Daddy's home!

Somehow we all survived 10 days without Peter. It was the longest he and I have been apart in the last 12 years -- and it was very weird. It was also way too long for Miles to be without his Daddy apparently because when Pete got home, Miles kept running away from him, scared. Poor little guy -- and poor Pete. :( Now he's warmed up to him, though.

We had an interesting time while Pete was gone. There were highlights, such as having Gee-Gee here to read books to the kids and play uncountable games of Uno, Candyland and Boggle. Or building super-tall block towers at Nonna and Poppa's.

And there have also been so not-so-highlights, such as when dishes full of food or drink got dropped and shattered into tiny shards all over the floor, or when I discovered the garbage disposal was broken, and had to keep putting my hand down in it to pick out all the nasty garbage. Or when I discovered the dishwasher was no longer working.

But then there were more highlights, like when my father taught me that garbage disposals have a re-set button and it turned out it wasn't broken after all! And when I discovered the dishwasher wasn't really broken either!

And then there were more not-so-highlights, sometimes at night, such as the fact that Rayna suddenly needs much less sleep than she used to apparently, and refused to go to sleep earlier than between 9:30-10:30 pm any of the nights. And because she wasn't sleeping, she was either waking up her brothers, getting into things she shouldn't, or, as I found out at 11:30 one night when I came up to go to bed, pouring water in and out of her tea set -- all over her bed and Miles' crib. So for 2 nights in a row, I had to change the sheets on both beds, as well as both of their pajama sets, while both kids were sleeping.

I never got quite enough sleep, of course, for the last 10 days. It brought a sense of accomplishment, though, as I realized I hadn't been awake before 7 am for 10 straight days in a row in many, many years!

And it also brought apparent brain fatigue... as I did some rather dumb things this past week. For example, I was getting all frustrated that our memory card reader wouldn't take the memory card from my mother-in-law's camera. I called 2 different people to help me... before James diagnosed my problem: I was trying to insert the camera battery into the card reader. Oops.

So, just in the nick of time, Daddy is home.

And he even came bearing gifts, to everyone's delight! The kids loved their new shirts...

and personalized items... ... and I received plenty of much-needed chocolate! Since a vacation is not on my near horizon, my chocolate mini-escapes will have to do. :)

I'll post pictures from Pete's trip soon... I think he had a slightly more exciting time than we did!