A Few of Their Favorite Things

So we have about and hour and a half before our flight leaves to take us back to California (currently in Denver after a short trip up to Wyoming to visit Bryan's family).

I have a limited number of pictures of the trip, and I might have more time to post on the flight - provided the children find ways to keep themselves occupied that don't include my laptop.

But since I have some time and since the kids are currently busy reading (Penelope) and playing math games (Griffin), then I can recount this conversation we had in the car a few days ago.

Bryan was off playing golf with his dad and the kids and I were headed to Casper's Science Zone after having made a very essential pit stop at Starbucks (because altitude sickness sucks and Starbucks makes everything better... seriously about the altitude sickness though, I get it EVERY time we come up to visit and it makes me pretty miserable. I could deal with the nausea, but the headaches are crazy and are only dulled with pain meds).

So. In the car. Driving through Casper.

Penny: I love this day, it's my favorite! (she says this about every day though)
Griffin: No, it's not my favorite. (he was already homesick)
Me: So Bubby, what is your favorite?
G: (without pausing to think) Lego Batman!!!!!!!
M: Penny? What about you?
P: Art. I'm obsessed with art just like Bubby is obsessed with video games.
M: He sure is... so what do you guys think is Daddy's favorite thing?
P: Golf:
G: Hockey!
P: No, I don't think it's golf after all. I think his favorite thing is tickling us.
G: Yeah, that's his favorite.
M: So what do you guys think my favorite thing is?
P: Reading!
G: Snuggling.
P: Yeah, Mommy you like to snuggle a lot.
M: That I do... what about Grandpa, what's his favorite thing.
G: Watching us.
P: Yep.
M: Granny?
G: ummmm.....
P: Giving us kisses.
G: Yes, kisses and hugs.
M: What about Great Grandma Barbara?
G: It's when we visit her.
P: Yeah, she likes that a lot.
M: Harley-Quinn?
G: Seeing us. (which is partially true, but the dog's favorite this is really seeing our babysitter Alexis)
M: Granny & Grandpa's dogs?
G: Seeing us, they love to see us.
M: Really? My guess would be eating garbage.
P: Gross!

I was amused - mostly because everyone's favorite things seemed to revolve around them.

They had a good time in Wyoming though. And altitude sickness aside, it was a nice visit. Short though - but it's hard to find the time to get away and go out there. The plane ride to Denver isn't that bad, but the 4 hour car ride to Casper is exhausting. We might go out again this summer for Bryan's grandmother's 80th birthday.

We are all ready to be home though. Today was the Denver Museum of Natural History & Science with some friends that we haven't seen since we moved to Salinas (they used to live in Sac too, in fact Kim used to babysit the kids when they were little and we would often have playdates with them). It was really nice to see them - I miss so many of that group. We got to see some of the other regular play-daters when we were in Sacramento last weekend too. While I don't miss the city of Sacramento, I do miss the friends we had there.

 More later, I hope. I'm not teaching summer school this year so I'm hoping that I'll be able to blog more often than I have been. Hopefully we'll fill our summer with swimming lessons and trips to the beach. I'm looking forward to a real break.

I was THAT mom

Traveling means a disruption of schedules. A disruption of schedules means little or no naps and short sleep at night. This translates into one ridiculously fussy toddler. Griffin had his issues as well, but since he's clingy anyway they weren't nearly as pronounced as the problems we encountered with Penelope.

She's ordinarily a crazy-good kid. As in, we get maybe one tantrum a day and it's usually pretty mild with more nuclear tantrums occurring once a week, sometimes more often, but never really frequent. She just has a pretty mellow personality and is easy to redirect. There's no magic parenting involved, we just got lucky.

She's also a creature of habit and needs sleep. She didn't get her normal amount this trip and so was much more difficult to handle. Still, it wasn't too horrible until we got to the airport this morning. I swear to you, it was like my child was possessed. She would.not.stop.screaming. We finally strapped her into a stroller because she refused to go anywhere unless carried and I had Griffin and Bryan was tackling the luggage. So I pushed my screaming, writing toddler through the Denver airport. For over 10 minutes I kid you not. She was thrashing around in the stroller, so much so that I had to push it solely on the back wheels because she would try and stop the stroller by kicking the wheels or putting her feet on the ground. Mind you, she was screaming the entire time and I am not exaggerating in the slightest.

It was awful. People stared, I ignored them (would have liked to see them try to make her stop), and Bryan shot them all dirty looks as he followed behind us with the luggage cart and our 4 carry ons.

Did I mention how terrible it was? She finally calmed down when we got to the check in and Bryan released her from the torture devise and picked her up. She stayed in his arms until security and was then back in his arms until we boarded the plane.

She's in desperate need of a return to our normal schedule. I'm going to put her to bed early tonight and hope that she wakes up mostly back to normal.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Home, thankfully

Monday morning

So I'm going to work backwards here since we all fell asleep shortly after 8 last night and I didn't have the time to blog about the rest of our stay in Wyoming. Perhaps I'll get time to do that on the plane and post them once we land.

Actually, i'll link to a video in a second, but only because I had the opportunity to upload it to YouTube last night.

But first? It's Monday morning and in a few short hours we will be back home. This vacation has been fun, but it's also been incredibly exhausting. Griffins sleep has been atrocious and we've spent quite a bit of time in the car. So while I'm glad we came out, I'm very glad were going home. I actually downloaded a book on toddler sleep yesterday and started reading it in the car so I'm hoping that a return to our normal schedule, with help from the book, will equal some truly good nights.

All we have left to do this morning is get dressed, pack up, eat, and turn on the rental car (which is covered in mud and animal feces... I'll talk more about that later). Then we'll just hope for no delays and be back in sunny CA by lunch.

Anyway, here's the video I promised. Griffins first attempt at eating spaghetti with a fork.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJHirAaV5qM&sns=em


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Doubletree Hotel, Denver