I really actually do love having my children at home. I really do.With Alden starting Kindergarten, I am realizing that these "optional" school days are not going to last forever. On the flip side, it ain't easy to have all three of these little people at home and some days I will ship them off to MDO with every blessing and guilt meter at zero. This is probably after a morning of time outs and tripping over toys and whining, or it might be a day when, seriously, I just need to go to the darn grocery store. Spring Break this year was a two week affair at our little Preschool. That is a long time with 24/7 babies that are not an easy posse to tag along on errands.
In the age of Pinterest, and my teacher hat guilt getting to me, I planned and laminated and cut out and purchased school supplies for our two weeks of experiments and art projects and home school fun. Now, I could post photos (see above) of all of our activities and I could tell you about them and all the school age standards we met and how wonderful it was. You would believe me because this is what your are supposed to say on your blog. Wrong! Pretty much, an epic fail all the way around. Let's be real. Preschoolers have the attention span of an ant. Here are a few things we tried:
1. Painting toast with milk: The food coloring milk was spilt in about 1 minute all over the rug and seat cushions in the dining room. Spencer only wanted to use blue. Alden ripped a hole in his toast. Spencer followed with a hole and cried because it was broken. No one ate the cooked toast. Total activity prep: about 10 minutes plus a grocery trip. Total activity time: 5 minutes of entertainment. Okay...12 hours and 55 minutes to go before bed.
2. Ping Pong with paper plates, popsicle sticks, and a balloon. Yep, that lasted such a short time that there are no photos. Know why else? Because they thought it was more fun to tear off the popsicle stick from the paper plate and make me re-hot glue it.
3. We cooked. They didn't eat it. Twice.
4. Make your own sparkly volcano: Well, it worked. My children wanted to eat it...um nope...and got upset; Alden discovered that I had used the "Sam the Elf magic medicine" that Santa sent us when we touched him; it lasted all of 10 seconds and then it was done. Well, okay.
5. And then the learning part: Puzzles with magnets on the back and cookie sheets, binders with dry erase pages for practicing letters and numbers and connect the dots, sticker fun to learn shapes, make your own shape book; match the sticker letters to the sight word..... Brilliant hours of learning fun! How about 10 minutes of learning fun. When I bring them out now? Eye rolls! Eye rolls?? I dragged these little precious learning bags all over our vacation and to the doctor's office and every restaurant we occupied. We used them once.
6. Lego Jell-o: They really loved this. But it doesn't work. Joey asked as I told him we were making it,"Won't it stick to the Lego and not come out?" I assured him that it worked for the lady on Pinterest. The lady on Pinterest sucks because we had to eat the stuck Jell-O out of the plastic Legos with baby spoons because, yes Joey, it does stick and not come out.
To top it off, it rains, it is cold, and Spencer gets a fever and a cold so we can't play with any of our friends. So what do we do?
Get the heck out of town! Now, we had reservations for the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island. Finally, a beach trip! We find out that it is freezing in Amelia Island, and Joey cuts a deal with me that I might can get a new heating and air unit and the built-ins for the laundry and playroom if we take a cheaper trip and postpone the beach. Well, I had to think about that for six seconds...Chattanooga here we come, again. Of course, even that was not without drama. Started off that we switched our reservation to the Atlanta Ritz (thank you corporate discount). We had a family friend turn very ill in Atlanta, so we were going to go and see him and knock out a trip as well. My mother and step-dad went with us for this reason. Then, they decide that said patient needs to go to rehab and might be in Chattanooga or might be in Atlanta. We don't know what to do and literally make a 24 hour ahead of time decision that turned out to be the right one. I found out the night before we left that Alden thought we were going to go to both Atlanta and Chattanooga. So, the first come apart was that the Chattanooga aquarium doesn't have the Depo movie.
Spencer, however, is in heaven. Cold was better. Daddy took him to get a donut, he puts on his choo-choo conductor hat, got his car seat moved to his dream mini van location in the very back, and a cherished movie was popped in the DVD. Who could ask for more!? Harrison was just along for the ride, and my mother climbed in complaining of heartburn and her chest hurting but decided to cut back on her coffee and she would be fine.
On the way, Sir Alden has his typical Chattanooga emergency. We get the croup. Not surprising. When we get colds, Spencer gets giant fevers and Alden gets the croup. We call the hotel to find a pharamacy to get a phone number to give to the doctor to call in a prescription to have in case of an emergency while we were in Tennessee. (Say that in rhythm and it sounds like The Old Lady that Swallowed the Fly). The hotel complies. The doctor complies. The pharmacy doesn't have the meds. No pharmacy in Chattanooga has the meds. After sitting in the parking lot of the Chattanooga Walgreens for what felt like a hour, we were told they had to order it. Finally, to the hotel where we stay up the entire night sitting in a steaming bathroom with Mr. Croup and looking up the number for the nearest Children's Hospital just in case we have a repeat of that episode.
Spencer, Twinkie Skunk, and Buggy Bear didn't seem to notice.
Neither did Harrison who slept remarkably well. He only woke up a couple of times...in between Alden waking up of course:)
With a sick boy, we made the decision to do the one thing we thought we had to do before we left. TRAINS! Spencer had taken that little hat all the way to Tennessee and he grabbed it on his way out of the door.
Day one was the Chattanooga Choo-Choo. As we turn the corner into the parking lot to see all of the cars and engines lined up, Spencer says, "Whoa!"
We spent the cold and rainy day on the train. Alden's cough was worse and, yes I was that parent, that just took him on the train anyway. Go ahead and judge. We just sat him as far as possible away from anyone else and hoped they couldn't hear his seal bark. Joey gets the call as soon as we hit the station to go and get the medicine, so he goes on another Walgreens run and gives away his ticket. As soon as the train pulls out, the cough gets worse. Scary worse. Regretting that Alden was even there with us, my mother, who is the source of all my inherited worry and histrionics, has the discussion with me of what would happen if we had to call the ambulance while we were on the train for Alden. She even comments that there are houses we are passing so there is civilization and that surely they have an emergency plan. So, this was not necessarily that relaxing of a ride for the adults. No one is surprised that we made it back without flying in a helicopter or turning around the train and Daddy was there with the medication to rescue us when we returned to the station.
Spencer was so upset that he had to leave the train depot...you know,
ever...that we decided to take him to lunch at the infamous Chattanooga choo-choo. This was like eating lunch at a ghost town, but there were trains and so little boys were happy.
There was chocolate, so little boys were happy.
Croup crisis averted, we are ready for the Tennessee Aquarium.
I was grateful to have two grandparents along to help chase excited little boys. We have also vowed that we will forever get two hotel rooms for the rest of our vacations. It was great to have space and not have to go to bed when the boys went to bed or let the little ones nap and not have to fight Alden who would be keeping everyone awake. These two things made life a lot easier.
I am not the biggest aquarium fan. This is why I love to go with my young children. My attention span with a fish and their attention span looking at a fish are exactly the same. We zoom through these things. I was not too good in the photo department on this part of the trip either. The three of us love to go, see, and not linger.
The best part of the aquarium? The gift shop. My mother promised both boys they could pick something out. Spencer picked out this huge tractor trailer truck. What in the world an 18 wheeler has to do with an aquarium I have no idea, but he carried that thing all over Downtown Chattanooga with pride. He will always go towards things with wheels.
Or food. Food definitely wins. Especially post-Aquarium free ice cream pie with the kids meal.
Want to hear a sad story? This is the Chattanooga Children's Museum. Let me first say that I love this place. My kids love this place. Everyone should go there. Now, the sad part: This is the only time my children have been able to play in the sand outside of the back yard. This strikes me when I see the joy on Spencer's face and the confusion on Alden's face. Clearly, we need to figure out how to get to the beach.
These are just a few highlights from our day. We had the best time and only lost a child once or twice but came home with all three. We had a phenomenal lunch at The Terminal Brewery with my lost-count beer of the trip...because you got to find the word "vacation" in there somewhere. Our next stop was going to be the Incline before we let, but...
I think our troupers were finished. Time to head home. I asked Joey if he remembered anything funny from our trip to Chattanooga. He said, "Everything was funny." He was right. We had the best time with these little guys. Here are two stories we would like to remember:
-We stayed at The Chattanoogan. Alden did not believe us that it was the name of the hotel. He said, "No, we are in ChattanooGA, that is not the name of the hotel!" He insisted over and over. He told us we had to ask "the man" when we got back (meaning the valet). So, he did. And he got his answer. And he got really quiet after that.
-Alden tells his grandmother, "You will love the hotel. You go downstairs and they just make you breakfast!" I sat there in awe wondering how this is different to him from home...where he goes downstairs...and someone makes him breakfast?
-When we left, Alden cried. We didn't do the ONE THING that he wanted to do. Go to the hotel pool. Really? Okay, so for vacation, we check into a hotel in our home town with a pool and a breakfast buffet. Done.
We return to EASTER! Our first stop on the Easter parade was Breakfast with the Easter Bunny at the zoo. Two funny things stand out. First, all day everyone thought Harrison was a girl (which probably means I dressed him in a girly outfit). Second, there were TWO Easter bunnies. I cannot believe that my kids did not question this phenomenon. Why in the world would the zoo add such confusion to an already elaborate lie? Super fun times though, surprisingly delicious breakfast, and an all important train ride!
Oh, and Harrison got to meat a Chinchilla.
One of our favorite Easter traditions is our friend Erin's family's Easter Egg Hunt. I have now tripled the number of participants from my family since we were first invited. The kids were enormously excited. The best part for Spencer was that his teacher was there! We were all surprised at our six degrees of separation in our social network since this is not the first time we have discovered a shared friend. Spencer was so funny because he just left us and attached himself to her. He followed her around and got behind her in the food line for her to fix his plate. I guess he is so used to her doing things for him when she is around, that he just thought he was at school. When it was time to go back to school I asked if he was excited to see his teacher the next day. He said, "I want to see her at Ms. Erin's house."
The boys have also developed in their Easter Egg hunting skills. We caught Spencer behind this, well, whatever it was sneaking candy because we told him to save it for later. At least, he had a blue mouth, so we hope it was candy.
What is the best part of the day? Our bestest friends.
A night of Easter Egg dying. Spider Man and Cars decals.
My three beautiful boys on Easter. Our Easter Sunday took a different turn this year. Instead of the planned dinner we had at my mother's house, we went out to eat and took her with us. As soon as we had returned from our vacation, my mother's heartburn from the day we left for the trip turned into a heart attack. We were able to pray with Thanksgiving on Easter that she was home and doing great, but we would not let her cook four days after a heart attack no matter how much she wanted to do so.
More Easter Bunny.
A little Easter basket love. Homemade Easter bunnies. Even though I totally got caught making these, neither Alden or Spencer put two and two together on Easter morning.
Probably because of the Transformer distraction. Alden had written the Easter bunny a letter and included a drawing of the Rescue Bot he wanted in his basket. I think he is getting this confused with Santa, however, because he was sweet enough to also include a picture of one he thought his little brother would like as well, Mommy agreed to mail the letter. They have not put them down in two weeks!
Of course, there is just plain ole regular life as well. My sweet T-Ball player. I am loving this! Even though Joey and I have to act like a divorced couple on Saturdays and split between one kid at soccer and one kid at T-Ball. Alden is really, really trying and really, really interested this time around. So much fun! I even love taking them outside for practice in the front yard.
In baby news, we are standing up (loves the train table), crawling, and loves swing at the park. We have four teeth and two budding as we speak. Poor baby has suffered through the Family Cold of 2013 as well as a fever virus, but is nonetheless as precious through it all.
Hey, there you have it. I don't know where anyone got the term "break." But, I wouldn't have it any other way.
