We should never have gone on this vacation.

Some of the reasons are obvious, like we should be saving rather than spending. And we have 2 small children, one of whom is developmentally in a place where routine is king, and the other of whom has a very, very, very hard time with transitions.

Aside: Poor Noah: We moved 5 weeks ago. Transition 1 Summer school ended a week ago, so he spent last week in his old day care. Transition 2. Then we went on vacation. Transition 3. When school starts up again, it will be in the same building, but a different classroom and different kids (partially) and a different teacher than summer school. Thank goodness Montessori keeps the same teacher for 3 years. Transition 4. And next week Tuesday, Jill leaves for work for a month. Transition 5.

The location is beautiful, but it Does Not Work for our family. The “beach” is approximately 25 square feet of steeply sloping sand, in a partial funnel shape that ends in several large, slime-covered rocks and a foot or so of thick seaweed. If you brave that, the slope levels out for another foot, then slopes down to 1-2’ of water over sandy bottom for another 3’. Then it drops into invisibility. The water is an unattractive shade of dark brown.

If we were boaters, it would be more attractive. There is a lovely long dock that ends in a pretty deck with chairs and a ladder for brave swimmers. See the above reference to choking seaweed and dark brown water.

Note that none of these things discourage Josie, whom I have worked into a state of agitated rage twice now, by my refusal to let her independently explore said ladder or the other edges of the dock. She has proved my instinct correct both times, once by falling in to hip depth and once by defiantly standing on the slippery step and losing her balance. In both cases I was actually holding her and she was never in any danger, but it meant quite clearly that neither of us was having much fun or enjoying the moment.

Did I mention that all this action and excitement took place before 10 am? We fed a bunny, played checkers, dug in sand, found buckets of rocks to throw in the water, raced around in circles, ate breakfast AND 2 snacks, and Josie attempted to teach herself to swim, all before 10 am.

Then we unsuccessfully attempted to go tour a bison ranch, went “mining” for “pretty rocks” at a tourist trap, the kids had their first soft-serve ice cream with crunchy chocolate shells, we investigated a tourist trap exotic animal “zoo” (rejected!), a Wild West show (rejected!), and finally wandered an indoor flea market. (They had mini replicas of the Millenium Falcon! For $0.25! Noah has a new favorite store.)

Those activities, largely located 30-45 minutes away, managed to fill the time until 4 pm. Then I went to the grocery store in search of meat, bottled water (our tap water here smells like eggs), and wine.

By the time I got back, maybe an hour later, Jill was so frustrated and worn out by the intensity of the child care involved in this location that I was a little bit worried.

Bear in mind, we only arrived here for our vacation at 4 pm (ish) on Saturday. Call it 25 hours of vacation down, 137 hours to go.

Then there was the birthday cake.

Josie requested a Yoda cake with flowers.

Gamely, I decided to try. (No! Do or do not. There is no try.)

Since we would be traveling, I opted for cake mix rather than scratch. Josie helped pick it at the grocery store. After the kids (finally, finally, finally, finally, after endless screaming and crying and throwing things) went to bed, I mixed the cake and put it in the oven.

Jill persuaded me to take a quick dip in the beautiful, starlit hot tub while the cake baked. I set the timer for 3 minutes early and went for a soak.

When we returned to the main house, I found a pair of black, smoking, hockey pucks in the oven. They smelled just like burnt toasted marshmallows.

Josie's Birthday 2010

When Jill finished opening windows and screen doors to let the smoke out of the house, she asked what happened. “The oven must run hot,” I replied. I knew I’d been within the 32-36 minute recommended baking time, and even if I’d been a minute or two later, they shouldn’t have been hockey pucks yet.

She looked stricken.

“I forgot to tell you. The owners said to cook anything in the oven at 100 degrees less than what the directions say. I’m so sorry.”

Gentle Reader, I did not kill her.

I did, however, sit down and start to cry.

The next day, Josie’s actual birthday, we had pizza for lunch. Birthday pizza.

Josie's Birthday 2010

And also hideously ugly grocery store cupcakes.

Josie's Birthday 2010

The kids still had fun. And I’ll be trying to make a Yoda cake with flowers for her party on Monday.

Vacation 2010 Vacation 2010

I have the back to school bug. I didn’t think I would, since my children have been in summer school all summer, at their regular school. In fact, only Noah gets a forced break.

“Big kid school” is closed next week so the teachers can reorganize classrooms, etc. (And that is an extra big-deal this year, since we have officially outgrown our space, so the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders are moving to a new building 20 blocks away.)

But because they have traditionally focused on early childhood education, our school mercifully realizes how much toddlers loathe change or the disruption of their routines. So the toddler classroom — which is also in a separate building from the main “big kid school” building — remains open. Josie’s routine at school has not altered since she started on 3/1, except occasional days off like Memorial Day.

My “back to school” bug started when I read the school supply list from Noah’s teacher. Crayons! Pencils! Construction paper! I can hardly wait to go shopping.

Last night, on the way home from school, Noah explained how he and his friends like to mix colors with markers. I found myself offering to get him special mixing-color crayons that won’t get ruined when you blend them together, and that are super-messy on your fingers. He was super-excited!

I’m a little worried about Josie and the messy crayons. The last time we turned our backs on her for 3 minutes, while markers were accessible, she decorated her entire belly with green lines. Which is adorable, and hilarious, and extremely annoying to have to clean up.

Anyway. Back to school supplies.

Josie and I both have indestructable, lifetime guaranteed Jansport backpacks, and Noah has not yet managed to destroy the Spider Man rolling backpack he got last year from Aunt Susie, so no new backpacks. But paper! Pencils! Goodies galore!

Pardon me while I go drool on office supplies.

Can I just say, the last 10 days have been insane?

BlogHer was insane in a good way. I quit sleeping, almost, because I was having so much fun.

Dad getting pneumonia was insane in a bad way.

Jill’s birthday managed to take me by surprise. Somewhere this week, I lost a day, and spent all of 8/11 believing it was 8/10. Since her birthday was 8/12, this was not really a good thing. Fortunately, I’d started work on her gift, and Noah was able to make a card at school.

Now I am home, Jill is celebrated, and I’m getting back to a normal sleep schedule, and praying that the children will also, and soon. Dad is also home, taking antibiotics from the comfort of his own couch, home office, and bed.

Now, it is time to get back in the groove of unpacking the house, and being responsible for the day to day things of life, like laundry, mowing the lawn part of our crazy jungle, feeding hungry children. And working, getting ready to start my Ph.D. program, and getting the kids ready for “back to school.”

(Since they’ve both been in full time summer school, in their same buildings, and Josie in the same classroom, calling it “back to school” is actually the most confusing part. Noah will have 2 weeks off, and Josie will have 1 week off. I love that they try to keep the toddler classroom open as much as possible, although honestly, Noah is probably even worse with routine disruptions than Josie is.)

Josie had a good time for about 3/4 of the Star Wars in Concert show on Saturday, although the program ran a little long for the almost-2 attention span. Even with lasers and rapidly-edited movie montages.

Josie and Chewie

She especially liked seeing “Cu-ba.”

Noah also liked it, but he and This Mommy stayed for the whole show, so I have no pictures of him admiring the costumes and other Star Wars paraphernalia.

Because we are frugal mommies these days, Josie and Noah both got “souvenirs” purchased surreptitiously in advance, from our local comic geek store. Unboxed action figures are $5. Both kids got a storm trooper, which Josie found soothing on the gums (she sprouted 9 new teeth last week, and I can feel #10 trying hard). Noah also got Darth Vader and Josie also got a Yoda.

By contrast, the mini-light sabers (pen sized) sold at the show were $15 each. And the came on a neck lanyard suitable for Noah’s current most annoying habit, whipping things around in circles. He isn’t trying to hit people, usually, but I’ve been hit 3x by whipped clothing or other whippable objects. At least action figures are not clearly disposed towards whipping.

This weekend was, um, absolutely batshit crazy. Mostly fun, but crazy.

On Friday night, Jill and Noah went to Chicago to watch a WNBA game. Here’s Jill behind my WNBA crush, Katie Smith, now of the Washington Mystics. (Noah appears to be blocked by Katie’s leg.)

Josie and I stayed home and had pizza and salad and beer (well, not for Josie) with our good friends Peter & Meredith, whom we have not seen since, um, maybe we all went into hibernation? My birthday?

Saturday, Noah was nightmarishly cranky from having had his sleep so disrupted by the travel & game. (He still went to t-ball practice, and the coach says he’s getting much better and fielding!) Josie and I went to the birthday party of one of her classmates.

(Aside: We have noticed that in spite of being a nice progressive environment full of diversity and inclusion, there is serious social separation at school. The first time we went to a birthday party for a classmate of Noah’s, we were the only white people. Of the 4 we’ve gone to since, 1 was attended by only white parents, two were all white but for one white-Asian biracial family, and 1 — the very largest party — was at least 90% white. In all examples, the entire class was invited to the party. What’s up with that???)

We had a lot of fun at the birthday party, sociological observations notwithstanding. The family lives adjacent to a public park, an easy walk from the playground. The kids all got sandpail party favors and got themselves delightfully dirty before getting sugar-crazed on birthday cake, and a good time was had by all.

And we imagined that we were at cousin Maxim’s birthday party, which was going on at the same time, only in New York, and probably without the Dora cake. Happy Birthday, Maxim!  We hope you like the scooter Grandma gave you! And the mystery gift from all of us!

Sunday, everyone was surprisingly tolerant of going to church. Then Noah went with Grandpa to see the air show — they saw the Blue Angels flying UPSIDE DOWN! Josie, poor Josie, was dragged furniture shopping with her mommies. We heard a lot of “Stop it, Mommy! All done, Mommy!”

Then we picked up Noah from Grandpa’s, and discussed furniture and house layout until both kids were ready to explode.

Fortunately, they crashed quietly and reasonably quickly.

By 8:30, I was back at the furniture store. Our new house is bigger than our apartment, and our living room furniture is well and truly trashed. We bought it cheap when we were newlyweds, and it fits badly into the kind of smaller home where we’ve always lived. I’ve been persuaded that we should let it go.

So, back at the furniture store, I launched the task of filling our new house with places to sit and places on which we can rest things like books and beverages and toys. And because they had such a great price (cheaper than in the link) on a queen sized sofabed, we, um, bought 2.  Identical. One for the basement and one for the upstairs office which will also double as a guest room. (This Grandma & This Grandpa? Doesn’t it look comfortable? I can hear it calling your names!)

After I got home and crashed, Josie decided it was time for vengeance: at approximately 1:45 am, she began singing and happily shouting. It lasted, off and on, for 20-30 minutes. She sang herself hoarse and proceeded to scream for water. At least she was happy.

I have seldom been so tired when I woke up again at morning-time, and was very grateful that Noah slept in and Josie fell back asleep after her 5:15 wakeup.

Today marks the first day of Summer Session at school, so everyone’s routines will continue to be adjusted and off-kilter for a few days. But it could be so much worse…like if they didn’t have summer session. Or coffee.

Noah brought home lots of schoolwork last Friday. Here’s a picture of my favorite piece:

Noah Counts by Nines

Yup. That’s counting by NINES right there. AKA the 9 Times Table results! Or in Montessori-speak, counting the 9 bead chain. (Actually, in Montessori, they probably call it counting the blue bead chain.)

Ok, his handwriting is still a work in progress — you can be forgiven if you think that says 57 instead of 27, or if 72 or any of the four 81s are unclear. But if you look at the whole thing, you can see clearly that Noah was counting something in sets of 9.

He also did some “research” on the Goblin Shark, but I’m not sure how much of that was Noah’s vs the after-school teacher’s. So it looks cool, but I don’t like it as much as I love this obviously entirely independent counting work.

Really.

You see, as we contemplate how to fit our family into various houses that we have attempted to buy or are considering buying, we’ve also been contemplating furniture changes — some critical, some needed, some we’d like to make.

At one point, a bunk bed for the kids was on the table.

Somehow in the course of my internet research, I found this breathtaking fantasy bunk bed from CedarWorks. (This is not paid advertising, my only material relationship with CedarWorks is that they sent me a catalog in the mail. After I asked for one online.)

I needed the catalog because the web site doesn’t have any prices. You can design your own fantasy playset or bed and ask them to send you a quote by email, but you can’t actually see that an adorable bubble shelf wall-panel for your bunk bed costs $175. (Not for the bunk bed; for one of the panels that makes it kind of a bunk-bed playhouse. That’s a heckuva lot more.) (CedarWorks? Please come join the 21st Century; it’s very nice here! Let us see the prices online. Please. We can handle the truth. And if you’d like some help communicating with Mommybloggers or other social media, we should talk.)

That’s also my only complaint about their web site. They have the coolest online design tool ever, where you can configure a playset or loft bed or the bunk bed of your dreams.

Do not ask how much time I spent playing with that tool. Or how many imaginary beds I saved, or whether or not they were REALLY for Noah & Josie. (Or for 9 year old bookworm Liza.)

Seriously. My new lottery-winning fantasy involves these CedarWorks Rhapsody “playbeds” for both children. Ahem. Maybe they will let me play or read in there with them.

For Noah, I’m daydreaming about the fire pole exit, a climbing wall panel, and a nice private nook area where he can go when he needs his “Don’t look at me!” space.

For Josie, my fantasy involves a slide exit with a hiding nook underneath, flowers you can peek through, and those adorable bubble-shelves I mentioned above.

Possibly both of them get chalkboard panels in this fantasy. If I could make it look nice.

Nine year old Liza would have been all about the reading nooks, with as much hiding ability as possible.

I’ll let you know if I win the lottery and can move these daydreams into reality. But even if that never happens, I’m enjoying my children’s furniture fantasy quite a bit.

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