week ending july 1, 2007:

Week ending July 1, 2007: We’re heading up to the Poconos on Saturday morning for a week long vacation with friends from college, and aren’t likely to have internet access. The 5 families are renting a 6 bedroom house. All told there will be 10 adults and 10 kids aged 9, 7, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3, 1, 1, and 0.5. It is the same group who went with us to the Jersey shore last year, plus an additional family. The kids are very excited about seeing their friends. We’ve got a canoe on top of the Suburban, 4 bikes on a rack on the back, and the cargo area is filled from floor to ceiling. We should have enough stuff to entertain ourselves for a week! This week Alex and Chloe did their first overnight away from home without Mom and Dad. Ever since February when we slept at Grammy Barb’s house while our power was out, the kids have been asking when they can sleep there again. While the kids were in good hands, their father and I went to see a Jimmy Buffett concert in VA (happy 11th anniversary to us!). We told the kids that they were going to sleep-over party at Grammy Barb’s and Chloe was excited, but Alex said he wanted to go “listen to grown-up music” with us. Again we packed enough toys, books, spare clothes, and food for about a week despite that they were only going to be there for about 24 hours. The kids did really well and slept through the night. When they got home I asked Alex if he had worried about anything while he was at Grammy Barb’s. He said yes, so I asked what he’d worried about and he said “I worried that I was going to have to go home. I wanted to stay there for many many days and dinner.” I guess he really enjoyed himself! Also this week, Chloe’s habit of licking things and putting things into her mouth became more troublesome. I feel like I’m always telling her to only put food and drinks into her mouth, but she never listens. In the past weeks she’s licked the screen door, her brother, the car, and puts all kinds of toys into her mouth. Yesterday she said to me “what is that brown stuff on the mirror?” I said “that is Mommy’s hair dye, I guess Mommy didn’t do a good job cleaning up last night”. Chloe said “I thought it was chocolate, I licked it.” I explained how hair dye is poisonous (they watch Snow White and know about the poisoned apple) and that any time she licks things that aren’t food she doesn’t know whether there could be something poisonous like bathroom cleaner on it. She started to cry and I was torn between wanting her to understand how important it is to keep her mouth off of things and not wanting to traumatize her. However, in the past day I’ve told her twice already about putting things into her mouth, so I guess she wasn’t too traumatized.