The week started off with the annual Edward Jones Summer Regional - a happy time for kids and adults alike. A four day mini vacation in a hotel with good food, excellent childcare, swims in the beach, and open bars.
The view from the hotel was really just like Maui, except this was only about 45 minutes from our house. We spent the mornings on the balcony watching the sun rise while the kids blew bubbles.
On Friday evening we went to the Family theme dinner night. This year was superheros. I went as Wonderwoman (for obvious reasons) and was delighted to find a shirt with a cape on the back. It was awesome. Matt went all out this year and wore a t-shirt that I picked out for him. Kate was decked out in a seriously adorable Batgirl costume. Jack, when told what the theme was, shook his head and said "No. No. I'm not doing that." So he decided to go as Albert Einstein, the Superhero of Science.
He spent the evening broodily walking around, as he interpreted Einstein as a pensive professor. As he strolled slowly around the grounds, he told us "The secret to acting like someone else is to BE someone else." He didn't even crack a smile when he won "Most Creative."
What made the weekend even better - no, FANTASTIC - is that our little ones were elsewhere. Last year it was terrible and we spent the time struggling with crying, incoherent toddlers who missed naps and stayed up too late. We were constantly running back to the villa to find a sippy cup or change a diaper or something. Even though the littles are a bit older, we were still finding it a difficult pill to swallow to bring them.
Enter our parents. Our wonderful parents whom we loved even before they took our 3 year olds for the weekend. My parents took Noah and he had a blast riding on the jetski with Papa and going out to breakfast with Papa and watching movies and being fed choice morsels by Mamaw. Talitha enjoyed baking a blueberry pie and reading books with Grandma and Grandpa. She was a little bit teary eyed at the mention of Mom and Dad but all the attention from her adoring grandparents quickly erased us from her memory.
We so enjoyed having a couple days with just the older two kids. No crying, no tantrums, no rushing to get to bed early. Just days of sunshine and asking thoughtful questions of each other and leisurely eating meals. Delightful.
The big kids had a swim meet on Saturday morning and as Matt was entrenched in the doldrums of financial meetings all morning, I drove them to the meet. My mom and Noah met us there and we cheered the kids on.
In one of the relays, Jack (who usually swims last of the 4 relay spots) swam first. His team didn't win and afterward I praised him for not getting upset about losing. He replied "I swam first to buy them some time but they blew it." I told him it's most important to be kind and try hard and that I'd rather him be kind and a slow swimmer than be the best swimmer but mean. He said "As a matter of fact, I'm both kind AND a fast swimmer. It's quite a combo." Ah, graciousness and humility at its best.
The kids played at the beach that afternoon and I strolled around the resort shops, trying not to look aghast at the tropical tunics being sold for $168.
The next morning, Sunday, was Father's Day. We enjoyed a lovely fancy buffet breakfast by the ocean and then met my parents for lunch to pick up Noah.
Soon after we got home and hugged sweet Talitha, who was overjoyed to see us, Matt said "You know, that water stain on the wood floor looks like it's spreading. I should just pop off a baseboard and see what's going on."
20 minutes later, this:
The pipe right there? The bottom that snakes under our floor is rusted. Out. The whole bottom is gone so every time the sink runs it spills from the pipe and sits, created a veritable cesspool under our floor. Drywall wet and molding. Probably started years ago and has backlogged to the point of creeping up the drywall.
A very sad and possibly expensive end to Father's Day for Matt. Instead of eating hamburgers and corn on the cob, he spent the evening pulling up drywall and wood floors. The kids and I headed to my parents' house, who were on vacation. Matt kept me updated over the next couple days. They had to replace 6 ft of pipe and then cement it up. It could have been much worse but now our eating area looks as though a rabid weasel clawed at the drywall.
And then on Wednesday, the day before I began a new PRN nursing position at a local hospital, I got the stomach flu. If there's anything worse than the stomach flu, it's being the only adult watching 4 kids under 10 while having the stomach flu. The big kids did the best they could but I can only imagine the amount of movies and snacks that were consumed while I lay in my parents' bed, watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians and wondering why my internal organs hated me so much.
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| Kate, the sweet kid, missed me while I was holed up down the hallway |
