Lake Trip and Road Trips

From _lightroom3

My children have spent 50hours in the car this summer. 50hours worth of road trips and family visits and fun times since Memorial Day; which I realize isn't officially *summer* but where I come from it's plenty hot by then so it might as well be.

We just always go go go.  We went to Kansas for Memorial Day.  Two weeks later we went to Albuquerque.  Ten days after that we went to Wisconsin.  A week after that we went to the lake.  We're just busy.  By now I'm exhausted.  So many trips so many trips.  So many nights sharing a room.  It's exhausting.  We're supposed to go to Austin not this weekend but next and I just don't know how I'm going to manage.  Than after that we're supposed to go to Houston.  Can you see me yawning?  Not from boredom, but just from fatigue?  Because these trips are soooo fun.  The kids have soooo much fun.  G loves his cousins.  He's always asking where his cousins are.

And this past weekend at the lake he just loved it.  It's like a weekend long playdate.  Ten kids (nine plus one in utero) and ten adults.  We're on the verge of being outnumbered.  One of us already has three but left the infant at home.  Next year will be madness.  It's like a race ... no ... it's like a game of chicken to see who's going to dare to give birth to a third.

From _lightroom3

Chalupa cut his third tooth on this trip.  My kids always always cut teeth on vacation.  He was fussy and wanted to be held and around so much water it just worked out that way.  G is taller now and minds the life vests less and less.

He was horrified of the water at first.  In deed he's been that way all summer.  Not wanting to swim.  Not wanting to go to the pool.  He's been wary and nervous and scared.

I'm not a fan of scared.  You're scared of it?  That means you really should do it.

So we threw him in the water.  It didn't go well.  He cried.  After the intial freak out we eased him into some aspects of it.  And it paid off.  By the end of the weekend he was jumping in and swimming with mama and daddy and swimming by himself to the dock.  (In a life vest, doggy paddling).

From _lightroom3

He had a great time.

When he wasn't swimming he was fishing.  He caught one too!  There's pictures on fb and other places and he just loved catching fish.  He loved playing with his friends and visiting with his friends and he sat at the table with his friends at mealtime and it was super fun.

From _lightroom3

He even liked fishing for his brother.

But sharing a room is just tiring.  G does great and just sleeps on the floor in a sleeping bag.  Chalupa?  Yeah he wants me to bounce him for thirty minutes or more.  That's me bouncing back and forth, foot to foot, holding him in my arms and bouncing gently.  All 22lbs of him.  It's exhausting.

But ... in good news.  Once he was asleep and in his pack n play, he slept through.  So that was good.  But I barely slept with my mother's ear tuned in, listening to every breath, every rustle, every whimper. Everything woke me up.

So I'm pretty tired of sharing a room with my kids.

Chalupa is about to crawl.  And start talking.  I hear beginnings of words and he babbles at me.  He is such a sweet boy.  He's needy and needy and fussy a lot and that drives me up the wall, but it's only because I know it's so temporary and he can do better.  I have low tolerance for it.  Little patience.

Can not believe he's going to be a year old soon.  Where does time go?