Part of our visit to my parents’ house overlapped with a visit from my grandmother. My grandmother is very religiously-minded and has a very low tolerance for bad language. I like to think I was tame, but my wife pointed out on our drive home that I still managed to drop a few mild bombs (e.g., what the hell, darn) and whenever I did, my grandmother would visibly flinch. Meanwhile, one of these overlapping evenings she was playing cards with my mother and had a moment of frustration with her choices in discards to which she exclaimed some phrase that was clearly not a swear, but carried all the tone of one. I made a comment along the lines of whether it was really not cursing if the inflection was there to which I got no response from her, but my mom nearly burst into snorting laughter.

On the ride home (which was during the day this time), the kids spend good amounts of the time ‘reading’ – by which I mean the got out theyr Tag books and let their Tag readers read the stories to them. They were entertaining themselves and not complaining, so I can’t fault them on it. Well there was a book that Cricket wanted to read that was one of Grasshopper’s and which was only on his Tag reader, so she asked him nicely if he wanted to switch readers. He responds by looking at her and saying “No,” in a tone suggesting it was a stupid question then turns to the back of the reader where his name tag is affixed and drawls out his name as if reading it slowly to her. Being as he is 3 and can barely recognize all of the letters in his own name, I couldn’t help but find the moment hysterical.

Due to coincidental travel, my sister-in-law had left her cat at our house while we were gone (there are clearly a lot of questions as to the logic there, but bear with me). See she lives about 30 minutes away from us and her parents (who live a mile from us) and she doesn’t have any reliable acquaintances near her who could feed and check on the cat at their own home. But she didn’t want to have to burden her in-laws with another cat in their own house, and since my mother-in-law had already been commissioned to water our plants, it seemed to stand to reason that she could feed the cat while she was there. So we came home from our travels to a paranoid cat. It would spend the majority of its time hiding from all of us and only seemed to eat food at night when we were all sleeping. Cricket wanted to take it for a walk … in its carrier. She seemed rather disappointed when we turned her down.

We also managed to fit in a beach trip this weekend (though it still involved visiting family). The kids had a blast – Cricket spent hours getting knocked over by waves while Grasshopper chose to have no truck with the sea and stuck to digging randomly in the sand. I played in both capacities off and on and eventually resigned to relaxing in a beach chair and reading on my new Nook (book and product reviews coming soon). Being that it was a very sunny day, we were vigilant with sunscreen application – the kids got at least 2 extra coats and I reapplied at least 3 or 4 times. Ironically the kids came out of the day with minor rosiness in a few spots and I ended up lobster red from waist to neck. But I was able to drown my pain in boardwalk food, so it is all good.

Now if only I could find time (and money) for a real vacation ….

The swimming was fun and went as would have been expected. Cricket spent as long as possible in the water. Grasshopper spent as little time as possible in the water. Gumba (their grandfather) spent the majority of the swimming time fabricating various tall tales for my daughter to consider. Grammy spent little time in the water and mostly sat either in the shade or on the beach playing with my son. The water was as warm as bath water which made the hardest part of the day getting out of the water – despite the air temperature being in the mid-80′s, leaving the water was a chilling affair. Then we enjoyed some sandwiches and chips while we dried off before changing and heading out to eventually arrive at the movies.

Toy Story 3 was much better than I had anticipated. As usual, it tackled the same types of issues typically addressed in this series – themes of loyalty, pride, betrayal, love, and friendship in the face of adversity all masked behind the role of a toy and its relationship to its owner. In this film the struggle came in the form of Andy growing up and going to college, both he and his toys coming to grips with change and learning when to hold onto the past and when to let go of it. I don’t typically find myself emotionally moved by movies (well, except in the forms of excitement or frustration), but this movie moved me to such levels of empathetic joy that I almost started to feel choked up (almost). Of course constantly keeping my son from swinging from the seat or running down the aisle helped keep me grounded.

So finally, the Nook. As is probably obvious by how many books I’ve been reviewing here (and there are several that I read and opted not to review), I’ve been reading a lot of books lately. So I’d been considering going digital with my hobby for a while now. And to my fortune, my parents had also observed my reading affinity and opted to help me achieve my digital goal. Yesterday they sprung for my Nook as well as a nice travel case for it. By the end of the day I’d already setup my account, bought my first ebook, and went to bed having gotten to chapter 7. Now the only outstanding issue is figuring out what other books to download.

There were other events that occurred after the Nook purchase, but they generally blurred together as I was somewhat distracted. Though among those events was my children camping out in Grammy and Gumba’s yard for the night (my wife volunteered to spend the night with them). It seemed to go well – no middle of the night fallout – but they did troop in early this morning at which point they became my problem so that my wife could get a couple hours of rest in a soft, dry bed. So I put on some cartoons, grabbed my Nook, and settled on the couch for a low-key morning (or at least as low-key a morning as is possible with a 3 and 6 year-old).

So we are packing and cleaning late into the evening on Wednesday when a ‘brilliant idea’ pops into my head. Knowing that the following day of travel would likely be long and arduous due to the combination of other early holiday travelers, various rush hour commuters, and my own children’s shortage of patience for long car rides, it strikes me that we can avoid all of the above by hopping right in the car that night. The loose plan was that we would drive as long as we could stay awake – taking shifts as needed – while the kids slept through the trip down. In the least, we get past the major cities and find a place to crash for a few hours until we can continue south. While my wife was hesitant, the kids were all about getting to their grandparents’ sooner and I was able to sway her.

So by 12:30 AM we are finally packed and ready to go (bad omen #1) and we get started. Grasshopper had already fallen asleep before we left so we just had to move him into his car seat. Cricket was awake still, but fell asleep within the first half hour. After 3 hours and a couple brief stops to refuel, I’m starting to wane. Unfortunately my wife (partially due to me being chatty to start off) hadn’t really gotten enough rest to take us much farther. We made it south of DC which was our main concern, but my wife was hesitant to stop at a hotel that would cost over $100 and I was too tired to Google one that didn’t, so we settled for parking at a rest area near Potomac Mills. My wife was paranoid about the kids developing some weird leg disorder I hadn’t ever heard of, so I had to convert the seats to beds they could lie flat in. We had pillows and blankets and were all set … in theory.

Grasshopper decided he had his second wind and kept trying to talk and play – which I mostly responded to with loud shushing and barks of ‘go to sleep’. After about an hour and a half he finally settled back down. Then an hour later I was awake and couldn’t settle back down (it couldn’t have been the discomfort of sleeping sitting up in a mini-van). After silently arguing with my wife about getting the kids re-situated for the next leg (where she conveniently through a good handful of sharp I-told-you-so’s she’d been saving up since I suggested the night drive), I finally started quietly shifting the kids back into sitting positions to continue the trip. They stirred and grumbled, but were back asleep within a half hour on the road. And we made the rest of the drive with little incident. Around 9 AM we stopped for breakfast and a driver switch, and I got a shallow nap for a good amount of the remaining leg.

After 11 hours we finally made it to our destination. In truth, even if we had left bright and early Thursday morning, it would likely have taken just as long between traffic and stops. So it generally worked out. But most of the ‘extra visit time’ we gained was spent either alternately napping or dealing with meltdowns from cranky, sleep-deprived children. But both of these are easily washed away by a normal night’s sleep for all … I’ll let you know when we get one of those.

This morning I was awoken by such a sound at the surprisingly late hour of 7:30AM.  As I braced myself for the possibilities as I walked down to the second floor, I find my children both sitting on my son’s bed (wearing matching nightshirts – would be cute if not for the mischief that seemed to be brewing between them).  I decide to avoid asking what they are up to in favor of diffusing their plans with the enticement of television and breakfast.  As we walk downstairs – Cricket zooming in front of me, Grasshopper bounding behind me – I suddenly feel a small projectile strike the back of my head and bound over the railing to the floor below.  I turn to my son and calmly but firmly express that we don’t throw things at people, to which he responds with a tone of innocence “but it was only a weapon”.  Clearly the implication of this word has not been fully grasped by his 3 1/5 year-old brain.

To be fair though, even their mischief is innocent at the core of it.  The kids are typically good and mean well.  And all of the growling and pelting by projectiles melts away when I see your son hugging my anxiety-ridden wife and telling her everything will be okay (long story) or when my daughter decides to commission me to help her make Mommy breakfast in bed “just because we love her.”

So yes, those little feet can have many implications – joy as they dart to welcome me home from work, jubilant mischief as they scurry to hide on to jump out and tackle me when I come near, or devilish mayhem as they cross the threshold of a department store.  I’ll take them all, though I wouldn’t mind if my morning alarm clock had some sort of snooze button – occasionally I wouldn’t mind sleeping in.

But now I have kids of my own, and the last thing I want to do is to pass my own food aversions on to them.  So I’ve made a point of exposing them gradually to a variety of foods in these formative years and trying not let my own food preferences influence their own.  I’m currently working on gradually breaking down Cricket’s spice aversion (she is learning that spices aren’t always spicy, and can make foods tastier), and exposing them to some vegetable options my own parent never pushed on us (e.g., brussel sprouts).  I also recently fooled her (and myself) into eating mushrooms by finely chopping some and replacing a 3rd of the meat in a lasagna with them (I also added a good amount of spinach – it was quite good and I didn’t tell her until after she was finishing a second helping).

Grasshopper is a bit of a different nut t o crack, though.  He will actually eat a number of veggies without a problem.  And whereas Cricket I need to force to drink milk every day, Grasshopper will chug it day and night.  But he is not a big fan of meat.  This is not truly a bad thing – there is nothing wrong with a diet of mostly produce as long as the proteins get in there somewhere.  He is only 3, so I figure it is a phase he will eventually (at least partially) outgrow.  I can now add another non-meat protein source to the list of things he likes, though.  My mom came to visit for the weekend, and due to her own digestive health she came with groceries.  Upon departure, we were left with two cartons of Silk soy milk (one chocolate, one vanilla).  I’m not really a fan and neither is my wife, but I’d hate to just toss it.  So as an experiment, I gave some to Grasshopper the next time he asked for ‘choca-milk’ – he guzzled it down as if it were no different.  And both last night and this morning, he asked for a cup of ‘soil milk’.

I’m sure my kids will develop their own tastes and food aversions – we all have them (I know I still do).  I’ll continue to fight the important food fights (e.g., wanting a treat every time the ice cream man drives down the street).  But luckily so far neither of them are too finicky (at least not as finicky as I was).