Adventures in Hot Nights, Part II (The Kid Wash)

After our lukewarm night in a motel in Charleston, we headed to Cincinnati to visit with family. The days were hot and humid, but while there we slept in the nice, cool confines of the family room in my parents' basement. After five days there, we headed to Athens (Ohio, not Greece, as a good friend likes to say) for what was supposed to be a long weekend o' fun and relaxation. Little did we know, we were arriving less than three hours before The Storm.

Those of you in the Athens area, in Columbus, in D.C., and points between know exactly which storm I mean. The Storm blew in quickly, only lasted 10 or 15 minutes, and took out power to millions. The friends we were visiting actually live near Stewart, and the last I heard on Saturday, they were on Day 9 without electricity.

And thus our weekend turned into 48 rather hot hours with friends. It wasn't quite what we planned, but we made the best of it. They had a generator which they used to run the refrigerator, a chest freezer, the TV, a window unit A/C, and a power strip loaded with cell phone and computer chargers. They began by running the generator for two hours on followed by an hour off in the day time, but by necessity, the off periods grew as it became apparent it was going to be a LONG time before the electric was restored. Thankfully, we were able to take popsicle breaks and the weather was relatively comfortable on Saturday with temperatures in the low 90s and low humidity.

The kids also spent a ton of time playing in water.

They played in a kiddie pool and with water cannons.

But the best part had to be the kid wash, a contraption they built after discovering the plans in Family Fun magazine. The kids ran through it, and it sprayed water like an automatic car wash.

 Ree was the first to get near it. She studied it...

...then bravely ran through.

Leon proudly exclaimed, "I'm doing it!" while running around the outside.

And he eventually ran through.

Michael choose to keep his distance the whole time.

And we thought once we headed home to Wilmington we would be able to sleep in the cool comfort of air conditioning again...

Adventures in Hot Nights, Part I

Last night I was cold. To use a Leon quote (if a bit out of context), "It was fabuwous." It will be a long time before I take air conditioning for granted again.

We have had some crazy experiences with air conditioning (or the lack thereof) over the past couple of weeks. It started the first night of vacation. We ended up leaving earlier than we had planned and driving longer than we planned, and we found ourselves in Charleston, West Virginia at 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday night. Since we normally eat dinner at 5:30, we headed straight to a restaurant for dinner. We finished around 7:45 and set out to find a place to stay.

Jeff and I are cheap and have lots of kids who suck up all our money for silly things like food. Consequently, we both have dumb phones. In order to get internet access, we pulled into a McDonald's parking lot and managed to snag a parking space right by the door. Instant wi-fi. (Yes, we are very bad people. You should know this by now.) At that moment, hotels.com reported there were three places at that exit with vacancies. A Holiday Inn Express for $120 a night, a County Inn & Suites for $140 a night, and a Knight's Inn for $54 a night. Since the kids normally go to bed between 8:00 and 8:30 and we just needed a place to shower and sleep, we opted to at least check out the Knight's Inn before shelling out twice as much for a fancier chain. (Back when we were first dating, Jeff and I took a trip and spent almost 3 weeks driving cross country. We stayed at lots of Motel 6s and Red Roof Inns, and with the exception of one night in a Super 8 that smelled like cat urine, we had lots of great experiences. We are not opposed to low end.)

As we pulled in, we had to wait for a bunch of bikers to leave. This should've been a warning sign, but we did not drive away in horror and when we could, we drove around to the other side of the lobby and parked. From there, we could see families playing at the outdoor pool. Nice, normal looking families and not one of them threatening to beat or whip their children. The grounds were tidy, and the grass was green and trim. I was driving and sent Jeff in to the lobby to check it out, and a few minutes later he returned with a room key.

As we went into the room, we realized this was the first time we had stayed at a cheap motel with the kids. They are used to luggage carts and white duvets and breakfast bars with hot food. Still, Ree took one look at the floral bedspread and exclaimed, "Ooh, la la!" It does not take much to impress my kids, however, I think "Eww," would've been a more appropriate response. The room was a dive. It also felt pretty warm. I checked that the air conditioner was on the coldest setting and the fan was set at the highest level, Jeff turned on the bulky, non-flat screen TV and discovered a European Cup match from earlier in the day was being rebroadcast, and we went about settling in.

I gave the kids cold baths with them standing in the tub because, of course, the stopper in the bathtub didn't work. I was hot while giving the kids baths, but the bathroom was in the back of the room and far from the A/C unit. After baths, they had snacks while I tried to arrange the room to accommodate everyone. As I was moving furniture around, I realized I was pretty dang hot. Like my clothes were stuck to me. And I looked around and saw that Jeff was now watching soccer with his shirt off and he had sweat pouring off him. (I have never previously seen him watch TV topless.) Natalia was flushed. And Leon was bouncing around the room, because for some strange reason when he is hot, he cannot stay still. (Another hot night he started thrashing in bed, wildly kicking his legs, and saying, "I just can't get cold!" And to think, he's our kid with common sense!)

I felt the A/C unit, and it was clearly blowing warm air. Although it was cooling off outside, opening the door was not an option since the women from the next room were chain smoking outside our door. I looked at Jeff and said we had to do something about this. Yes, it was already 9:30, but there was no way we were going to get any sleep in there. I went to call the front desk and realized we had no phone. So I found my shoes and headed for the lobby.

The lobby was just as nice as the grounds and the pool. It was obvious where they spent their money, and it became clear how we (and I'm sure others) got sucked into staying there. The front desk clerk stared at me when I said our air conditioner didn't work and we wanted a different room. Thankfully, a manager was there and he quickly intervened. After a few minutes, they finally gave me a key to another room. I went to check it out before relocating the family. You know that nice blast of Arctic air you typically get when entering a hotel room? This room did not have it, but it did have cool air blowing. Upon returning to the first room, I realized the second room was at least 15 degrees cooler, and I got busy repacking and relocating all of out stuff. Of course the rooms were on opposite sides of the building, and it took several minutes to walk back and forth between the two. Plus I lost my book in the process, and it took 3 trips to locate it. (Natalia had wedged it so it was vertical under the bed, and it was a book with a black cover next to the black bed frame.) But by 10:30 that night the kids were all tucked into our not-quite-cold, but non-roasting room. The bed was horribly uncomfortable, but still, we all passed out and slept.

The next morning the kids enjoyed doughnuts from the lobby, and while I walked around the grounds, I realized it really was a decent looking place in a beautiful location. And quite oddly, there was a large vegetable garden on the grounds.

Little did we know, that was only the beginning of our adventures in hot nights...

Vacation!

We got back from vacation on Monday night. There is so much I want to write about it, but I don't know where to start. I guess I could go with the obvious. We survived. You know how people like to gush about how wonderful there time away was? I promise, you will get none of that here. At least aside from this pic of the boys having "fun" at the zoo.

The cynical part of me wants to say that sums up vacation, but that's not true. There were also times involving significantly more screaming and crying! But, yes, we did have fun at times. And, yes, this trip was hard. Definitely the most difficult one we've ever taken, and I've yet to really figure out why.

Interestingly, I did realize part way through the week that aside from long weekends to visits friends and family, this was the first vacation we have taken just for fun since our honeymoon eight years ago. Every other trip has been to attend a function. We've gone to anniversary parties, several weddings, and birthday parties, but we've never before traveled with the kids just to travel. Perhaps we should keep that in mind in the future.

On the bright side, the kids keep asking when we are going to go on vacation again. They can't wait!

On Monday, instead of mowing and working and doing all of the other things we were "supposed" to do, we played hooky. It was great. My brother is staying with friends in a beach house at Topsail Island for the week, so we invited ourselves to visit. (Don't you love family???)

We actually had trouble getting the kids on the beach. As we were walking through the living room, they discovered they could play Mario Cart. It was their first time to play a video game and they were so excited!

We finally made it outside. One of the joys of Topsail is its quiet. This was the beach at some point between 10:30 and 11am. Ahh.

The kids were finally interested in the beach and the water.

But they also spent a lot of time digging in the sand and climbing up and down dunes.

We stopped for lunch at our favorite local burger restaurant on the island. Definitely a much more fun way to spend Monday than to greet real life.

Big Girl Bed

A couple of weeks ago, in a fit of desperation, we bought a toddler bed for Natalia. It had never been the plan to purchase yet another cheap, plastic bed. The Plan had been to buy Ree and Natalia bunk beds when Natalia was two and ready to move out of the crib and into a "big girl" bed.

But Natalia is not much of a fan of other people's plans, and we are still working on getting her to move into the crib. She will nap there. And there was that one time, when there was a hurricane outside making lots of noise, that she slept there. But that's about it.

She's only 16 months, but since she has pretty much only slept in a bed since her bassinet/baby swing days, we thought we would give it a whirl. After a quick internet search we determined that the Toys R Us in town had beds in stock but they were overpriced (no real surprise there). Kmart carries them, but according to the website the local store's were out of stock. Target.com informed us the local store does not carry them, but we could order one online and if we used our Target debit card we got 5% off and free shipping. We had a winner.

When the bed finally arrived, the kids were so excited to see it. You would've thought it was a present for all of them. The box had a picture of the assembled bed, and Natalia kept hugging the box and pretending to sleep on it. I took this as a good sign. (I also have an unfortunate habit of being an eternal optimist.)

Jeff put the bed together the next night. He assembled it in the living room, and the kids were beside themselves and had to be repeatedly reminded to stand back and to sit down on the rug (rather than running laps around Jeff.)

When the bed was assembled, Natalia ran to get her blankie and stuffed animals. At bedtime, we moved it into our room. (After much discussion, we figured we would let her sleep there in her bed before attempting to move her in with her siblings.) As soon as the bed was in place, she laid down and pretended to sleep.

Then she realized I was serious about her going to bed, and she freaked out. We still had the nightly royal rumble. This one did not end with her sleeping in the crib. This time she was so traumatized she ended up sleeping in our bed.

On the bright side, we upgraded our bed about 6 weeks ago, and now we at least have a queen sized mattress (we previously had been squished onto a very sad full sized mattress) for the three of us to share. How romantic!

Swimming Lessons

When I was little, I loved summer. I loved going to my grandmother's and I loved participating in the summer reading program at the library. (Yes, I was just as nerdy then as I am now.) But more than anything, I loved swimming. Actually, I love swimming to this day. There's just something about being in the water.

As much as I loved swimming in general, there was something extra special about swimming lessons. They were a time when I got to go to the pool regularly and try all kinds of different things. They were so much fun.

My kids don't look at swimming lessons quite the same way. They are not fans. But we started swimming lessons today anyway, and the kids will be at the YWCA four mornings a week for the next two weeks. Today everyone made it in the water AND they stayed there the entire lesson. This is very impressive for my children!

The boys' instructor is a gentleman in his 50s named "Mr. Mike" who has been teaching kids to swim for a pretty darn long time. He is fabulous. He taught Ree's class last year, and she made enormous progress, relatively speaking. (See above about getting in and staying in the water.) At the beginning of the class, he called the role, and the kids each sat down on the steps in the pool. He then asked each of the three and four-year-olds in the class to tell him their names. When he asked Leon his name, Leon replied, "I'm nervous." I am pretty sure Mr. Mike had never gotten that response before. Mr. Mike just about lost it and joked with Leon that he knew such a big word but wouldn't say his name. By the end of the lesson, Leon was even kind of smiling when Mr. Mike said it was time for "Nervous" to practice kicking. We will settle for baby steps.

Sleep, How I Miss Thee

It never occurred to me until I snapped at someone and got in a rather ugly situation today, that I have not slept in 3 weeks. Yikes. 

For many years I wasn't a sleeper. My senior year of high school I skated by on nearly no sleep. I probably did the same my junior year, but high school was an awfully long time ago, and I am too tired to remember this morning let alone the mid-90s. My junior and senior year of college I know I didn't sleep. I prided myself on being able to go out, close the bars, wake up and work out, and be ready for a new day. I was silly.

Somewhere in the years since then, I have discovered sleep. It turns out, I love sleep. Sleep is a wonderful thing. I am not the kind of person who can sleep in til noon, but I do love a good afternoon nap. (Even when not sleeping in college, I did manage to squeeze in afternoon naps on the weekends. So maybe I did sleep some then, just not on a "normal" schedule.)

But now my children have decided that I do not need sleep. Sleep takes away time I could spend with them. Natalia monopolizes my early mornings, evenings, and late nights. I let Ree steal my weekend afternoons. 

It's a good thing they're cute.