Every year before I take the kids on vacation, Jack and Grace’s grandparents warn them exhaustively of the perils that await them on whatever trip we have planned.

Two years ago for our beach trip, it was man-eating sharks. Last year at Niagara Falls, it was all about how easy it is to go over the edge. Amusement parks – roller coaster deaths. Lake Erie ferry boat ride – killer Great Lake storms.

I know they mean well, but Jack is terrified of his own shadow. When his fears are confirmed (or new fears implanted) by intelligent adults, vacationing with him becomes a challenge.

He wouldn’t go into the ocean beyond his ankles without someone holding his hand. He was terrified that he was going to fall over the edge at Niagara Falls until we got there and he saw how unlikely that was to happen. He cried hysterically during the one and only roller coaster ride that I ever took him on and he worried for three days about the ferry boat ride over to Kelly’s Island last summer.

I thought I had it under control this year. I purposefully withheld the whitewater rafting portion of our trip, knowing that would bring about an onslaught of overly exaggerated precautionary warnings that would send Jack over the edge. He already had himself tied in knots about the trip without any outside influence.

What could possibly be life-threatening about visiting some of America’s most majestic national parks and monuments?!

I had forgotten about the dreaded rattlesnake. Yes, the grandparents thought it necessary to warn Jack about the dangers of rattlesnakes out west.

Rick and I scoffed at the idea that rattlesnakes presented a danger and successfully assured Jack that he would be quite safe.

But, sure enough, here is the sign that greeted us on our very first stop at Badlands National Park:

For the next few posts, I am going to depart from my typical blog format and give you some vacation updates. Rick, Susan, Caryn, Grace, Jack and I have been on a road trip for ten days now. It has been an adventure to say the least. I’ll share some of the lighter moments, some of the darker moments, and maybe I’ll retain some of my own sanity by writing about all of it.

The second day of our grand vacation started with the requisite hotel continental breakfast buffet, complete with make-your-own waffles.

What a mess that turned out to be! Batter everywhere, torn up waffles, burned fingers… and that was just me. We fortunately have not encountered another make-your-own waffle station on this trip. Toasting bagels is hard enough in a hotel lobby, let alone operating someone else’s temperamental waffle iron.

Unfortunately, the hotel breakfast just doesn’t do it for kids. That day, we had been on the road for less than an hour when I heard rustling in the back, foraging for food. (I do not know how three teeny, tiny skinny girls can EAT like full grown men. But they do!)

Then the bickering over who ate how much of what and who ate the last Rice Krispie treat and who drank all the water began.

We thought a stop might help lighten the mood. So I did a little research on my phone and discovered that Sioux Falls is named for its lovely water falls in the middle of the city.

Of course, my phone lost service (it is South Dakota after all) and I had to attempt to use NavGirl again to route us there. NavGirl refuses to cooperate about 50% of the time. (much like my children) I kept getting the “not while vehicle is in motion” message. Eventually, thanks to the good old atlas, we made it to the Falls in the middle of the town.

Sioux Falls is beautiful, but the kids were far more concerned with their stomachs, so back to the car we went. (They managed to eek out a smile for the picture.)

Sioux Falls… They fake happiness well.

Of course, there were no restaurants between the park and the highway. Nor were there any restaurants for the next 50 miles. (Well, there might have been a few… but they were the kind that are in the middle of nowhere… no gas station… no cars anywhere around… named something like “CAFÉ” in giant peeling letters…scary, actually.) So on we went.

Meanwhile, the kids were gradually self-destructing in the back seats.

They had gotten along relatively well on the first day of driving. But too many hours spent looking at corn fields and jockeying for more room to lie down were beginning to take their toll. The girls were snipping at each other as only teenage girls can do and Jack was starting to lose control. (You can tell by the screeching laughter which turns into tears and back into laughter.)

Rick and I whispered in the front seat about how it was when we were kids. We didn’t have a DVD player with multi-channel headphones for each child in the family, an ipod for each person, a Nintendo DS and room to stretch out. No, our family vacations were taken in the family wagon where we sat in the third seat squished between our older brother and younger sister… facing BACKWARDS! Nonetheless, we resisted the urge to give them “the lecture.” It WAS only the second day of vacation, after all.

Fortunately, we found a restaurant before Rick and I lost our good humor. The kids were content enough to curl up and go to sleep for a while and we got some peace…until the storm.

Storm on I-90 somewhere in South Dakota

I love thunderstorms and this one was fabulous…rolling black clouds across the flat expanse of the plains where you can see for miles. It was COOL! The kids had awakened and I was talking animatedly about it, until I heard a whimper. It was Jack in the very back seat. I looked around and saw the look of terror on his face.

Since he was in the third row, it was difficult for me to try to console him. It was up to Grace who is probably the least soothing person that I know. “It’s ok Jack.” Pat pat pat on his head… and then “Hey,look how black those clouds are… the wind is sure picking up… do you think there will be a tornado?” Thanks, Grace!

We made it through the storm, of course. Everyone’s clothes and the kitchen sink strapped to the top were soaked but we survived and Jack realized once again that his fears were unfounded. More on that tomorrow…

It’s really hard to think about blog writing when you are busy driving across the country with your husband and four kids in the car and the kitchen sink strapped to the roof.

But that’s what I’ve been doing… and, although I have a newly drilled well of blog fodder, I’m struggling to find the time to get it all written down, typed in and uploaded.

Our adventure began nine days ago when we set off at 5 am on a Sunday morning for the thriving metropolis of Council Bluffs, Iowa. “Why Iowa?” you might ask. Well, I really didn’t think I could tolerate any more than 13 ½ hours in the car with four kids …(I was right)…so I split the first leg of our trip into two days.

The previous evening, I had carefully entered the hotel’s address into our car’s navigation system. (I use the term ‘car’ loosely… it’s actually a Chrysler Aspen, a giant gas guzzling SUV…every mom with one or more children knows that you can’t drive anything less on a family vacation.) The navigation system calculated the route and gave me turn-by-turn directions, complete with audio, a zoomable map, total distance, total time remaining, and distance to the next turn. Of course, the next turn was at the end of my driveway. So I turned the system off and went to bed, feeling confident that we would know where we were headed in the morning.

Sunday morning, we pulled out of the driveway with the NavGirl voice telling us, “Turn right now.” And that was it! All around 270, no NavGirl voice, no turn-by-turn directions, no distance to the next turn.

The first thought for Rick and I was, “OMG, I hope this doesn’t affect the DVD player!” Now, that would have been a great way to start a 3500 mile trip! Fortunately, it didn’t and NavGirl came back after our first potty break somewhere in Indiana.

Nonetheless, even with NavGirl on board, I’ve been busy giving directions. Rick has done almost all of the driving and I have been the navigation system… with the help of Google maps from my phone, a hand-held GPS, NavGirl, and, yes, the good old reliable US Atlas.

No matter what anyone tells you, do not get rid of your analog navigation system. Regular old paper and ink maps are the most reliable source of directions you will find.

The hand-held GPS uses batteries like Kleenex. Google maps on the phone only works when there is cell phone service. Try getting your cell phone to work between Edgemont, South Dakota and Casper, Wyoming. And that annoying NavGirl seems to rejoice in telling me, “Make a U-turn immediately if possible.”

It helps tremendously with the tension in the car after a wrong turn to hear a small voice from the back seat, “Are we lost?”

Of course, there is the same little voice asking how much farther, are we there yet, and do we have enough gas. – Jack…my little worrier who can’t remember that he got grounded for life the last time he asked those questions… fifteen minutes ago.

The girls have stopped asking how much farther. They look up at NavGirl’s screen and see the countdown. Besides, my answer to them is always the same: “About four hours.” Sadly, it’s usually correct within a few minutes.

It takes a LONG time to get ANYWHERE when you are driving west. No wonder Council Bluffs, Iowa seems like such a hopping town.

So far, NavGirl and I have gotten us safely to Sioux Falls, Keystone, Deadwood, Sturgis, Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse monument, Custer State Park, Wind Cave National Park, Denver, Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods, Buena Vista, Estes Park, Grand Lake, and twice across the 46-mile painfully slow Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. (The mountains have been clouded over both times.)

I just wish NavGirl would also help me referee the bickering that goes on in the back seat. More on that to come.

I laughed out loud at my friend Steph’s blog this week: all about trying to potty train her three year old son.

How I remember those days! Begging, pleading, bribing, coaxing… just like Steph says. And my situation was exactly the same as hers… trying to get Jack potty trained and slip him into preschool.

Just as Jack is difficult now, he was difficult then. Jack would stay clean and dry all day long when he was wearing his big boy Ninja Turtle underwear. But for naps and at night, I would put him in a diaper or a pull-up just to be safe. He KNEW he wasn’t supposed to be going in the diaper and he KNEW that I wanted him to go in the potty and I KNEW that he was able to hold it. But the minute he got that diaper on, he would slink off and hide behind a chair somewhere and go.

At about 3 ½, he decided that he would pee in the potty for me. It might have had something to do with the joy of aiming at the cheerios that I floated in the toilet or maybe the M&M rewards worked. Or, it could be that he just thought it was fun. (I think most guys do for some bizarre reason.) Whatever! I was relieved that he was able to go to preschool and I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t have an accident.

Nonetheless, he still refused to poop in the potty. I would set him on the toilet when he got up in the morning, right before school, right after school, before dinner, after dinner, and before bedtime. I made him sit there for what seemed like forever… even to me! I can only imagine what torture it was for him to sit still with his chubby three years old legs dangling over the toilet seat. (By this time, he was too big for the kiddie potty.) I would read him potty books, sing potty songs, and do potty dances.

Meanwhile, I had his dad telling me all about how they had potty trained Jack’s older half brother at two. And Jack’s grandma graciously let me know how Jack’s dad had been trained at 18 months. (It’s always good for your mom esteem to know how much better someone else can do it.)

Eventually, I stopped putting a diaper on him for bed. He held it for five days. At my pediatrician’s instruction, I gave him a low dosage of a laxative. I put a big label on it: Jack’s poop in the potty medicine. We made a big production of it.

Still nothing.

This is when I discovered that Jack is more stubborn than I am. I caved and put a diaper on him so that he could relieve himself and I could relieve my guilt.

Of course, he is ten now and uses the big boy potty and wears big boy pants with no problem at all. I look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.

They are going to learn when they learn. You just have to hope that they do it in time to start to school and before they drive you completely insane.

Today, Jack used a half a roll of toilet paper and flooded the upstairs bathroom. I’m so glad he’s potty trained!

If you don’t say anything when:

… you come home from work to discover wet towels and swim suits on the floor just inside the door…

…you see them on the “parents’” computer…

…you notice that they are on the phone after 10 on a school night…

…the chore list goes undone for the day…

…they eat with their elbows on the table and talk with food in their mouth…

…they don’t make their beds or brush their teeth or wear clean underwear…

If you allow any of these things occur and you don’t say anything , you have just made a whole new set of rules.

Rick and I have found that the minute we let our guard down and allow some things to “slide,” things generally slide right on downhill. All of our carefully-set expectations and rules are dismissed and forgotten.

Jack leaves the toilet seat up. Lauren picks her nose. Caryn doesn’t “remember” that she’s supposed to call before she goes to her friends’ house. Susan decides that texting during school is permitted and Grace “forgets” that she isn’t supposed to eat toast over the computer keyboard.

Why is it that being a parent is so hard sometimes? Why can’t I tell them the rules once and expect that they will follow them? Why do I have to be a nag when all I really want to do is be fun mommy?

I think I’m just going to play the Anita Renfrow video to them every morning when they get up. It covers most everything and I’ll save my voice.

They usually aren’t about anything of great importance. Sometimes they are minor exaggerations… sometimes they are by omission… and sometimes they are just slightly misleading.

They start off small and get bigger: ‘I don’t know.’ ‘ I don’t remember.’ ‘I didn’t do it.’ ‘I think that Gracie did that.’ ‘Gracie did that and then she kicked the dog too!’

Let me start by saying that we have some pretty good kids. None of them is truly a trouble-maker. They are all respectful and kind most of the time, have decent grades and try to obey the “rules.”

But not a single one of them is above a little white lie now and then.

Lauren’s are of the typical pre-schooler variety. She seems to have no recollection of the rule that she just broke and uses a lot of shrugging and “I don’t knows.”

It’s really hard to know whether Lauren is telling a lie or if she really doesn’t have any idea that what she’s saying is a complete fabrication. She has a tendency to overhear bits and pieces of a conversation not meant for her ears and then she connects the dots on her own. Lauren’s dots don’t always go in a straight line so some of her stories are rather interesting. I don’t know how many times we have had to reassure someone at her school or work that: ‘No, no one is having back surgery this week’ or ‘No, we are not leaving for a vacation to Europe tomorrow.’ In these cases, I think that if she was given a lie detector test, she would pass. We have just learned that we have to confirm everything that comes out of her mouth with a more reliable source.

The other four kids are not quite so innocent.

Last week, the baby oil was taken to the swimming pool so they would “go down the slide faster.” Right! I was never a teenage girl trying to get a tan.

Last summer, they didn’t water our garden while we were away on our honeymoon because it rained every single day that we were gone. Funny how we got all that rain but the flowers were droopy and some of the pots were completely dead.

The astronomical cell phone usage: “Well you know my mom/dad… he/she gets started talking and I can’t get off the phone with her/him.” Hmmm… I have the spreadsheet from AT&T. There were three one minute calls from mom/dad’s number. Somehow that doesn’t add up to the 715 daytime minutes that got used.

And, of course, there are the classic missing homework excuses, which are, in reality, white lies: ‘I left my book in my locker.’ ‘I was sick that day and the teacher said I didn’t have to make up that assignment.’ ‘I’m sure I turned that in already.’ ‘That teacher loses all of my work!’ ‘Well, that’s not my REAL grade; that’s just a mistake.’ I’m pretty sure I’ve heard every last one of these and I’m not buying any of them anymore.

The funny part about it is: They think that we don’t know!

And even funnier… when we DO let them know that WE KNOW that they are lying, they act completely hurt and offended that we would ever doubt them.

Most of the white lies are really not worth arguing over. We just try to keep them from getting out of control. And we have learned to ask all the right, specific questions as to avoid the increasingly dangerous white lies by omission.

Rick has started to say to them, “Watch out for the turnip truck” as a means of letting them know that we didn’t just fall off of it.

As for my own truthfulness, I have a parental confession — don’t tell anyone, but I have convinced the kids that we can read all their text messages. Hey, it’s not really lying if it’s for their own good, right!?

“I’m a free woman now!” Lauren proclaimed at her high school graduation party.

We all got a good laugh at Lauren’s simple innocence. Freedom is not exactly what comes after graduation. In fact, quite the opposite is true. But Lauren, like any other high school graduate, was expressing her pleasure at her accomplishment and saying what she thought everyone wanted to hear.

The reality is that Lauren is not like everyone else at all.

I don’t write a lot about her because, although I have some hysterical Lauren stories, the mainstream public would either be uncomfortable and afraid to laugh, or, worse yet, think that I am being cruel.

My husband has called Lauren’s special needs “the elephant in the room.” And we have embraced her disabilities with the belief that if we can’t laugh at the situations that we get ourselves into, we’re going to cry. So we might as well laugh now and then.

Lauren is 22 chronologically. Emotionally, she is about four. Intellectually, probably six. And physically… twelve…but a buxom twelve… a VERY buxom twelve.

Last week I took Lauren bra shopping. She was ecstatic! Leaping for joy and clapping about the prospect of going shopping. Her childlike enthusiasm for the simplest things makes me laugh and makes life with her much easier than… say… a teenager with a bad attitude.

Fortunately for her, she doesn’t remember the last few bra shopping attempts that we’ve made where I’ve come home near tears and empty handed.

This time, I decided to take her somewhere special…somewhere that they know all about bras… somewhere that they could help us find the perfect size and the perfect fit. Where else? Victoria’s Secret, of course.

We began with a fitting. I don’t know if you have been sized lately, but the “experts” at Victoria’s Secret are eager to do so in the middle of the store. Since I’m a little “old school,” I directed Lauren and the sales clerk back to the fitting rooms.

“32D” was the prognosis. And let me tell you, there are very few bras in that size – even in what I considered to be the bra capital of the world.

Now, to look at Lauren, you would immediately recognize that she is not “normal” in the typical American societal definition of the word. She is obviously handicapped physically and mentally. She looks very young because she is frail and tiny, but she happens to have a large chest. I think half her body weight is in those things.

When the sales lady brought me four push-up, padded bras that promised “the lift and cleavage you want,” I looked at her incredulously. Then I looked at Lauren and back at the clerk.

“Really?” I thought. What person in their right mind thinks that this 100 pound child needs “less cup coverage for low-cut necklines?” If I send her to work in a shirt that is below her collar bone, she comes home with her shirt collar safety pinned together.

She’s Lauren. She’s four inside her head. She wears a Hello Kitty watch and watches “Hannah Montana” on TV. She doesn’t understand the word sexy and lacy bras are nothing but uncomfortable for her.

But we tried the bras on… for fit. They didn’t. I think she’s more like a 30DD and I’m not sure that bras are made in that size.

We gave up and bought her some cute pink tennies instead. That made her happy and bought me a couple more weeks before we try this again.

But on our next bra-finding excursion, we’ll be going to the sporting goods store. I think a jog-bra is what the ‘free woman’ needs to keep from being a little *too* free.

My sister-in-law’s Facebook status: “Etta can’t believe her 2-year-old found a black marker today and painted most of his face and hands. I couldn’t have been away from him for more than 5 minutes.”

Another friend was lamenting how she had just finished scrubbing her toilet and turned to the sink only to hear splashing behind her. Aha! A three-year-old!

They warn you about this in all of those parenting books. You can never turn your back … even for just a few seconds. Have those authors ever had a baby? Do they understand what it is like to have more than one child that might need your attention? Do they realize that you need a shower sometimes?

You think that you are doing your job when you “baby proof” your house. You stick those little plugs into all your outlets, put safety latches on your cabinets and your toilets, erect gates at the top and the bottom of your staircase and hide all of your cleaning supplies.

And what does that do for you? Well, I found that I had to pry the darn outlet plugs out with a screwdriver every time I wanted to vacuum which can’t possibly be safe. No one could get into the cabinets or the toilets EXCEPT for the baby. The kids easily learned how to climb over the baby gates making them even more dangerous and I never could find the cleaning supplies.

One of Gracie’s favorite memories is the time she “saved Jack’s life” while I wasn’t watching.

Our dog slept in the basement and one day I had let him up to take him outside. Three-year-old Grace sat in her high chair and 8-month-old Jack lay on the floor in the family room. I must have been out of the room for 5 seconds at the most when I heard the screams… not just Jack this time, but Gracie too. Hers were the frantic cries of someone who really needed help, not just someone who made fussing his full-time job.

I ran back in the door to discover both of them lying on their stomachs on the floor, bawling hysterically, with Gracie hanging onto Jack’s ankles for dear life. I had left the basement door open a crack and Jack had wiggle-crawled over, swung the door open and was going down the stairs, head first. Gracie had seen him trucking toward the door and managed to extricate herself from the high chair just in time to grab his ankles.

The things that they do when you aren’t watching!

Once the kids pass the toddler stage, you might think that you are safe. Oh, but the fun is just beginning! A child’s curiosity turns into an adolescent’s “invincibility” mixed with a bit of rebellion – a dangerous combination.

I don’t even begin to know all of the things that go on at my house when I’m not watching. And I don’t think I really want to know.

Unfortunately, once they reach a certain age, you can’t be with them every second of every minute of every hour of every day. Your 15-year-old daughter will use baby oil as “sunscreen” while you’re at work. Your 14-year-old son will jump from your house roof onto the trampoline while you’re at the grocery store. And your 12-year-old daughter will fall from the second story loft onto the hardwood floor below while doing gymnastics on the handrail during your business trip to Dallas.

Regardless of your brilliant parenting skills, you can expect a few trips to the emergency room for stitches or minor broken bones. You can only hope that your safety precautions, careful instructions and steadfast parental supervision will keep them from maiming themselves permanently.

Oh, and you will also need a healthy dose of good luck.

Jack called me last night… trepidation in his voice: “Mommy, what was that sickness called where the boy had to have his legs amputated?”

The term necrotizing fasciitis did not come to me immediately. But I could feel Jack’s little wheels turning through the phone.

“Ummm… well, I don’t remember, but what’s wrong?” … knowing full well what the answer was going to be. “Here we go,” I thought.

Jack proceeded to tell me about how he had a sore leg and was limping and how he was absolutely certain that he must have contracted the horrible flesh-eating bacteria. I tried to assure him that the disease is incredibly rare and that I’m sure he’s just sore from swimming.

“But it REALLY hurts, Mom.” I told him that he should just go to bed and get some sleep and that it would be fine in the morning.

Of course, I got the phone call this morning…accusation in his voice this time, “It STILL hurts, Mommy!” How dare I dismiss his agony! (He didn’t say that, but I could tell by the tone.) I tried to be compassionate and say how I understood and my legs muscles are sore all the time and there’s nothing wrong with me.

When he wasn’t buying that, I tried to play triage nurse and do a diagnosis over the phone. If you’ve ever done that with a child younger than ten, you know you might as well ask them to explain nuclear physics to you. They don’t really know how to describe their pain.

But he would have nothing of it. The poor child has convinced himself and I am not going to dissuade him.

I should never ever speak of any kinds of illnesses in front of the kids. Every single one of them will come down with whatever it is that I have described because they are all hypochondriacs.

Jack and Grace are genetically predisposed to the affliction of thinking that they are afflicted. Their dad has never had an ache or pain that wasn’t debilitating and excruciating.

Lauren really doesn’t complain a lot about anything, but if you accidentally suggest that she might have a cold, the next thing you know, she’s told the supervisor at work that she has pneumonia.

And the other two have decided that they get a free pass once a month to lie in bed for at least two days and moan about the agony of being born female.

I was completely annoyed when the pediatrician told Susan how if she didn’t finish all her antibiotics, she had a one in 250,000 chance of dying. At the very next visit, he told her that if she took advil instead of Tylenol, she had a one in 1,000,000 chance of developing the above mentioned flesh eating bacteria.

Really? Did he have to tell the hypochondriac 14 year old that?

After an “emergency” trip to the doctor for alleged pink eye last year, I laid down the law. The kids are absolutely, positively never to go visit the school nurse unless they are already near death. I know that they are just doing their jobs, but school nurses obviously don’t carry the same kind of insurance that the rest of us do. It seems that every time a kid sees the nurse, we have to make an expensive and completely unnecessary trip to the doctor before they can go back to school.

I really don’t understand how it happened that they have all turned out to be such whiners. From the time that they were very little, I would shove them back out onto the soccer field and tell them they were fine.

It’s all a part of that farm girl mentality. The pigs are still hungry even if you’re sick. On the farm, there is no escaping going to work no matter how awful you feel… so it’s just easier to convince yourself that you’re feeling fine.

As for Jack, he’ll be at swim team tomorrow and he will like it and Lauren will be at work even though she’s croaking like a bullfrog. And I’m doing my best to convince them that they feel GREAT!

I’m guessing that when my doctor gave me the “OK” to start running again on Monday, he was not giving me his blessing to run a 5K on Saturday.

What can I say? I wanted to have the whole middle-America suburban Independence Day experience!

You start with the 5K, then on to the parade, family cookout, and finally, of course, the fireworks.

I suppose, I was trying to fill the kid void that I was feeling since we were childless this weekend.

Rick and I have a distinct advantage in the “date night” department. Since we have a combined family and we each have a shared parenting arrangement, we have no children every other weekend.

I know that most couples would rejoice at the prospect of a free weekend every other week. A whole weekend to catch up on work, sleep, shopping, household chores and “couple bonding.”

And we do enjoy the freedom that the schedule allows us. We are spoiled and we know it. But, the mommy in me usually starts to ache for the kids somewhere around hour three of our kid-free weekend.

So, about that time on Friday morning, I turned to Rick and suggested that we run the 4th of July 5K … and ask the girls to run with us. He’s not as mushy as me, but he likes to encourage the girls’ running and he knew how much I wanted to do it, so he agreed that it was a great idea.

Caryn had “other plans.” I think they had something to do with her pillow and blanket…not that I really blame her. But we convinced Gracie to run “with” us and there she was bright eyed and bouncing on our doorstep at 7 am Saturday morning.

My romantic picture of us all crossing the finish line together quickly exited my mind when the race started. I haven’t run more than around the block in a month, so I waved Rick and Grace on. Grace passed Rick somewhere around mile 2 and ended up placing third in her age group. Go Gracie!

(Rick and I finished the race. And we are still walking today. Slowly, but walking nonetheless.)

After the race and breakfast with Grace, I still was having absent mommy guilt and hadn’t had my fill yet, so off we went to the parade. Jack, Susan and Grace were all walking in it. We had to go show our support.

The kids don’t really care if we watch them in the parade. They wouldn’t have noticed us at all if we hadn’t been waving at them wildly and standing up to take pictures. I did get a hug from Susan and a happy smile and wave from Jack. But Gracie had evidently used up her allotted parent patience for the day and pretended like she didn’t see us.

They just don’t miss me quite as much as I miss them. And I’m glad they don’t because it’s a deep aching, almost homesick-like feeling. I start to think of them as babies and toddlers… how cute they are, how sweet they are, what they smell like. I anxiously wait for them to come home.

And tonight, they’re back! Phew!

And… On your mark, get set, GO! Running ten different directions, making schedule for tomorrow: swim team, cheerleading, football camp… dinner, dishes, noise, baths, bedlam! Oh, boy!

It’s been about three hours now and I’m starting to look forward to that aching homesick-like feeling already.