*sigh*
Photos help. It was relaxing except that I got very little sleep. I hardly saw Alice for the first two days and there were several hands and excited cousins to occupy Robert's attention. It was a vacation from my home responsibilities and some of my parenting stress. Delightful. The kids took the 16-hour car trip pretty well. I didn't. Only 2 hours into the ride, I turn around to get something for Alice and my shirt sleeve tears up the middle. The fabric just gave up! I kept meaning to change my shirt at every potty or gas stop after that, but kept forgetting. The silky fabric frayed all day. I left strands of my shirt in Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas (sorry Missouri).
Half of the journey I was up front with Bobby and the other half I was wedged between the car seats in the back. By hour 14, I was busting at the seams to get out. I texted my friend Rachel for some small measure of mental escape. That helped a lot, actually.
Anyway, I mentioned photos...
Central BBQ in Memphis, TN. Coleslaw on my pork sandwich?! You bet! Woo hoo!
Alice says, "Don't take my picture!"
Robert says, "The camera LOVES me!"
Daddy says, "Gotcha on camera anyway!" Then Mommy says, "Root beer and chocolate chip cookies do not a good lunch make. Eat more of your mac and cheese...actually...*groan*...never mind."
We got to Houston very late and went straight to bed. The next morning, I went to Yoga class with my mom and sister. I learned that Yoga was not as weird or hard as I thought it would be. I also realized that it's not a very social form of exercise. Hard to keep a conversation going while contorting. On the way home we stopped at a bakery for some kolaches (sausage and cheese wrapped in a sweet roll). Conversation always flows naturally around yummy food :)
Alice and Robert fit right in with their cousins. Alice enjoyed the computer time:
Alice always had someone willing to play with her and get her snacks. She didn't need me at all ;) By the end of the first day, I realized I hadn't said more than 5 words to either Bobby or Alice all day. I actually missed them a bit.
Christmas Eve, we were allowed to open 2 presents. Alice loved the presents her cousins created for her. Mary wrote and illustrated a fairy tale featuring Alice as a Rapunzel-like princess. That went over quite well (see below). Sam wrote a series of nursery rhymes that had Alice and her parents doing crazy things like jumping over the moon and hugging raccoons. Sarah wrote and illustrated an adventure novel where Alice encountered a hamster.
Then we all bedded down for a long winter's nap. Robert and his parents excluded. The boy just couldn't manage a full night of sleep the entire vacation. Alice slept in a room with Mary and Sam. Sarah (5 yrs old) was sleeping in her own room, quite concerned that she would make the mistake of going down too early (therefore getting in trouble), so my sister Lara made this sign and posted it at the top of the stairs:
The next morning, Bobby heard the kids singing Christmas carols in their room while they waited for 8:00 AM to finally arrive. Here are the cousins, only seconds before heading downstairs together.
Alice was interesting to watch that morning. She carefully looked over her pile, but was most excited about the stocking. She pulled out each item one by one and put it aside without comment. She slowly approached each new toy and tried to figure it out. Then she started to play with it. The box of Froot Loops was an immediate hit, though.
Alice and Sarah played intensely.
I did too, with Lara. Here we're figuring out a digital voice recorder (for family history purposes).
Speaking of family history, my mom and some of her family lived in Houston many years ago. We visited her father's grave:
And later located a couple others that were previously unknown to us. We knew the people but didn't know where they were buried (my mom's maternal grandparents):
Robert refined his crawling technique a bit, settling on the one-legged-tuck scoot. We had to lure him with his favorite things to get him to crawl. His favorite things are almost always dangerous (cords, electric sockets, scissors, toilets). In the following video, we're trying to convince Robert that an ordinary nutcracker is dangerous enough to warrant crawling. (As if crawling across the kitchen table weren't risky enough, right?). In the end, it wasn't the nutcracker that motivated him.
My parents gave Alice and Sarah a whole pile of craft supplies and little dress-up kits with sunglasses, a headband wig, and high heels. The girls played Rapunzel for an hour. Check out Alice with long hair:
After playing the same story once or twice, it starts to morph. Alice picks up her new "collection box" (for Christmas, I gave her my old Caboodle filled with all the rocks and shells she's gathered) and plops down on the living room floor. She pulls out a long shell and starts dabbing it on her face. Then she gets another and rubs it on her cheeks. She's...putting...on...make-up. Where'd she get that? I've no clue. It's fine, though, because once her makeup is applied, her collection box is instantly transformed into a doctor kit and she's a princess Rapunzel doctor going to help sick people. This girl cracks me up.
We took a trip to IKEA where I found some inspiring canvas fabrics (did you know IKEA sells fabric?!) and a few other house items. I'm afraid I spent too much time choosing between duvet covers...I have absolutely NO confidence in my home decorating sense. None.
We got to eat lunch at an amazing Asian market called Route 99. I've never had reason to call dumplings "hyperpalatable" until now. I am forever ruined on Chinese dumplings of any other kind *sigh* And I never thought bean curd could be SO tasty. Er, uh, tasty at all. But now I know better. Much better.
Here's Alice eating a sweet pineapple bun from their bakery:
Robert fell asleep. Many thanks to Heidi for the luscious new sweater to keep us warm.
Sam rode with us on the way home.
Robert kept sleeping. He was so tired from being up all night *sigh*
In the evening, after kids went to bed, we sometimes got to play games. Phase 10! Here are my mom and dad:
My sister Lara (4th of 9...we all have a Borg name, too):
And my dear husband with my pile of tangerine peels:
I think I ate 10 of them this game, just trying to avoid the bowl of rich milk chocolate in the center of the table. I briefly eased up the dairy and chocolate restrictions on this trip and paid heavily for it. I really, truly, would rather sleep. Even See's soft-centered truffles *gasp* just don't compare to uninterrupted sleep...or less interrupted sleep. Robert still woke us up several times every night, but at least he was "easy" to put back to sleep. On milk and chocolate, it's not so easy.
On this trip, Alice got to try ice skating for the first time. I'll leave that description to Bobby since it was their first daddy-daughter date ever. Here's the before picture (she really is excited, I promise):
It happened at the Galleria in Houston, which is a gigantic mall. Their Niemann Marcus department store has an amazing ladies' room downstairs with a luxurious lounge area. Perfect for nursing a baby, if you can tolerate the hoity-toity maze to find it. I would also be thrilled to nurse Robert again at any IKEA. Those folks get it.
On our way back home to Illinois, we stopped in Memphis for dinner and a sleepover. We tried a different place called Corky's and I'm SO glad we did. Now I'm ruined forever on BBQ pork ribs. Oh my heavens. I liked ribs okay before, but now I'm in danger of dreaming about them. Robert had a great time, too. He flirted with anyone who would look at him (and even at a few who wouldn't). I'm amazed at who he can get to respond to him. Tattooed, pierced, bleached, or ripped...Robert doesn't care. He saves his best dimples and winks for the most extraordinary people.
His lightning fast hands toppled a huge glass of ice water, scattered a pile of napkins, and sampled a piping hot plate of pasta marinara before we could catch him. Was Alice ever like this? She must have been, but I think I had more focus on her to predict these things. I feel like I'm always forgetting what Robert is capable of.
This post is freakishly long and kinda quick. So sorry. Next vacation, I'll ponder and post as I go so it's not all rushed like this. Resolution #1 for the new year, I guess :) Happy New Year!
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