Homecoming

Well, we made it. 10 days in the sweltering/freezing mecca of nothing that is Forestville on the Russian River. When we first arrived, as you could tell by my post, the house seemed like a disaster. I always amazes me how photographers know how to make a place look huge and then you get there and it's a box. I was horrified to find a tiny living room, dirty floors, dark bedrooms and so on. But the house grew on me after a bit. It turned out to work out ok in terms of layout. Childproofing was a bit hard but we figured things out and we settled in. The kids really didn't even act funny the first night or day like it was strange we were in a new place. I was shocked, but I guess we tired them out at the pediatrician that morning so they went to sleep and slept well. The best a mom can hope for the first night at a new place.

I am wondering how to make this blog funny. So far, just ho hum.

I think I'll have to be funny starting tomorrow when I start relating anecdotes of our trip. Suffice it to say, plenty of funny things happened and some unpleasant ones too, but not many. I learned that I can survive days upon end without a nanny, although I had a lot of help obviously. I bonded better with the kids, although I may have been witnessing the beginning of separation anxiety as J spent 70% of his time in my lap and whimpered at the door to the kitchen when I was in there. We had some major behavior issues with B who has become quite defiant, but let's cross our fingers that its a phase. A is definitely hyper active and literally can not sit still if she's not sleeping. God help us all.

I've been struggling with coming back here and going back to the routine of letting someone else have the 'fun' part of the day with the kids most days. I mean we go out and do things in the morning with the kids, not much in the afternoon. The other option is to start doing things in the afternoon but if they nap well there's only an hour and a half before dinner really. What can we do in that amount of time? And I get so slow having run errands myself all morning, its hard to do something with all three kids in the afternoon. On vacation we did stuff in the mornings and let the kids play on the deck in the water table or pool in the afternoons. I sat and recovered from the morning. I then had energy to cook actual meals in the evenings. If I run all day? Not a chance I'll make it. So then I'd have to take the whole day with the kids in order to do the fun stuff with them. But I can't really do it alone. Going to the zoo with three mobile kids sounds like ultimate stupidity. And I can't see myself making the nannies take me with them since they'd probably rather hang out with their other nanny friends.

I don't know. I am only going to get more pregnant and less able as time goes on. Another thought I had was taking one kid at a time some mornings of the week for one on one time. I am not sure if they would miss each other or not. Perhaps they prefer each other to me? You just never know.

So, I return with much to reconsider and think about. But it was lovely to put the kids to bed and then have a great deck with a view to sit on and watch nature. As long as you were willing to ignore the trucks and semis and motorcycles with no mufflers that were constantly filling the quiet air with their noise pollution. We won't come back to this place but we will find a place nearby and without traffic noise to return to. All in all, a successful trip!