Back from DC

We’re back home after spending the last five days enjoying time with friends in Maryland (next to Washington DC).

Last week…the week of my 33rd birthday…was wonderful – and soooo busy!  I had somewhere between five and eight items on my calendar on MTW, and then on Thursday, we flew out of Milwaukee.  Thank goodness we didn’t leave early in the morning, because I was doing laundry and pulling bags out of the basement before swimming lessons and then our flight.  This week should be more chill, with the calendar touting two-to-four activities a day.  Nice to have some structure but not to be running around too crazy.  Always looking for a balance.

We flew to DC on Thursday on a really bumpy flight.  Sylvia was playing in her seat, and Andrew was reading a big stack of books to himself until, without warning, Andrew vomited all over his books, himself, and (you guess it) me.  Andrew has never before thrown up, so this was a little starting to him.  He couldn’t figure out what was all over him and why he had some “chewy stuff” in his mouth.  Then he got weepy because his armadillo shirt was dirty.  A nice book and two magazines were later sent to the trash.  Andrew and I got ourselves (sort of) cleaned up, and I talked with him about the feelings he may have been experiencing in his tummy and that in the future if he experiences those feelings that he should request a bag.  Now I’ve been puked on by both my kids (if you missed Sylvia’s 2009 barfing story with the cocktail napkin, you can catch it here).

Really, though, that incident was pretty minor.  It’s just the type of thing I feel compelled to write about because it was dramatic and disgusting.  Somehow dramatic, disgusting events are more obvious material for writing about than hours spent talking and laughing with good friends on the deck.

And that, dear readers, is what we did a lot of on this trip…talking and laughing with Grace and Tim while Andrew, John, and Sylvia played about.  Or I lounged about while Bryan and Tim played street hockey with the boys. Or ate food and lingered at the table while the kids begged us to get up and play with them.

But all that’s to come in the next post. For now, I’ll leave you with a scene of two very happy boys on a summer afternoon.