Coming home

Our trip to Ohio and Pennsylvania was a lot of fun, but today we had the always interesting experience of re-entering life at home. 

 

At one point this afternoon I decided I had to start to chuckle about it all – or else I would strangle someone.  So here’s a look into the happenings at our home today….

 

We arrived home around 11 this morning – having made it as far as Huntersville last night around midnight.  (All 3 kids excitedly woke up when we arrived, so it was a bit of a challenge getting everyone bedded down for the night.  We finally fell asleep around 1 am, then Colsen woke up a few times throughout the night, and was ready to get up for the day at 7 am.  So much for a restful night!)

 

Anyway, we pulled our car (a.k.a. “the visual case for why we need a minivan”….  we were stuffed to the gills in that thing) into the driveway at home this morning, and everyone piled out to scatter in various directions.  First we had to listen to the “lawn woe” song from Pete and the “garden woe” song from Amy, gather the miscellaneous packages and flyers from the front of the house, and pull out all the bikes we own from the garage (thank you, Strider and Rayna... we really didn’t have enough to put away already.)

 

Upon entering the 2-week deserted house, we found it was VERY hot, and I was immediately greeted by the fact that some of my houseplants had not survived, despite my neighbor’s attempts to keep them alive.  Just as I was realizing that I was going to have completely re-pot everything,  and re-strategize my plant distribution in the house, the aforementioned neighbor came to the door and proceeded to tell me about all the ills of my plants.  (bad dirt, bad plant food, lack of plant showering – in the bathtub!—and poor lighting)  And she announced she was coming over to help me re-pot everything on Saturday.  Ok, then.

 

So, off I went to clean up that whole mess.  At the same time, we were also bringing in 47* suitcases and shopping bags, changing the water filter, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen from dust (due to someone fixing our ceiling while we were gone), getting drinks for all the very parched people around here, etc., etc.

 

Meanwhile, the kids were celebrating their homecoming in their own ways.  Since Colsen learned to crawl while we were away on our trip, we returned to a veritable playground for him.  And a not very safe playground at that.  We have not yet baby-proofed everything for a crawling one, so we had to keep following him around today, taking cords and plugs out of his mouth, stopping him from pulling lamps down on his head, keeping him out of various items he shouldn’t be in, etc.  We set up some temporary gates, but he quickly pulled them down on his head.

 

Rayna was alternating between her 2 personality extremes: one minute she was provoking someone with a suspicious gleam in her eyes or doing something else decidedly not-helpful,  and then the next she “wanted to help.”  So she kept asking “Mommy, what should I do NEXT?”  And I would send her sweaty little head off with another errand around the house… only to find her back 30 seconds later, asking that question again.

 

And Strider.  Oh, Strider.  He was also very wound up to be home, so being the boy that he is, he was jabbering incessantly about something or another, with a lot of “Mom- watch this!”-es interspersed.  He was climbing up doorframes, jumping backwards over the couch, putting yucky things on Colsen’s head, provoking Rayna to scream, etc.  He was even pretending he was in a video game, as he was “swimming” on our ottoman.  Then, he told me, the boy (playing the video game) messed up, and Strider landed on the floor with a thud.

 

But then to top it all off…   I started to make lunch.  I made lunch for Strider and Rayna, then made a second lunch for Colsen, and then just as I was reaching for the tuna fish to make yet another lunch for Pete and me…  I discovered our pantry was completely overrun with… fire ants.  Yup.  So….  We had to pull every single item out of the pantry – I think there were close to 700* things in there – and spray everything down, caulk the floor, and then put it all back.  This was of course a job that lasted well over a couple hours, and was punctuated by yells from Pete or me as we occasionally got bit by the angry ants.

 

And while all of this was going on, Strider was feeding Colsen his lunch, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, ended up all in his hair, clothes, furniture, etc.  Yay, we get to do a bath!  And then Rayna walked through 2 rooms carrying her cranberry lemonade—and sloshing it out of her cup with every step.  Yay, I get to mop today, too.  Nothing like adding a bunch of deep-cleaning projects to the agenda on the day you arrive home from a 2-week trip.

 

And, then in case there weren’t enough special things to welcome us, Strider opened a package that had been sitting on our front step – a dvd from McGraw-Hill for one of my classes….. and a dead skink.  Yup, a dead lizard thing fell out of the packaging onto our floor as he opened it.  To which Strider remarked, “Oh… that’s what smelled really bad!”  I didn’t get close enough to verify this fact, but it was enjoyable even without that extra sense.

 

Ahh… it’s good to be home.

 

(I’ll post about our actual trip later)

 

 

* Numbers MAY be slight exaggerations

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