Alex having a good time on a bench. Please note the lovely Blue Ridge, or possibly Shenandoah Mountains behind him. Yes. I should know which they are. And no. I don't know. Its been two weeks. We are still recovering from our vacation. We went on vacation. Yes! Like away. Somewhere else, other than here! We loaded up 2 small boys, one medium sized dog, and about 500 random bags of stuff, plus a stroller and the poorly named "pack n' play" (this, for the uninitiated is an allegedly PORTABLE crib- which weighs approximately 200 lbs, is about as portable as an elephant and packs up just as easily. It was obviously someone's idea as a joke. I am guessing the manufacturer of said device are people clearly do not have children themselves, or have ever actually used the products they sell- fortunately the Pack N'Play was a gift, so while I may sound bitter, I am not really complaining. No. Really.)
I'm not sure why were thought it was a good idea to take a vacation other than we have not really had one in a long time. And, we reasoned, we know lots of people with small children,
younger than our own who go on vacations all the time! We figured it could be done. HAHAHAHAHA. We now assume these so called "friends" have not been telling everything.
We drove to our nice little cabin in the woods, outside of Crozet, VA (which is outside of Charlottesville VA- home of Univeristy of Virginia) It was a tiny two bedroom cabin with a tiny kitchen, living area and a bathroom. Here are some highlights of the grand event:
- Sitting in the bathroom and realizing if I bent my head over and stretched out my legs I could pretty much take a shower!
- Realizing that my hair looks exactly the same whether I wash it at night and go to bed with it wet, as it does if I wash it in the morning and let it dry, unsmooshed on a pillow. Not sure this is good or bad, but it is certainly convenient.
- A slamming screen door.
- Watching Alexander realize he could open the slamming screen door and leave. Watching Alexander leave the cabin, through the screen door; nothing but his little butt sashaying out, waving as if to say, "see ya!".
- Having a little trail to walk down to get to the pond and every morning, going to the lake, with Ian in his PJs so we could throw rocks into the water, look at little fishes and check out the flowers that opened only in the morning on the lilly pads.
- Ian, pointing out every single time we walked down the trail that there were tree roots and he was gonna stand on them.
- Getting our life jackets on, getting Ian in the canoe, pushing it into the water, climbing aboard to only have Ian, start to scream, "I WANNAGETOOOOOUT".
- being in the middle of the lake, in a canoe with Ian screaming, "IWANNNAAAGEEETOOOOOOOOOOUT"
- Ian, dropping trou at the canoe spot, right there, by the road, to pee. Mommy advising that peeing downhill was better than peeing uphill (that way it won't run back on to/in to your shoes. This is good advice that my parents never shared with me and I had to learn the hard way).
- Nobody taking their much needed afternoon naps (this does not include the parents, who never get to take an afternoon nap)
- Ian racing out of cabin, running to the bottom step of the porch, dropping trou, thrusting out hips and peeing with great abandon. Hey! why use a bathroom when you have mothernature?
- The Great Meltdown day, where after three days of NO AFTERNOON NAPS, small children spend the time, roughly between 3-6:30pm whining and CRYING OVER EVERY LAST LITTLE THING; also screaming and gnashing of teeth (mostly us, gnashing our teeth).
- Woody, really really really really really really wishing we had just left him at a kennel.
- Driving to Charlottesville (about a 1/2 hour) to a camera store to figure out WHY our
camera was not working. Having the young fellow at the store figure it out and not charge us; also watching a train, while we sat in the car in the parking lot waiting for Andy, go by. It was approx. 500 million degrees out that day.
- Then sitting in another hot parking lot at some random vet's office, while Andy went in to buy flea/tick and heartworm medicine , because we left Woody's at home and he was due for his dose and we were in the woods SURROUNDED by fleas and ticks. This took approx. 100 hours because the lady insisted on signing Woody up as a new patient and she was really really nice as everyone in Central VA is, but slow as molasses and OHMYGOD JUST SELL US THE
MEDICATION NOW!!!! Seriously. We promise not to snort it.
- Putting boys to bed at 6:30pm, cracking a few brewskis, and listening to them laughing hysterically and thumping for 45 minutes until silence fell (we have no idea what the thumping was, we did not want to know).
- Speaking of silence... During the day, we would hear the usual sounds of nature. Cicadas droning lazily in the trees; the occassional dog barking; the lowing of cows from an adjacent farm. But, it is a myth that nature is full of silence. At night a gazillion chirping, croaking, droning insects/varmits were partying outside our cabin. As if someone took a recording of every insect that makes a noise, placed the amplifier outside, cranked it to "11"** and let it rip. Holy cow. Glad we had a bathroom inside.
- Learning the hard way that one really must shake out their running clothes and shoes or towels, if one left them hanging over the porch rail outside over night to ensure all SPIDERS were no longer hiding in them.
- Running on some butt kicking hills, in the cool of the morning, in the middle of nowhere (and flushing out the deer) on dirt roads!
- The Great Illness. Contracting malaria/dengue fever/unknown parasitic disease that caused headache, chills, sweats, and body aches. It lasted two days and someone needed to just shoot me, but we were on vacation dammit and we were gonna have a good time no matter what and Maria get up off the floor what ARE you doing?
Ian sitting in a race car at Ruby's house (Ruby was the lovely lady who cleaned cabins and helped out the owners of the place where we stayed)
- Sleeping on a bed that was so incredibly uncomfortable (only on one side, mine, I discovered, when the last night I slept on the other side and said, THIS IS NOT FAIR) that I did not get one decent night sleep the whole time, my back and shoulder hurt and of course I contracted malaria/dengue fever as well.
- Having to give both boys baths, in the shower because there was no tub. Alex was fine for the most part, but omigod, you would have thought Ian was being beaten with a stick. He hates the shower. We kept waiting for the county sheriff to arrive to see what the problem was.
- Realizing by day four that EVERYONE in EVERY cabin could probably hear the screaming and crying coming from our cabin because it was: shower time, Alex was looking in the general direction of Ian's trains (this usually sets off much moaning and hysteria), or no one napped and this is what happens when no one naps. We are certain the pleasant couple in the A-frame near us were never going to have children and it was all thanks to us.
- Wishing at times that WE were the couple in the A-frame nearby, with no children and a large cooler of beer.
- Discovering on the very last day the Children's Discovery Museam in downtown Charlottesville. It was a totally hands on place, with stuff to play with and run around and it was air conditioned and like heaven for parents. If only they had a babysitting service (or as Andy said, a bar) it would have been PERFECT. (the nice volunteer, with no sense of humor, said of couse they do not have babysitting [um, hello! I was JOKING] because this is a MUSEUM. Note to volunteer: This ain't NO museum woman. Museums are full of interesting historical items. This had a Thomas the Tank Engine tracks, building blocks, a realy cool thing that involved balls, lifts and tubes, and other things, but it was NOT a museum regardless of the title) We loved this place. It even had a room just for people Alex's age. We all loved this place. Except Woody.
- Getting my revenge when Andy fell sick on the drive home and spent the next two days with chills, sweat, and body aches HA! REVENGE IS MINE. Of course he got to be sick at home AND I ended up unpacking everything myself. He sux.
If I ever get around to it I will post more pictures on Flickr, but don't hold your breath, all these time saving websites take a really really long time to set up.
Thus endeth the vacation. Now I am totally out of vacation time and boy, could I REALLY use a vacation :-)
