Took what can only be described as a LONG road trip with Big Daddy, Menana and the kids to visit Honey and Pappy this weekend.
Considering the behavior issues Jax has been throwing at us lately, you'd think we'd know better, but you'd be wrong. We are incomprehensibly stupid and no amount of banging pur heads on any hard surface will change that. Believe me, we've tried.
Our first mistake was leaving around 4 pm on a Friday afternoon. For a 5 hour trip. Through Houston. Did I mention Jax was with us?
While we couldn't help the time we left, we did try to be prepared. We brought along our little dvd player (which, SONY, is NOT skip-proof), plenty of movies, snacks galore, toys, books, and I, of course, had my beer. Open Container Policy, be damned!!!!
15 minutes down the road, though, none of that mattered, because Scooby Doo kept skipping, Ryan kept whining that Scooby kept skipping, Jax kept dropping his cars and asking me to retrieve them, and I, consequently, kept spilling my beer.
Oh, and did I mention the pinched nerve in my lower back that has been sending shooting pains down my leg since Thursday night? Those came with us, too -- hence, the beer.
We reached our midway mark around 7pm, stopped, had dinner, treated the kids to ice cream cones that had to be finished in 5 minutes (before entering the car), and kept heading east. Houston came too quickly, as it seems to do every time we venture to our old stomping grounds, and I think it was right around Pasadena that we were forced to merge to one lane on I10 in order to give the Houston CSU team enough room to gather evidence from the Freeway Shootout that must have happened just hours before. Try explaining that one to the world's most inquisitive children.
Finally, we reached our destination around 10:45, after managing to get the kids to sleep a mere 30 minutes before. No big deal. Surely they were as tired as we, no? Surely they would gratefully collapse into bed and drift off to dreams in no time. Surely I've been reading too many fairytales.
It wasn't until 12:30 that Jax finally went down, having exhausted himself for half an hour crying over the binky we spent the previous half hour searching for to no avail, until, at the end of my already very short rope, I did one more crawl-around, begging Saint Anthony for his God-Blessed help JUST THIS ONE LAST TIME, PLEASE, and discovered it gingerly lying just under the bed's dust-ruffle.
Normally, this type of fiasco would really have pissed Big Daddy off, but seeing as how he and Menana had opted to shack up at the Holiday Inn, rather than roughing it with us at Pappy's, he didn't have to endure even one second of the RAGE THAT WOULD NOT STOP.
He did, however, get to suffer the effects of it the next morning when, after waking again at 3 am for another screaming bout, Jax was up and ready to go at 6:30 am. Mommy, however, was not, and so graciously ALLOWED Menana, Big Daddy and Pappy to take the kids with them to breakfast and a shopping jaunt at Target. Suckers.
They returned around 11 am, with a story that must have seemed one-of-a-kind to them but sadly, to me, sounded like just another day.
Apparently, Jax managed to crash a mannequin, seperating her body from her arms, legs, and hands, as well as severing her right index finger. Next, when kindly approached by a patrolling officer, proceeded to "blllttthhhh" with his tongue at the nice man, and then body-slam Menana to the ground.
And was rewarded with a new set of Thomas toys. Wonders never cease.
Apprently, raising hell takes a bit out of you, because as soon as we set him down in bed for a nap, he was out for the next 3 hours.
According to Big Daddy, Menana and I used that down time to our advantage, being the, what was the word he used?Ahh yes, OPPORTUNISTS that were, and left to visit Honey for lunch and do some light shopping at Target (apparently, Port Neches is the Target shopping mecca of SE Texas). Our high-rolling time didn't last long though, for Big Daddy was quickly on the phone demanding we get back asap. Was Jax awake? No, but we were having fun while he was stuck in the same house alone with his father-in-law and two young kids. This is not the way he rolls.
We continued our assault on our Cajun counterparts at a family crawfish boil, yelling at Jax to stop putting his fingers near the resident Pit Bull's mouth, and listening to Pappy do his thing on the fiddle. Hey diddle diddle.
Next up was dinner time with Honey, while Ry made friends with the smoking population of Gulf Heath Nursing Home out on the front porch. Then it was on to the hotel for a dip in the pool, which Ryan couldn't get enough of (once I'd made the second trip back to the house to retrieve her forgotten bathingsuit), much the opposite from her brother who would not allow himself to be brought even an inch off the steps without complete air-lift support from Big Daddy. For such a tough little horse's ass, he sure is a big ol' pussycat. We topped the evening with McDonalds, consumed around a kitchen table that just doesn't seem alive without Honey's presence, bid our goodnight's to Mom and Dad, and headed to bed.
And then I realized that the binky was in the car. At the hotel. Side note: I can now drive from Pappy's house to the Holidy Inn in my sleep.
Thanks to the long day and swimming episode, the night was sleep-filled and uneventful, as was the majority of the ride home. Actually, the ease of the ride home was largely due to the influence of this book, which I'd just checked out from the library on the recommendation of a child psychologist friend. (Every mom should have a Child Psychologist for a friend.)
And that, my friends, is why our weekend kicks your weekend's weenie ass. Challenge me. I dare you.
THE APRON. I finally finished our end-of-year gift for Ryan's teacher yesterday at 2:25 pm. 10 minutes before our very last chance to give it to her. Normally I would chalk up this kinda of under-the-wire finish to procrastination, but in this case, the delay was, well, Jaxson. Let's just be honest.
We went to Wildseed Farms last weekend and I picked up 2 new Hibiscus, although one of the new ones isn't in this picture. I also got these:
My Spanish Lavender, tucked away in the little make-shift herb garden. I'll save more of those tantalizing pics for another day.
