. Thankfully, not mine.
4. My kids still bicker like an old married couple the second they are back together.
5. Waiting until my daughter turned 5 and started Kindergarten to let her get her own library card was a good move. She was big-time proud to get it.
6. It's almost more work to have only K to watch. Now, he wants me to play with him all the time, when before he had Miss M to play with. You can only play cars for so long before you start to go insane. Look at the little green man dancing in the corner!
7. I miss being able to plan fun things for M, K and I to do together during the day. I find that a lot of the things we did were more for M, because she enjoyed it. This is actually a good lesson for me to seek out and find the things that K likes to do. Although he found enthusiasm for things much of the time because M was so enthusiastic. And that's a good thing too.
8. I feel pressure to provide a nutritional lunch. Not that my child will eat it anyway (See #2). As though the teachers will be monitoring each child's lunch box and grading me in their notebooks.
9. I miss the fact that I used to "know" all the kids and parents of the kids that M was interacting with each day. Also, I used to know her teachers.
10. M told me she loves Kindergarten, but told Craig she's having trouble adjusting to learning so much stuff.
11. I assume that my daughter's teacher thinks she is as wonderful as I do, but, in truth, have no idea what my daughter's teacher thinks of her.
12. It is slightly unnerving to send my precious child into the care of strangers. I am, at the same time, proud that she is so "grown up" and, dismayed, that she doesn't need me more.
13. My daughter approaches Kindergarten with the same zest for life that she approaches everything. It's fun to see her walk into the school with the rest of the kids, looking like a big kid. It's also sad to see her walk into school with the rest of the kids, looking like a big kid.
14. Kindergarten should be called "germ garden" since M didn't make it even a full week without the barfs. This is a child who is VERY rarely sick.
15. Don't assume that a Kindergartner has no credit because you haven't deposited money into her lunch account. Miss M brought home a $6.05 bill from the lunch room because she's been drinking who knows how many chocolate milks at lunch...on credit. That's some expensive milk considering she's been there, oh, 6 days. Milk is expensive anyway, but when I'm sending a juice box and then she's buying milk too... no wonder most of the food I've sent comes back home...she's having liquid lunch.

Vacation Recap: The trip home and notes for next year

We had to have a last-minute family photo by the water before we left. The packing up went pretty well, since I just have to get the stuff ready to go in the truck and Craig takes it from there.

(Miscellaneous thought: I had thought before we went on vacation that K-man would not take naps this year. He actually wanted to take naps...and early. He'd be up at 9 and want to take a nap by 11. The fresh air really wore him out I guess.)

M decided to ride home with Boppa and Amma, who were pulling Myron's borrowed boat since he was doped up because of his back. It was a remarkably peaceful ride home with only one child in the car. K had no one to fight with.

We are all tan and tired.

The kids began fighting as if we'd never left home within 5 minutes of stepping into our house.

We're home. Waaaaaaahhhh!
Notes for next year:

1. Split children up for the drive. One per car is ideal, but perhaps simply splitting up siblings will have the same effect.
2. Get water shoes. Those rocks are killer on your feet when you're attempting to get into your raft.
3. Do not pack a tub of toys. They just sit in the cabin untouched all week.
4. Mark all rafts, noodles, etc that we bring with our initials before we go.
5. Bring 2 loaves of bread...$3.09 for a loaf of bread? Are you kidding me?
6. Bring bug bite stuff. Go buy some if you can't find the stuff you already have.
7. Perhaps pizza for supper again next year. The tacos were okay, but I found myself looking at the pizza in Walker somewhat longingly.
8. Bring K's Army men for play in the sand.
9. Bring disposable plastic storage containers for miscellaneous use. (There were no such storage options in our cabin. I bought some Gladware in Longville.)
10. We don't need to bring salt and pepper.
11. If you need a vegetable peeler for anything, bring one along. Thank goodness I brought one. (Dollar Tree...my new favorite store.)
12. Bring a large mixing bowl with a cover. Trust me.
13. Non-stick cooking spray is your friend.
14. Don't forget dish towels, dish washcloths, bathroom towels and washcloths and hand soap for in the bathroom. Air freshener. AIR FRESHENER.
15. Bring the DVD Pop Culture again.
16. A case and a half of sodas for me. 1 case did not cut it.
17. Do not need to bring fans or step-stool.
18. Jiffy Pop. Necessary.
19. Think of something fun for the kids to do when the grown-ups are playing their game.
20. Bring a wider variety of first-aid items.

Is it time to go back yet?