eternally chaotic

Today we left for our family vacation at the beach. We had plans to be in bed early and on the road by four so that we could get the kids out of bed, still sleeping, drive most of the early morning and arrive around lunch with an afternoon of swimming to look forward to. But after finally getting into bed somewhere near three-thirty four didn’t sound so appealing. We did eventually get on the road but not until after nine. Not too far down the road, right before pulling onto the expressway, Carol was curious if I shut the garage door. Of course I did…right? We had to go back into the house several times for this or that prior to leaving and neither of us could remember if we shut the door the final time. We called in a favor and the thought paid off – sure enough I had left the door wide open to the world.

One the road the kids had plenty to keep them busy. We packed books, games, movies, music, and thanks to the modern marvels that go into today’s vehicles, the GameCube. (I remember playing the license plate game, the alphabet game, sitting in the floor board while coloring or playing in the seat) The ride itself went pretty smooth, note that a good ride over such a long distance with four kids of very different age groups, is a good ride for everyone, and somewhat hard to come by…. There was one moment though that brought both of us near tears with laughter. We were listening to the kids tell us which of the characters from whatever movie they were watching that they “wanted to be” and we heard from the back seat, innocently, “Mom…Can we go to the Lion’s Den?” I guess Isaac had been not only watching the movie but also checking out the billboards. I guess the name works but I think it is off a bit for their target market We were able to get away not only without a visit but without even a response and the topic thankfully never came back up.

We neared our destination at the beach and the kids switched gears from mellow, hanging out, watching movies, reading books, generally having a good time to beach crazed, high energy, children of the corn. The switch happened just as we crossed the top of the bridge leading from the mainland to the sound and didn’t stop until we pulled in. We quickly unpacked the van and headed to the room. It was getting late and we had plans to hit the pool and burn off any remaining energy so that each of the kids would not only sleep but would pass out in exhausted mushy piles of sleeping munchkins.

We made it to the pool just before dark and swam for a while. Piper put on her big girl shorts and went down a quick, high speed water slide into the deep end. I jumped in to grab her in case she went under and started to panic but was surprised after she hit the water, went under briefly and came up no worse for wear – she wanted to do it again but said that her hand hit one of the rocks around the slide and she was scared it would happen again. Isaac was all over the pool – up the slide – down the slide – on the rocks – swimming side to side – chasing Piper and Jacob around – and doing cannon balls. Jacob played on the slide as well but wanted more than anything to hold Piper’s hand and escort her, The Princess, around the pool.

Bed time came pretty quick after showers for the lot and a late night snack of muffins and milk. Isaac crashed first in the chair and once the beds were set up the rest of them not far behind. They all had long days and after a good swim and full belly, not to mention it was midnight, it wasn’t long before they were all crashed hard.

Day One Complete.