Still Day 4: Haven't left yet

Nathaniel has said "No" to Waffle House for breakfast so I think he may be coming down with the cold Maddie and I are successfully fighting off (speaking of which, why don't all tissues come with Vick's VapoRub?)  "No" to Waffle House?  And he mentioned wanting to eat a salad for breakfast-- it must be serious.

So it'll be bagels and then hitting the road.  I'm trying to let the family sleep in a little, since we surely need it.  Hopefully today will be like this.....

Maddie and Sonja holding hands in the backseat. The two of them were laughing their heads off together yesterday on the way to Chipotle for dinner.  Ah, sisters!

.....And we will all have a memorable day in the good kind of way.  Although, I just heard some thunder and that might put a damper on the scampering in the grass that makes driving bearable for little ones.  Luckily, we have a giant red tub in the back of our car to catch the water from the place where our car leaks in the rain.  Oh, yes, thank you red tub!  Oh, curse you, leaky place in the car!

Day 4: Where Will We Sleep Tonight?

The babes, all hanging out on the porch that Tom built!

Yesterday was just what the doctor ordered-- a really great doctor, like Cathy.  We got everyone some good sleep, I got to go to a World Market and buy Easter basket cuteness and Petite Palmiers, Nathaniel got to go to Best Buy and do something to Tom and Cathy's computer to make it do something about something that they wanted it to do, and the girls got to have naps.  

We went to a terrific park and Nathaniel tried his hand at the climbing wall.  He also got stuck on some spinning thing and I had to save him.  It took me a minute because I almost peed my pants laughing so hard. 

 

There were lots of spinning devices at this park-- please note my headband from the World Market-- it might not go with a ponytail, but it was only $2.00 marked down from $7.99, 

so there you go.

The beautiful Sonja, post nap and long walk with Mommy.  She loves to swing.......

But please don't take her binkie!

These two give two-year-olds a good name.  

They are sweet little friends and both so nice to Sonja.

Virginia is so civilized, with it's beautiful weather and brick buildings and fat gobs of history.  I really love it here but I know it's going to get too hot for Nathaniel very soon.

We're off to North Carolina today, but I'm not entirely sure where we're going to sleep.  We can't get ahold of our friend that Nathaniel made plans with, so maybe we'll go to Cooper Riis.  Although, Nathaniel had a dream last night that we did that and no one knew us and Maddie was running all around and we just went to the dining room and sat down and ate.  Which actually might not be that far from reality.

Day 3: Charlottesville, VA

Whew.  Yesterday was a long day.  We tried to leave New York in a timely fashion but when we were all packed up and in the car, it was discovered that one very important passenger was missing: Mr. Lion.  Luckily, some men were tearing up carpet in Anna's apartment building and we were able to get back in and search.  But, just like in "Knuffle Bunny," no Mr. Lion did we find.  So Nathaniel decided to look harder and finally Mr. Lion was located: in a cabinet under the kitchen sink.  And so we have a new rule for our road trip: No hiding Mr. Lion.

Unfortunately, Nathaniel did not have his dad here to find forgotten things for him and so our computer charger is still in New Jersey.  Making it slightly harder to blog update.  

Maddie and I are feeling a little better and the weather is fabulous!  We saw green grass and pink and purple buds on the trees!  We shed our layers and lay the baby out in the sun on a blanket.  We stopped about every hour and a half and ran around and ate fruit.  

Nathaniel flaunting the baby's lack of socks despite my socks-on-baby policy

Maddie having so much fun in the sun that I don't care that she's digging in 

poopy dirt with a stick. 

A happy Sonja.  She and Maddie played together soooo nicely at this rest stop while Mommy and Daddy frantically tried to use his iPodTouch, our laptop address book, and our cellphone to arrange delivery of the power cord to Atlanta from New Jersey.

The number one best thing ever is that orange iPod playing pillow we bought at the New Jersey mall for $6.30.  I would like to find the person who invented that thing and give them some brownies. 

 

On the other hand, whoever invented the sunset and that terrible light squinting in your eyes when your driving down the road at 6:45pm, I'd like to give them a boot in the backside.  We're going to need some sort of Darth Vadar-like black helmet for Maddie if that ever happens again (because of both the sun-keeping-out properties of the helmet as well as what kind of person Maddie becomes: "Sun in eyes!  Sun in eyes!")  

Nathaniel said at one point, "We should be glad when the girls are both crying.  It's more efficient."

When we finally made it to Cathy and Tom's house, the sky was dusky and dinner was on the table and Maddie and Dylan were fast friends.  We had a lovely evening and Cathy made sure I don't have strep throat.  She also recommended a great book to me called "Show me How" and one of the things is how to get rid of monsters.  Apparently you need monster repellent and a trap:

Florida or Bust: Day One

Flashlight?  Check!  Huge mess in the living room?  Check!

Here we are, one day out of Massachusetts!  Maddie's been excited about going to Florida for weeks now and got all naked today so she could go swimming in the ocean.  We had to explain that the ocean was still a ways off but that we'd be seeing Aunt Anna and Uncle Nick in New Jersey tonight.  That held her until we stopped for gas and I asked her if she wanted to go inside with her Daddy and she said, "To go swimming in the ocean?"

Not the ocean, but ice cream with Daddy is good, too

Maddie and I both have colds and Nathaniel anticipates getting one shortly but we're all in great moods.  I really love road tripping with Nathaniel-- we get silly pretty quick when we're cooped up together in the car.  Sonja is the perfect age for traveling, as long as we keep her on schedule.  And we have built up an army of defenses to deal with Maddie.

I turn up my nose at having a DVD player in the car but we really have a ton of electronics up front.  There's Mrs. GPS, who has adopted an English accent for this outing; N's iPodTouch, my iPod nano, cell phone, and stereo.  And we just picked up an iPod speaker pillow, neon orange, at the New Jersey mall.  This is so Maddie can listen to the four hours (4!) of stories that are on my iPod.  One hour of which we recorded together before we left.

Also: Maddie pooped in the potty for the first time this morning!  She's been peeing really well but now she's branching out!  Hurray!

The girls with their Auntie-- they're so lucky to have her and so are we!  

Thanks Anna and Nick!

Oh my god.  I just started fantasizing about having a little baby boy!  Sonja isn't even 3 months old yet!  Jesus Christ.  And  I know I won't stop thinking about it until I'm pregnant again.  IUD, here I come.  I need to be stopped.

I bought a new pillow for the couch today and Cooper is now on it, shedding.  That's why everything I buy is chocolate brown.

Maddie and Sonja and I found ourselves with a free morning so we went to town and hung out at Rite Aid!  Whoopie!  On the way there we were listening to NPR and they advised us that if we wanted more information on something we should go to somethingsomething.com.   The "dot com" part of that suggestion really stuck with Maddie and she kept yelling, "Dot com, dot com," all morning.  Then, "Mommy dot com!"  (Which would actually take you here, where's there's a suggestion to check the batteries in your smoke detector, but joke's on them-- we took ours out because the wood stove always sets it off.)

I would pay $20.00 to take a really hot bath and then nap right now.  But instead I'm going to get up and get Maddie up from her too short nap and get all my stuff ready for McKee School.  And Sonja!  Please, let's not forget Sonja!  I will get her ready to go, too.  

There's no point in having a Christmas without children.  It's so much more impossibly fun with kids around.  They don't even get what's going on but we enjoy trying to make it meaningful for them.  We put a tree in our house and lit it up and Maddie just took it in stride, like we always have a tree in the living room.  

Matthew took us out to cut the tree down and he took his kids out, too, and it was so frickin' cold and Myra fell down and smashed her knee on some ice and it was the kind of cold where your face just can't take it and Matthew gave up and didn't get a tree.  But we had bundled our kids up and my man chopped down a beautiful tree and we dragged it back to our cave.

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I'm so devastated that The Daily Show won't be on until after the New Year, because I need to know what Jon (and his writers) think of that guy who threw a shoe at Bush in Iraq.  Dude threw a shoe at him!  Both of his shoes!  But then he got beaten and kicked by Iraqi security and Bush called it democracy.  Poor guy.  I know it's an immature way to make a point or express yourself, but that guy is my hero.  

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Sonja is getting baptized today.  Pictures to follow...