Staying at your parents’ house as an adult is a weird thing, isn’t it? Some things you see with fresh eyes, and other times you revert back to an awkward preteen.  I’ve noticed some habits working both for and against me this week.

On the positive side, it would seem that 4+ months of regular exercise is actually becoming an ingrained habit.  Oh sure, part of it is that I’m only about three pounds away from my first weight-related goal, and I don’t want to get completely sidetracked while I’m here.  But really, when have I ever brought an exercise DVD with me to (either of) my parents’ house(s)?  When have I ever used the treadmill they have in their basements?  That would be a big, fat never.

And yet, here I am.  I have done the Shred. I have progressed to Week 3 of the Couch-to-5K program (yes, I’m trying to run… more on that later).  I have exercised more days than not.  And I’m glad.

I’m particularly glad, because the flipside is that old eating habits die really hard.  I’ve been reasonably good with my eating these last few months (hence the 3-pounds-from-first-goal thing). But much of my success has come from controlling what foods I have access to. I haven’t purchased a pint of ice cream since the summer. I have baked shockingly few cookies (by my standards). I don’t keep crap in the house, so I can’t eat it.  I have a pretty limited menu, but it works for me.

And then I get here. Without even thinking, I walk into my dad’s kitchen and open the doors to the pantry to peruse the junk food. Cookies. Chips. All variety of things that I don’t ever buy, but find almost impossible to resist when they’re right there in my face. No control over what is served at big family dinners. Dad buys a dozen bagels (from my favorite bagel shop) for breakfast.  Ugh.

I’ve tried to keep some of my go-to items on hand, and have tried to stick to my 8PM rule.  But, clearly, four well-behaved months have not cured me of 30 years of bad eating habits.

But still, I will try to keep fighting the good fight, and not beat myself up too much for what happens here, away from home.  Just a few more days, and I’ll be back in my own space.  In the meantime, pass the cookies…

Oh, the fun things you get to do.

Play an improvised game of ping pong ON TOP of the ping pong table.

Have smoothies for breakfast on the kitchen floor with grandma.

Dig in to extra baby shower cake with grandpa.

Visit an aquarium way cooler than our own.

Hang out with seldom-seen (or never-before-seen) family.

And wear goggles at any time of day or night.

Well.

The food was good.  Really good, if I do say so myself.  And judging by the very reasonable amount of leftovers in the fridge, I finally seem to have hit a sweet spot on quantity.  I started cooking early in the day (with some assistance), and cooked on and off until the final push to finish everything at about 5.  Really not bad.

My dad and stepmom were in town, and I almost felt bad that there was so little I needed by way of food prep assistance.  But hey, they were there to take the kids out for a walk while they were going stir-crazy before lunch, so that in itself is a big help.  And, really, they were just there to see the grandkids.  And see them, they did.  Daniel, especially, seems to just love the extra attention and was on full funny/cute overload.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the rest of the day (or week) was such a great success.  It was cold and rainy, so no outdoor activities.  Rebecca has been miserable and sick and over-tired the whole week (today marked 4 straight days of wailing and flailing with a side of fever and runny nose).  Unpleasant, at best.  She is a pretty demanding child when sick (I will admit she may have gotten that from me), but she feels so rotten that she has no idea what she wants.

“I want oatmeal!
NO OATMEAL!
I want TV.
NOOOO Sesame Street!
I want to sit on the chair.
NOOOOOOOOOO!  NO CHAIR NO CHAIR!
Waaaaaaahhhhhhhh……

I feeling sad right now.”

It’s exhausting.

The kids briefly sat with us for dinner, though there was a lot of demanding to get down, and a lot of “I don’t yike it” when suggestions were made to try anything but the cranberries.  Rebecca had yogurt for dinner. Daniel eventually discovered a love for Pumpkin Bread Pudding and, while devouring his serving and that of the person next to him, exhibited a focus I’d never previously seen.  He is my child, after all.

At any rate, Dad and Stepmom are headed home in the morning, and I can only hope Rebecca gets over this virus and doesn’t pass it along to her brother (a girl can dream).  It’s been, quite frankly, a nightmare. Especially since I feel pretty confident that there is nothing to be done but wait for it to run its course.

Alas.  At least the food was good.

This weekend, M and I had the very rare treat of taking a weekend to ourselves.  Oh, the freedom!

My mom and stepdad arrived on Thursday for a visit and to stay with the kids.  Thanks to impressive recall and liberal use of Skype, the kids had almost zero adjustment time when they got up from nap to see Grandma Annie and Brucie.

And then, Friday morning, M and I hopped in the car and away we went! Wahoo!  The wedding was on Long Island, so we drove through Connecticut with the requisite stop at Rein’s Deli.  Yes, the weekend completely trashed my weight loss for the week, but that Corned Beef Rachael was worth it.  Foliage was a bit past-peak, but made for a lovely drive.

The wedding itself was lovely.  Small, not too formal, and tons of incredibly good food.  Including a tower of cupcakes and an ice cream sundae bar instead of a regular wedding cake. (Again with the weight loss sabotage.)

Reports from my mom were universally positive.  She took them up to her sister’s house on the north shore, and the kids got to play with my cousins, throw rocks into the ocean, and generally have the undivided attention of about seven people.  No complaints or upset to speak of, they handled the new-ish people and a sleepover at my aunt’s house with no problems at all.  I did not attempt to talk to them on the phone.  At this age, I think it was just as well, as a phone conversation would have had minimal benefit and potentially unpleasant fallout.  And while the adults were generally too busy to take pictures, I did get a funny video courtesy of my aunt’s phone.

We came home late Sunday afternoon, and I braced myself for the meltdown.  We all know how it goes with toddlers.  They can be on their very best behavior with other people (seriously, my mom and aunt and stepdad couldn’t stop with the glowing compliments), but as soon as mommy returns, they lose their minds.  Clingy, acting out, all of the stuff they were holding in while you were away.

Or, you know, not.

They’ve been great. They didn’t turn on my mom the way they did on my mother-in-law last June (once we returned from our weekend in Maine, Rebecca refused to talk to her grandmother for the rest of the trip).  They were not in total meltdown mode for the rest of the night, or even the next day.  They’ve been totally within the normal range of their day-to-day behavior.

Anybody else want to get married?  We’ll be there. Without the kids.

So, yes, we were in Florida again this past weekend. I’m not even sure anymore how many trips we’ve taken with the kids. My best guess is that it’s about 13. Which works out to a round-trip plane flight every two months of their lives. It’s pretty crazy, but the upside is that they’re generally good travelers and we’ve got the process down pretty well.

Anyways, this trip was to visit M’s family, both because it was Rosh Hashanah and because his grandmother is not well and could use the pick-me-up of some great-grandchild visits.  There were some late bedtimes, some disrupted sleep, a fair amount of crankiness, and a broken air conditioner.  But there was also a lot of pool time, the kids’ first matzo ball soup and challah, and a truly impressive stint at an Italian restaurant where the kids were cooperative and well-behaved for over an hour and a half and Daniel ate a ton of ravioli.  All in all, not a bad trip.

I’m here, I’m home.

Been home for days, actually.  And yet, have written nothing.

I’m in that slightly crazed, disorganized post-vacation mode. Getting back into the swing of things, shopping for groceries, doing laundry. You know, boring stuff that needs to be done before you can feel settled again.

Except, I’m feeling very un-settled.  For one thing, my house is making me crazy.  Maybe it was two weeks with my parents, who not only have larger houses than I do, but also keep them a hell of a lot cleaner. Happy as I was to be home, I walked in my door and felt claustrophobic.  Smaller space, yes, but oh my god the clutter! So much crap! You know how you live with something long enough that you just stop seeing it?  Well, I was away for long enough that I see it again.  With a big, glaring spotlight on it.

The trouble is this: when do I deal with it?  Most of my waking hours are with the kids, who are not exactly helpful when it comes to purging a house of all of its excess crap. Indeed, they seem to be magnets for the stuff.  That leaves me with the 2-ish hours that they nap, and the 3-ish hours between when they go to bed and when I do.

That should be plenty of time, of course, but I end up doing other things. Eating lunch, taking a shower, lots of sewing, blog reading, and hiding in my bedroom with it’s blessed air conditioning window unit (holy crap, summer has finally arrived).  Alas.  Sometimes I wish I could either send the kids away for a day or two in order to get things done, or pay one of those people who make it their profession to throw out other people’s shit.

This all feels even more pressing to me than before, I think because in my own head I would like to imagine that we’ll be trying to sell our house sometime in the next year or so.  I have no practical reason to believe that’s true, but it’s in my head, so there you have it.  And it most certainly could not go on the market in its current state.

More tomorrow on other stuff that’s bugging me (I know, aren’t you excited!), but in the meantime, a few of my favorite pictures from our trip.

We’re back from the lake, with a few more days in my hometown before we fly home to Boston.  The lake was great in a lot of ways. Until yesterday.

Becca is a dog lover, and was in dog heaven up at the lake.  There were three or four dogs there at all times, and she hugged them all.  My mom’s dog, in particular, is a long-time favorite whom she always asks to see when we call Grandma on Skype.  They were back to being BFFs.

Then, I’m not sure what happened. Maybe she wiggled the wrong way, but this 120+ pound dog barked like he was in a dog fight and bit my daughter on the face.

To jump to the “end” of the story, she’s OK.

But, not surprisingly, she was hysterical. I was hysterical. My child was bit by a dog, how could I not be beside myself?

My mom said almost nothing.

A minute or so later, she did bring the dog into another room. But there was no consequence. No reaction to the dog’s behavior.  Yes, I know that dogs are animals and you always have to be careful. And yes, I know my mom is really into her positive training methods.  But are you kidding me? Nothing?  As you might imagine, I’m livid. I barely spoke to my mom the rest of the day, and not much at all today before we left.

She did make a concerted effort to keep the dog away from the kids for the rest of our time there. And I know she was upset and felt badly. And I know she’s under a lot of other stress at the moment. But I’m pretty darn furious.  And I get even more mad every time I look at my sweet girl and the red cut on her ear.

Or when I looked over at the carseat on the drive home today and saw that deceptively deep bruise in the middle of her cheek.

Thankfully, she’s just fine. It could have been much, much worse. It doesn’t seem to be bothering her in terms of pain. And much to my relief, she did not display any fear around any of the dogs after it happened, even wanting to give more hugs to the offender himself.  The last thing I want is for my little animal-lover to be afraid of dogs.

But, yeah. This mama bear is pretty damn pissed right now.

You guys know I talk a big game about getting out and about with the kiddos on my own. And I really do walk the walk.  I’ll go most anywhere with them by myself.  Out to lunch, to the mall, to the playground, to gymnastics or music or whatever.  But one notable exception, for the time being, is the aquarium.

We have a membership, which totally pays for itself by maybe the third visit, and the kids love it.  But it’s not a short drive, parking is expensive, and it’s dark and frequently crowded.  The kids want to be up and walking and checking things out, but of course have no interest in checking out the same thing at the same time. Maybe in another year I’ll try it as a solo outing, but for now, it’s generally saved for a special treat when we have visitors in town.

And visitors, indeed, we had!  My cousin and her family were in town for some kind of conference.  While she was in her workshops, I met her husband and their four kids at the aquarium.  And it was one of our best outings yet.

Not only are they (my first-cousins-once-removed, if you want to be technical about it) really just nice people, they’re also the perfect ages.  Ranging from about 8 to 14, they’re old enough to be quite self-sufficient, but young enough that my kids found them both fascinating and accessible.  Rebecca, who can often be pretty reserved with new people, was holding hands and walking off with the oldest cousin within about two minutes.  Daniel was fascinated with all of them and kept talking about them long after we left.

This made me happy on so very many levels.  For one, my cousins were sweet and helpful and generally made my life a whole lot easier by happily tending to my kids.  The older kids thought my toddlers were cute, and my kids loved the big-kid attention.  I also was so happy to see how quickly my kids made friends with their (second) cousins, as I’d like to think it bodes well for the family reunion that’s coming up in less than two weeks.  The number of people in attendance will be way more than four (think 65+), but it gives me hope that they’ll really have fun.  And, of course, all of this just made me feel even more like I want to move back to Chicago. I would really love it if my kids were able to spend more time with my (huge) family and get to know them better.  Having grown up with huge gatherings, I know how much fun it is and I would love for my kids to have that.

I was going to write a kind of sad, cranky post about how I had an underwhelming Fourth of July and how it got me feeling incredibly homesick and determined to move back to Chicago sometime in the next few years. And, well, I sort of did and you can read it over at How Do You Do It? (notice the new URL!).

I was still cranky Sunday morning and into the early afternoon, despite a sunny day and a visit from Aunt R on a rare day off from the hospital. Still feeling disappointment. Nostalgia. And still emotionally and physically exhausted from our month of rain. And then, something crazy happened.

At nearly 5PM, we started talking about what to do for dinner. M knew exactly what he wanted: a roadside stand-type restaurant with fried seafood, burgers, and ice cream. Something on the ocean. He had a very clear picture in his mind of where he wanted to go. So we decided to pile into the van and try to find it.

We headed east, toward the coast. I suggested we head toward my aunt’s house in Marblehead (the one person on my side of the family who doesn’t live in the Chicago area). She lives near the water and I had vague recollections of passing restaurants and shacks on the ocean on the way to her house. We gave her a call and said we were heading her way. She said her husband and son were at the beach at the end of their street, that it was low tide, and a perfect time to come by. Off we went.

We put our feet in the sand, though the kids weren’t thrilled about the cold waves on their feet. But the sun was warm, the ocean was calm. It was awesome.

And to top it all off, my aunt pointed us toward the exact beachside shack M had seen in his mind’s eye. Fried seafood. Burgers. Onion Rings. Ice Cream. And some raspberry lime rickeys that Rebecca couldn’t get enough of.

By the time we climbed back into the car to head home, it was an almost unheard-of 7:45pm. Normally lights-out time for the toddler set in this household. But you know what? Everyone was happy. They talked and sang songs and played peekaboo the entire way home.

Got home and kids took a quick bath and were in bed shortly before 9PM, no too-late meltdowns.

It was a good day.

That’s the rule of a good party, right?  It should end while people are still having a good time, leave them happily wishing there were more.  I think it might be the rule for visitors, too.

I have often quietly bemoaned the brevity of my parents’ visits.  My dad usually comes for a 3-day weekend. Maybe my mom will stay 4 or 5 days, but at least one or two of those are spent with her sister in another town, not with me.  That always seemed so pitifully short, when they only see the kiddos (not to mention me) a few times a year.

Now, I think maybe that’s the way to go.

My in-laws were in town for a week and a half, and they spent a large portion of nearly every day here at my house (they stayed at a nearby hotel, not enough beds in my house for everyone).  That’s a lot of time to have other people in your space.  Especially when they aren’t my parents.  You guys know how it is. Even with the very best of in-laws, it’s still… a thing.

There were some additional stressors during this trip, the details of which are unimportant to this story except to know that no one was completely relaxed or at ease.  And as wonderful as it was to have our weekend away, and as well as the kids did while we were gone (quite well, indeed), we may have suffered some repercussions.  Specifically, Rebecca developed a bit of an aversion to my mother-in-law, I’m certain because she now associates her with me and M going away.  Understandable behavior for a toddler, but still unfortunate and somewhat hurtful to my mother-in-law.

Anyways, away they flew home this morning. I’m glad they got to come and visit the kids, I’m glad the kids got to play with them.

And I’m glad that I get to go back to being alone most of the day with two toddlers. What does that say about this past week?