Tackle It Tuesday: Road Trip

Last week the kids and I hit the road to take advantage of Spring Break and being able to visit with friends. Although planning and packing for a 5 hour car trip and 3-day stay away from home has become more streamlined, it's still an ordeal. Toss in driving and round-the-clock childcare and the thrill of a good challenge gets even better.

Luckily, the kids are good travelers, having become acquainted at a tender age with I-5 and 400+ mile jaunts. I have learned that when traveling, lists are my friend. It helps me when I pack up at home and when it's time to go home. The kids are learning how to pack their own suitcases. Travel Light can actually be our motto now.

Last Tuesday well all hit the beach. Lucky us in SoCal, where it was sunny and warm. The water was cold but the sand was toasty. James actually played in the waves by himself and enjoyed the advance/retreat rhythms of their dance. He grabbed handfuls of wet, gloppy sand and threw them at the waves. He rolled and crawled in the warm sand. He seemed to enjoy walking on the pebbly patches of beach in his bare feet. He sidled away to slide at the play area.

The kids' Easter beach towels were christened and I used all the extra towels in the van. Hey, I know where my towels are ... I am a frood and hoopy mom.

There was packing and unpacking of clothes and groceries. Exploration of where we stayed and our friends' house. Cooking and eating of good food by all, and consumption of strawberries and fine sherry by the grownups. I kept up the potty training, did 5 loads of laundry and ran 4 dishwasher loads while we were there. Oh, and gave 2 baths to remove approximately 10 pounds of sand from my children.

I know it's counter-intuitive to say that we tackled a vacation and won, but that's almost what it felt like!

This Saturday, we'll be tackling the Walk for Autism Speaks. We are looking forward to it!


What was your challenge? Read and be inspired at Tackle It Tuesday on 5 Minutes for Mom. Post your own story to share with other Tacklers.

Bedlam, In A Good Way

Busy day today. Both kids off to school so I tried to atone for a week of being housebound with a sick child. First, I pick up some forms from a language presentation by James' preschool, then hit a Costco, Trader Joe's and Target triple slam. On the way home I stopped by my daughter's school to drop off her homework folder (that girl!) and register James for Kindergarten for the district. Then back home to unpack shopping items and have something to eat, punctuated by fielding phone calls.

Picked up James from the mainstream preschool. Heard that his SHAPE asst. might be losing her job with her home school district (damn budget cuts!). I play devil's advocate and tell her if she's interested, I'd love to have her for James' assistant in the Kindergarten inclusion classroom next year and I'd even write it into the IEP that it's been reported to me that he has done best with this particular assistant and that he needs he for his classroom aide. I've even approached the SHAPE supervisor with this possibility and was told it does happen sometimes. This might actually get off the ground ...

Of course, James had wanted to play in the sand at said preschool. Of course the sand was muy wet after pouring down rain the past few days. So as soon as we got back home, I had to strip him down, de-sand him, and get him settled for a snack (with Benedryl) and some Baby Einstein (which helps his vocabulary, BTW). Still fielding phone calls. You don't even want to know.

Half an hour later I swept up James, protesting all the way, and got him into bed for a much-needed nap. We read the two dinosaur books that he's been loving lately: How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? (50 cents at a library sale) and How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? (a gift from a wise person).

Fielding phone calls, yes. What IS it about today?

I got some laundry done and picked up the family room. I wanted to vacuum and blend myself up a smoothie before picking up James, because he still screams and cries at the sound of a blender. The hairdryer gives him the whim-whams. Just seeing the vacuum out makes him cry and run sobbing to his room "Nooooo vacuum? PEASE?!!" I plugged in the iron this morning and he started to cry and howl. The iron. Fah!

I ran out of time. There's always tomorrow.

Query: I wonder if James would warm up to the vacuum if it had an ignition key and a steering wheel? Hmmmmm ...

Home By the Sea

We had the chance to stay with friends down by the beach recently. While not relaxing, it was a lot of fun.

We got together with two other couple friends and our kids, who are all about the same age, played together well and throughout the weekend. Yay playing together! Or near each other! Whatever!

James loved running around after all the kids. He loved exploring a new place. its wall-to-wall carpeting. The windchimes. The lamps that turned on & off with slider switches. Eating muffins for brekky.

Right next door was a school playground. It was a little rundown, but the kids still loved spending about an hour playing all over it. James almost immediately took off his shoes and plopped down to become one with the sand. Our friends' little boy (one month younger) did the same thing. How nice it was to see them playing side-by-side, doing the same things. Just like any two little boys.