naycation

like the nice wife that i am (read: pragmatist? martyr?... chump?), i said, sure larry, head to italy to attend an amazing wedding with your friends. while you're there, you may as well swing up to switzerland and visit your brother. no worries, i'll just be here at home with the two kids, enjoying what the 105 degree weather does to people after the pools close for the summer. enjoy your 9 days in europe.

so he gets the vacation.
and you've heard of the staycation.
what i have in front of me, however, is the naycation.

wish me luck.

DAY 1:
all three stopped crying before we got back on the highway from the airport. got massive groceries while spirits were up (or sense of resolve was strong?), including what turned out to be $22 worth of 10 kinds of fruit. no chocolate though, what's up with my definition of "comfort food"?

so far no yelling or crying or "that voice" from any of us. well, except hazel:

hazel can now reach every flat surface in the house (save the top of the refrigerator) which is trouble. i moved a glass out of her reach, to the opposite edge of the island, then promptly turned and slammed it (along with the ceramic mortar i had in my hand) to the tile floor. it was the kind of breakage that rendered much of the glass into a fine powder, and it flew into three different rooms. with no back-up, hazel had to cry from behind emergency baby gates while i swept and eva did her sisterly best to entertain her.

since her only nap was 15 min in the car on the way to the airport (typical!), she's asleep now at 7:30. hurray, i can get eva to bed with relative ease! but first, packing lunch and picking out clothing for tomorrow, to facilitate a smoother morning.

DAY 2:
stayed up far too late, i guess because no one told me to go to bed. oops. thus, was groggy when i rolled over from snoozing the alarm to find... a naked baby bum inches from my face. could have been bad, but i lucked out. her diaper was on the other bed, who knows what she was up to while i was konked out.

still fighting the ants that invaded while we were out of town. today they found the diaper bag, so i unknowingly transferred ants into the car. time to clear out the car clutter (a task that can only be done between 1:00-8:00 a.m.). found a winter coat though. nice!

vacuumed and cleaned the car after school, with double kid assistance. even with the a/c running nearly had heat stroke, but hey, clean car.

dinner and margaritas at a friend's house, and along with an itunes tour through decades of TV theme songs, it was just what we needed. drove around the neighborhood to induce slumber. eva woke up and flipped out as i was transferring her, and i responded by yelling at her for the first time since larry left. so i made it 32 hours. is that good or bad? in my defense, i had hazel locked in a car in the dark driveway in 95 degree heat. (sure, you're saying, bring the baby in the house first. but lately that just ends with two awake kids, one screaming. i know from experience.)

10 pm and two sleeping kids, and i even remembered to feed the dog! (what dog? we still have one of those?) project runway premier is waiting for me on my dvr, so that's a bonus. not a trapsing-around-italy type bonus, but hey, i'll take it.

DAY 3:
"mommmm! lemma pooped on floor and it's in my room and hazel's carrying it around!" i got out of bed with the speed of what i'm sure were those circle-blur cartoon legs, imagining all manner of horrors. thank goodness hazel has moved beyond the "everything in the mouth" phase. we did have to sanitize the whole bucket of duplos, though. note that at this very moment, larry is at the wedding in italy. we seriously need some 'freaky friday' action up in here.

yea! as expected, eva "graduated" from care at her endo appt today. the kids were delightful and i think it's now officially feasible to take both kids to doctors appointments. shh, don't tell larry. (larry, don't tell yourself.)

DAY 4:
went to a clothing swap today -- scored some cool stuff and even got it silkscreened. straight from there to lunch, then hanging out with friends, then to a pool party (where we met lots of new people, many of whom live in our new neighborhood).

so, no surprise really, that 9 hours after leaving the house, we knew it was time to go home when eva lost it over being presented with the wrong dip for her broccoli and started screaming and flailing, nearly (inadvertently) kicking a lovely pregnant woman in the stomach. after all that, said lovely woman was kind enough to hold hazel (who was then crying simply because eva was crying... oh and because she had had no nap) and to help me in getting my sobbing offspring to the car. nice to meet you!

i'm proud that i kept my cool, and that i followed through on my previous warnings that we'd leave if she was unable to change her behavior. we talked on the way home and she seemed to really get why we left.

larry called this afternoon, and we shouted at each other for a while on some sort of old-fashioned ship-to-shore line (or so it seemed) that had a good five second delay, plus echo. he reported that he had such an amazing time at the wedding yesterday that he can't even put it into words.

hmm. i'm not having that particular problem.

damn, just realized i forgot to ask him where the wine and the ant poison are (um, to be used for separate purposes). i mean, not like i can't go buy more, but haven't managed to yet.

DAY 5:
first day that we just stayed home all day. by the end of the day, you could really tell we needed to have gone somewhere, but too late by then. i was feeling sick (presumably allergies) and hazel was feverish/snotty/cranky from some acute teething... and then the trifecta: eva announced she didn't feel well, and sure enough, she had a fever. of course! nearly every single time larry goes to europe the kid(s) get sick.

what did we do all day... i can't remember...i just know it was somehow terribly exhausting.

DAY 6:
spent a nice day out and about with friends at the history museum and whatnot. i'm learning that eva's most ill-timed and maximally embarrassing fits are due to misunderstandings that she can't quite articulate.

spent yesterday with no internet b/c i couldn't figure out which of the various devices hazel had messed with and in what fashion. turns out the answer was "wireless router" and "unplugged" (with a candlestick in the study?).

being beckoned to play "restaurant" in the kitchen. eva just called me on her toy phone to say she hopes i'm already about to turn into the parking lot because my food is getting cold. maybe i can harness this play into some actual eating of actual dinner. (update: nope.)

oh man, that was some fun, elaborate pretending. in the end, i was the chef at the restaurant (what else?) and she came to fix our water pump (??) and paint the kitchen. she didn't have all the tools at first, and called her friend to ask to borrow some, but in the end she got the job done. (it involved waving a broom around, and hazel managed to avoid getting clocked, a win-win.)

uh oh, she's awake again... it's like a game of whack-a-mole with these two tonight, one up then the other (then the other and the other). current score: hazel 4, eva 2.

DAY 7:
okay, the less said about day 7 the better. suffice it to say, 11 p.m. and eva's just now asleep, so now hazel's playing with the dog water while i research double jogging strollers online. eh. good enough.

i'm thinking even the most crazy high-end expensive strollers are in fact a bargain in comparison to a trip to italy and switzerland. i mentioned this to larry, he may or may not think i'm joking. i was at first, but...

DAY 8:
the home stretch! we have enough planned today to require military precision so i best get a move on.

jumpy place (fun! both kids are getting so adventurous!) and swimming lessons filled up the day. earlier larry tried, with moderate success, to cajole the crank out of eva via phone from switzerland. but hurray for small miracles: as i contemplated what was sure to be the rockiest bedtime yet based on our collective mood, eva just curled up and fell asleep on the couch! amazing. hazel poked her with a stick for a while then also fell asleep. as i type this, larry's probably at the zurich airport. i did finally find that wine, and i think it's called for now.

in just 24 hours larry returns and my naycation draws to a close. at least i don't have to spend the next 24 hrs traveling since i'm already home. well, hmm... would i take the travel or my day here? at the moment it's a bit of a toss-up.

DAY 9:
three more hours! all that's left is to shower, maybe read some of our new library books, then head to the airport. eva was a mess at the library, so on the way home we had a random treat from the DQ next door. ugh, haven't had a blizzard in years and now i remember why. (does soft serve make everyone queasy or just me?) eva had her *own* dish of "ice cream" though, which thrilled her. i sold it as "a treat for us since we made it through papa's whole trip!" rather than the blatant anti-whining bribe that it was.

all in all, i think we did pretty well. we had our moments, but it wasn't a survive-at-all-costs scenario -- the house is cleaner than when he left, i actually cooked food, and until tonight, haven't gone with the cheater version of double bedtime (letting them crash out on the couches in front of the TV at 11 p.m...). in fact, i think we were pretty freakin' awesome, considering.

so next time, i'm the one who gets to travel around europe for nine days, right? enjoy *your* staycation, larry. the wine is in the hall closet.