Deja vu.... 20+ hours in the car?

Gave you ever seen Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds," where a bunch of xrows descend on this town and attack people? The yearly southern migration of every type of bird give the same feel as the beginning of the movie. You glance over once, there are a handful of birds. You look back and there are a couple hundred. A minute later, there are clouds of black, noisy birds everywhere. It is incredible to see them try to land and rest:

Anyway, our day one of driving was uneventful. The kids know the drill: eat, DVD, sleep. Repeat. Here the girls are waiting for mommy and Tonito to cook some delicious mac 'n cheese bowls in the gas station:). That, served with mandarins and carrots sticks is a very orange meal.

If it weren't so boring, I would write a book about staying sane while driving across the country with 3 kids under 5 and 2 dogs... :) Actually boring means uneventful, no mishaps or surprises, and that means a successful trip! So we like boring drives!

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July- drive to Mexico

August- drive home

October- drive to Chicago... 3 weeks later drive home

November- drive to Chicago... 1 week later drive home

December- drive to Mexico.

Sugar and Turkeys

We signed up to bring a Thanksgiving dessert to Vivi's class, and so I googled "Turkey Cookies," and found this: (there is no way I would be able to come up with something like this!)

First we used frosting to stick on the candy corn feathers:

Then stuck the caramels to the ritz cracker for the body, and a whopper on top for the head:

For eyes we used mini-m & m's and the beak is part of a candy corn:

Here's the finished project:

Since Tonito goes to a special ESL preK every day for a couple of hours, and Maya is taking her nap, I try to do something with just Vivi. So here we bought all of these ingredients, worked on the turkeys for a couple of hours, and then I see Vivi scratching her lips and tongue. Can you believe candy corn has eggs!? I thought I had checked all of the ingredients, but I guess I missed that! So we made one turkey especially for her without tail feathers or a beak. Aaaaaagh. That was the whole point of me bringing a dessert, so I could assure Vivi that she would be able to eat one without eggs!!! Despite the featherless turkey, Vivi had a blast making these and I highly suggest them! Can you find the turkey that is egg-free? (where's waldo!?)

Enjoying our turkeys at Vivi's pre-school Thanksgiving feast:

Zooooooooo

We had a beautiful fall day at the zoo, enjoying the meerkats, giraffes, and bats. We only had a little while to walk around, but everyone had a fun time looking at the animals.

In one of the buildings, there was a glass tunnel through the piranha tank- very cool!

Watching the otters diving and swimming...

Another picnic

The past couple of weeks I have been hearing the same comments over and over.

"Wow. You have your hands full!"

Do they mean I look frazzled, tired, unshowered and overwhelmed with 3 little ones? Are my kids too loud and wild in the supermarket and the person can't imagine having to round them up while buying a week's worth of food? I can see them looking from face to face wondering who is related to whom, noting that my genes are either recessive or nonexistant.

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"Wow, you must be busy!" Maybe they are impressed at my bravery for taking three active little ones out in public without leashes, who are moderately well-behaved and who listen most of the time. Maybe they see the evidence of paint and markers and playdough on their hands and clothes, and hear the laughing and shrieking at private jokes that outsiders would not understand. Maybe they watch as I hold Maya while I juggle my grocery list, remember to get the donation of 3 boxes of cereal bars, instruct Tonito to grab the lowest box of Cheerios, and move Vivi closer to the cart, which I am pushing with my hip to allow the woman on the cell phone to pass us without running over toes. Maybe they wonder if they would have the patience, strength, and sense of humor needed to deal with preschoolers.

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Or maybe they are just bored and wish they could have as much fun as we do, get as many hugs as we do, and feel as proud as we do.

Some recent funnies

Yes, that is Maya pulling herself up onto the table to get some cucumbers and carrots with picarico (ie tajin chile/lime powder).

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Vivi: Can I have another horsie kiss? (hershey kiss)

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Our trip to search for Mexican antiques ended when Maya fell (or was pushed) onto the cement floor and got her first fat lip. I think her screaming and the blood all over my shirt scared away quite a few customers!

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I went to pay our water bill and the kids wanted to know what I was doing. I explained how we all use water, and so we have to pay for it with money. Vivi told me she is saving all of her pennies in her piggy bank for me to buy things with! ;)

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Vivi, making up the end of the story how she would like it to end: "And when they got away, the gingerbread boy and gingerbread girl sailed in a gingerbread boat to Madagascar, and played with gingerbread lemurs!"

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Maya had her 2 year old portrait taken, and I was trying to get her to practice to smile, telling her she looked like a princess in her dress, etc. While walking into Sears we followed 2 women in saris, and Maya got very excited and almost star-struck: "Mommy. Princess just like Maya!"

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I sent the kids upstairs, challenging them to get ready for bed using only their flashlights. 30 minutes later they were laughing hysterically and had not yet reappeared. When I called them down to read books, Tonito asked "Can we get ready again??"

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Just FYI: when a 2 year old eats (chews and swallows) a whole pack of gum piece by piece, while unsupervised, it does NOT take 7 years to digest. Note to self: watch Maya more carefully while packing for our trip to Chicago.

A warm day at the park

We spent a great day at the museum, followed by a very warm picnic at the park- I am amazed that it is November! People are starting to plant what they call "winter color" (the annuals that I used to plant in April or May in Chicago). I am not planting anything this winter because I am still trying to learn what to do when. When we moved in, someone told us to take a "pool school" class from the local pool supply store. So you pay to have one of their guys to come to your house and they teach you everything about your pool and its maintenance. It was extremely helpful, and we finally understand the basic chemistry of keeping it clear. Now I want the same class, but a "garden school"-- I love the palms I see everywhere and the tropical plants and fruits, I just need to learn how to take care of them!:) So far all I know is that if you hear it will get down to freezing at night, we should cover certain plants with old sheets. I just have to figure out which plants...

Anyway- great park, lots of hills to run up and down (training my future cross-country runners:).

Love to play at the park!

I'm a supermodel!

Check out our little models!:)

http://www.blissfulseed.com/children.html

Happy Halloween!

After making it home, we scrambled costumes together for Halloween. Fortunately the girls have lots of princess dress-up clothes, and Tonito got the perfect pirate costume from my mom for his birthday. Here's Maya as Little Mermaid:

Vivi as pink Jasmine:

And Tonito as a "scary" pirate (notice the face)-

Tonio's last minute costume was pj's and mine was running clothes.

We got invited to a Halloween party in our neighborhood, and randomly, each of the kids knew one of the kids there from school! Vivi had her little friend Anna (the pink supergirl) there from preschool, and Tonito had Tyler (the green cucumber) from speech class.

They live on a culdesac that ends in a green belt, so the kids were safe and could run wild for dinner.

We carved pumpkins, had had dinner and dessert (because the candy wouldn't be enough:).

And at dusk we formed a huge parade consisting of a fireman, a banana, several princeses, a cucumber, a tomato, a policeman, a football player, pirate, and more. Our neighborhood doesn't have that many kids so the people handing out the candy were always pleasantly surprised at the huge group! It was a very fun party, and I am so glad it spontaneously worked out!

The looooooong drive home

We started the LOOOONG drive home on Wednesday the 28th. When I say "we," I mean me- by myself- accompanied by 3 little ones strapped in car seats. There are 2 kiddos that are happy with snacks, Disney music, (obviously) DVDs, and an occasional potty and running around break. There is one little one in particular who is quite demanding of the two hands that should be steering the wheel: "me das (can I have) crackers? cheese? play with mommy's hair? mommy hold my hand? my tray fall down!!!! otra musica, 'nother book, 'nother book, 'nother book, my shoe, my sock, cargame! (carry me), po-po, Maya color, abajo (down) mommy, and the ubiquitous "no see my window To-to!!!!" (ie don't look out my window)... I think the 2.5 years of me working and commuting with Vivi was the vital car-survival-training that Maya missed out on.
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Anyway, I drove all the way to south-eastern Missouri to stay with our friends Kim and Scott (and Drew- Tonito's buddy from Urumqi). It was awesome. Not the drive- the getting there and letting the kids run around and be crazy with their friend. We had so much fun playing and having a "sleepover" with Drew! We went to the same Chinese restaurant that we had visited on the way down. Fan, the gracious owner, is from China, is one of Kim's friends, and has kids around the same age. The kids were wild already, and then she blew up a bunch of balloons and the true mayhem began: balloon volleyball over the tables and around customers, the occasional balloon popping and subsequent crying until another balloon of the same color and size could be provided to the victim, and just plain running and jumping and expelling of energy. After dinner we went back to Drew's house and the kids all played until well past bedtime- we miss you so much Drew!
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Day two was supposed to be the "easy" day, but fate had other ideas. We left around 11, and I had supposedly 6 hours to get to Little Rock to pick up Tonio at the airport at 5. The trip was supposed to only take 4 hours, so I could check into the hotel and relax before picking up Tonio. Ha. Relax. That's funny. The radar on the weather channel was right- the line of thunderstorms and tornado producing weather fronts started exactly at our location and ran all the way to Houston. Not only did I have to drive through rains so hard my fastest wiper speed couldn't keep up, but this same storm system ended up delaying Tonio until 9pm.
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Most of the drive from rural Missouri to Little Rock was on two lane farms roads, flanked on both sides by flooded rice paddies, or even one lane bridges, where you should wait for the only other lone car on miles of highway to cross. (this I did not know until I saw their headlights on the same little bridge as I was breaking and hydroplaning to avoid a head-on collision). Back to the paddies- did you even know that Arkansas grew rice!?? I didn't. Side note: they also grow a lot of cotton, and I pulled over and picked a pod bursting with white, fuzzy cotton (on an emergency bathroom break). Vivi and Tonito saw it and said "a cotton ball!" On the way up to Chicago I had explained how people use this cotton to make tshirts, and the kids demanded that Tonio make them a tshirt right there to show them.
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So we finally made it to Little Rock and randomly found the Children's Museum, which was open for one more hour! I first had to take the dogs out (oh, you forgot I also had two 50 pound dogs in the car?). This was a little difficult since 1) forgot the leashes at Kim's, 2) it was pouring and Boo is terrified of storms, and 3) we were parked on a in the busy museum district. I had the kids stand next to a dumpster under this mini-roof, and opened the back door of the van and begged the dogs to do their business in the tiny patch of grass littered with garbage I found (right next tot he kids, don't worry). I guess holding their bladders for 6 hours made them hurry. Dogs locked up, we ran down the street to the museum and played there from 4-5. Whew.
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Tonio called by now, and told me he had good news and bad news. The bad news was the plane delay, but the good news was that he was sitting next to RICK BAYLESS!!! I gave him a list of comments and questions and raving reviews to relay to Rick, and told him to call me back when he knew more details about his flight. The kids and I found the nearest restaurant, which happened to be fish, and took some great pictures while trying to waste a couple of hours:

Maya's favorite activity, twirling mommy's hair.

We waited another 2 hours in the Little Rock Airport parking lot, watching more DVD's. My dad kept us updated on the flight patterns and the red massive storm on the radar directly over Little Rock. Somehow Tonio landed, we drove the 45 minutes to the hotel (that's why I didn't check in! The only hotel that had rooms and accepted dogs was way out of town)...

At least someone had fun:)---

Day 3, Tonio drove the whole way from Little Rock to Houston. Aaaah, just in time for Halloween!