Home Again

We're back! Here's what we were up to the last few days of our time in Ohio. Saturday we packed up everything and took it all over to Amy's house, where we stayed for the rest of our time. Jason was out of town at a big trade show, so it was just us mommies and 6 little boys and 1 little girl! We had such a fun time over there. The boys really got to be comfortable playing with each other, since we spent 3 days there, and Amy had fun dressing Anna and playing with her. Anna was very unsure of Amy's fat orange cat, Pumpkin, who has to be the most unthreatening cat on the planet. At first she was terrified, but she eventually settled down into alert watchfulness, as she kept her eye on him, never turning her back to him while he snoozed ferociously on the back of the couch. Each night after the kids went down, Amy and I stayed up late talking and eating ice cream.

We had been planning on heading back home Monday, but it looked like the weather between Ohio and D.C. might be not so good, so we held off until Tuesday. It was nice to have the extra day! Bob was busy at work on his take-home exam for one of his classes, so even he agreed that an extra day would be a good thing for him!

We left yesterday at 9:30, and we got back here at 6:15, after an uneventful day of driving. The weather was nice, which makes it easier to get kids in and out of the van, so I was glad we waited. We started out listening to Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry (yeah, the funny one) and Ridley Pearson, because it got rave reviews both on Amazon and on the Well-Trained Mind board. I think it is a good book, but after finishing to the first CD (out of 7!), the boys just weren't that into it, mainly because well, nothing really good happens to Peter and his fellow orphans in the beginning, but lots of sort of bad stuff does, and it was a bit depressing for their tastes. I figured I will get the book out of the library, and Nathan and I can finish it on our own, and we moved on to Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary, an altogether different sort of book--very "safe", LOL. It was a good choice though, because Caleb and Jonathan really got into it.

Books on tape really make the miles fly, and they are always my top recommendation for keeping kids entertained on long trips! My other tip is "snack bags", where I put little individual servings of various snacks in a quart Ziploc bag for each boy. Then when I announce they can have a snack, they can all pick what they want out of their own bag--no handing tons of stuff back and forth, which is hard when you are the only adult! Usually I include stuff like a fruit roll-up, little snack-size baggies of pretzels, teddy grahams, and M&Ms (the M&Ms usually get eaten first, LOL), raisins, a dum-dum pop--some special things that they don't get very often. Then they also amuse themselves by deciding what things they will eat in what order. Each boy gets a water bottle too, but they know that we don't stop very often, so they have to not drink it all really quickly!

So it was a great trip, but it's nice to be home. I did bring schoolwork for the boys, which they did (Nathan: "The only thing I don't like about Grandma's house is that we still have to do school here."), but now it is time to buckle back down into our regular routine--for a few more weeks, anyways, until the new baby comes. Yep, I'll be in single digits come this weekend--9 weeks left! Wow. I have another doctor's appointment on Friday, and I'm planning on taking my 3-hour glucose test on Monday. We'll see how that goes. Did I mention that I ate tons of ice cream on this trip?! Oh well--it was worth it!