Yesterday morning, my mother-in-law called several times within the first two hours that I was in the office because she could not console Eli who wanted me "home RIGHT NOWWWWW." It seems Eli was having as hard a time returning from vacation as I was. However, while I managed to get through the morning with a toasted bagel with cream shmear from Noah's, he decided to use his favorite coping mechanism called Denial. When my mother-in-law told him I couldn't come home right nowwwww, he decided he was going to go to daddy's work instead. So he promptly went downstairs, got on his bike, and rode in circles inside the garage over and over. And over.
Eli (3) and cousin Noelle (4):
We just returned Monday night from 10 days of vacation in Baltimore (Joe's wedding) and Chicago. How lucky we were to have taken a trip with three little kids through three different airports right as a virus of "near pandemic" proportion broke out across the nation. But just when I thought I couldn't be any luckier, the one week I had time off work and was hoping to take nice pictures of Audrey was the week that began with her falling flat on her face on concrete and scraping her nose, eye, and forehead. In general, Kwang thinks I'm pretty paranoid when watching the kids and I worry excessively about them hurting themselves. He believes we should just let them roam more freely and know that we can't always stop them from getting hurt. I realize we can't prevent every accident, but when injuries like this happen under his watch I wonder if my concerns are somewhat justified. I admit I tend to restrict their play for fear of a freak accident. But I can't help being that kind of mother... the just-in-case kind, because what if I let them run too fast at the park and they fell and broke their leg or, heaven forbid, I took them to the local germ-infested Chuck E. Cheese and they contracted the swine flu? Kwang would be right and then I'd never be able to scold him when Audrey scrapes her face, and I don't want to live a life in which I don't have that option.
Unlike Eli, Jude wanted us to leave him in Chicago and pick him up later. He had his very first sleepover at my sister's house and had a blast. I heard he bunked with his cousins Meghan and Zachary and stayed up late just talking w/Zachary. In L.A., Jude is the oldest of his cousins but in Chicago he is younger than two of his three cousins. To put it mildly, Zachary is his hero (and a very patient one to put up with a very annoying shadow):
Alas, we are back home and back to reality. Back to the daily grind and stress of work. Back to the never-ending but always rewarding job of being a mom:
Our home @ 8pm when the kids are washing up:
8:30pm after the kids are up in bed:
(Painter's tape hop scotch replaced the painter's tape race track.
Yep, I'm pretty uncreative and cheap.)
