And I noticed something great.
After a few seconds maybe of hesitation, my kids were tearing around that water park, squealing and laughing.
No one was clinging to our legs. No one was whining (well, at least not initially) to go home.
They loved it. It's great to see the kids get older in so many ways.
It's also interesting to go on vacation with these two. We recently spent a week in southwestern Michigan, as we did last year, including renting the same great house. We love this place. It's the first repeat vacation spot for us since having the kids, and it was fun to see the kids remember things from last year.
We did all the usual fun stuff, beach, parks, etc. And mommy got lots of quality running time with runs that started after 6 a.m. (!!)
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| Beach babies |
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| Skipping rocks with daddy |
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| Nothing could go wrong here, right? |
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| Quality mommy running time |
My 5-year-old little guy also had what must have been a pretty vivid dream while we were there.
I was lacing up my shoes for a post-dawn run one morning and he emerged from his room, wild-haired and sleepy-eyed. He insisted there was an Evil Mom in the house and he saw her. He could not stop talking about Evil Mom.
I told him there were no such things as monsters and he had had a bad dream. I did not ask him why no Evil Dad.
He was so annoyed with me. "Mommy, I didn't say monster. I said Evil Mom and I saw her!"
So then I explained to him, patiently, that I was not evil. "No, not YOU, Mommy. It was a different Evil Mom!"
I decided to not take that personally.
We heard a lot about Evil Mom off and on through that trip.
And that was before the splinter episode.
After M-man was wandering around the enclosed porch area while we were preparing dinner, he announced he had something in his foot.
Boy, did he.
Two rather large, deep splinters. Oh god.
The next 20 minutes were bedlam. It's a good thing these rental homes are spaced out, or I'm sure someone would have called DCFS.
M-man screamed as Daddy held M-man and I dug out, slowly and excrutiatingly, the splinters out of my son's foot. They were deep and kept breaking as I'd pull a little bit out.
M-man yelled I was a bad mommy and, the ultimate insult, that I was a poopyhead. I yelled back. My husband tried to calm both of us down.
It seemed to go on forever.
I couldn't believe a kindergartener could be so strong, he was fighting and kicking so hard. I was sweating a lot. I told my husband mid-course that birthing this child had been easier.
My daughter did not quite know what to make of all of this, so she walked around us, giggle and throwing something at me.
I wanted to resign my parenting credentials right then and there.
Fortunately, the exorcism, er, splinter removal, finally ended when I got most of the splinters out. My husband poured me a large drink.There were still a couple little bits left in his foot, but neither of us could take any more.
A few days later, my son had another damn splinter in his foot. (Yes, I told him multiple times to make sure he wore shoes.) I sat on him and got it out, much quicker this time. Again, I broke a sweat trying to work that out while he shrieked, flailed and yelled. But I got it out.
We're back in Chicago now. As I write this, he is sitting across from me, quietly eating toast in his PJs. He just smiled at me. Now he's showing me where on my kitchen floor a spider had been hanging out earlier this morning.
Hopefully, Evil Mom and her tweezers will not have to come out again any time soon. This morning's peace is much, much nicer.
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