Crap

Sometimes I feel like I'm living my life zooming by fifty miles an hour but not actually getting anywhere. I came home with the kids last Saturday and was promptly tossed into the spin cycle. First, because I had to unpack, do laundry, and then repack Jack for a field trip his fifth grade class was taking to Washington D.C for a week. (The fun never ends for him.) We sent him off Sunday night on a sleepover with a couple of his travel buddies. (Mainly because I had no intention of getting up at three in the morning to get him to the airport for a six AM flight and mostly because my girlfriend sacrificed her beauty sleep to take him along with several other kids.) "Buh bye, please brush your teeth and behave," were my parting words. EM's were "I love you and have fun." What's wrong with me? I couldn't step out of my vortex for a minute to take in the picture of my ten year old going off on an adventure of a lifetime with the rest of his class. Ugh.

Then Monday morning came around, I woke up and decided that this was the day that I would no longer put up with pull-ups. The day that I decided to throw myself into potty training Makena.


Yeah, I know, I'm a little slow on the draw.

Her preschool had offered to start the process next week but my ego got in the way. Fast forward to day five... and a whole lot of crap. I am on a half hour "take her to the bathroom" vigil which has been somewhat successful but she isn't really showing signs of telling me when she needs to go. My method works most of the time unless someone calls me and I miss my deadline. It is exhausting and my intention is to win this battle but Makena is posing to be quite a challenge. I'm not sure that she was as emotionally ready for this transition as I was led to believe, because she has become very clingy and whiny in the process and now I am feeling guilty about it all. (While I was writing this, Makena peed all over Jack's carpet.) But alas there is no going back. The train has left the station. I am left to hope that it makes it to its final destination.

Add to this, Jerry (the cat) who came back angry from being fixed and then boarded for ten days. How else can I explain the nice dump he took on Makena's bed (within a foot of her head). I came in to check on her last night and I was assaulted by a very distinguishable smell. The room was dark and I was fumbling around trying to find it (and not step in it) on the carpet and almost landed in it when I sat down on the bed. Yes, it was disgusting. On a positive note, Oxyclean works wonders on stains.


Then, one of our five rabbits (who I was told was female) impregnated three of them. I am overrun with baby rabbits (after Easter) and looking to place eleven of them of varying ages. This is precisely the type of thing that happens when I leave town for more than a week. I'm thinking of going into the manure and rabbit business. It will be a philanthropic venture. So if any of you are interested, please present yourselves RIGHT NOW. They are free. They are cute. They are cuddly. Take two and you can name them Mak and Jack. But most importantly, they are free!

In the meantime, poor Pedro called in sick so I have to go muck the horses. I actually look forward to this shitty job because it's the only real alone time I have around here. Nobody bugs me when I am cleaning up after them. Shoveling it tones my arms and I get to wear the cool goldfish boots that auntie gave me for Christmas.


I feel like I am an infomercial. You know the kind where they offer you something like a set of sponges for $19.99 (plus shipping and handling) and then they throw in the kitchen sink and dish towels. Only this one is hawking something scatological.

Please, someone tell me when this pooping madness will end.

Isabelle, Mistress of the flies

AKA

Is-a-taking orders for bunnies

Dumb O

Yes, it takes a special kind of mother to take her children to Disney World during spring break (see subsequent posts). The happiest place on earth was more populated than downtown Chongqing. Obviously not recommended for agoraphobes or parents who might worry about losing their kids in such as large crowd (which may or may not have happened to me when I was purchasing ice cream for Makena and realized that she was nowhere in sight.)

While we waited to connect with our friends Barbara and Mia, we had the pleasure of waiting thirty minutes in line for a twenty second Dumbo flight. Jack was a good (slightly disgruntled) sport about having to go on the baby rides but I offered him twenty bucks to change his attitude and he accepted (savvy business man that he is.)


Makena was completely enthralled with her elephant ride and had (the first of several) meltdowns when I told that she couldn't ride it again.


Our little Cinderella posed in front of her evil step-sisters. She wasn't too comfortable with these strange creatures and I pulled her out of the setting before she drop-kicked them.


I saved a bunch of money by convincing Makena that the Ariel nightie was just as beautiful as the Ariel princess gown and she happily wore it for the rest of our never-ending time at Disney World.

Isabelle

Mia

Seriously, the moment Mia and Makena hooked up (having not seen each other in a year and a half), trying to get them to stand or sit still for a picture was like wrangling cats. The girls are pictured here within seconds of seeing each other again.


Furthermore, Jack could do no wrong with Mia. She was completely charmed by him and stuck to him the entire day we spent together at ... Er...Disney World. The "note to self" I wrote myself got lost in all the moving around. That, combined with my low IQ and short term memory, had me schlepping the kids there to spend quality insane time with them. Mia was tall enough to ride some of the more serious roller coasters (2 inches taller than Makena) and enjoyed every second she was on them. She was a total daredevil. Interestingly, as the day progressed, Makena became more proprietary of Jack, at one point telling Mia, "Jack is MY brother!"


Barbara (Mia's mom) and I must have taken about twenty shots between us trying to get the girls to look in the same direction at the same time with a smile (or even a fake one) on their faces. I gave up.


Sugar kept us going all day (as in, we walked through the gates at 10AM and walked out at 11PM). The party continued at Barbara's hotel, where we crashed, because I (aka mother of the year,) messed up the reservation for this trip and short-changed myself one night's accommodation. Thank goodness for sleeper-couches. The girls were ecstatic to have another few hours to spend together the following morning before we headed off to the airport and home to Southern California.

Of course, it wasn't until I arrived at the airport that I realized that I was wearing the same pair of jeans that I had ripped on the way over -- which embarrassed Jack all over again. Other than that, it was a smooth and tanned getaway.

Is- in need of sugar detox

Valerie

After the day we had yesterday, Wanda (Valerie's mom) put us out of our misery by inviting us over for a play date in lieu of going to Sea World (see note to self in prior post).
The girls hadn't seen each other since last we traveled through here on our way to the Bahamas in 2007 so it was great to see how much they had grown. Valerie is tall and completely bilingual (English and Spanish) and has three older brothers (Jonathan, Brandon and Diego) who Jack loves to play with. And she loves doughnuts as much as Makena. They have sooo much in common.
We had a delicious lunch at a local Chinese restaurant.
More doughnuts and soda may or may not have been consumed.
And at the insistence of the boys, we headed back to the house so that they could resume their nerf gun shoot-out battles.

We said goodbye after an eight hour playfest. Makena fell asleep on the way home which gave me some quality hang-time with Jack.

Thank you, Wanda, for a wonderful and relaxing visit. The kids had a blast.

Is- catching my breath.

Note to self

How to undo a relaxing vacation:

Say goodbye to the Keys and drop your husband off at the airport curb so that he can catch his flight home while you travel on to Orlando to visit China cousins.

Promptly get lost for forty minutes trying to return rental car and almost miss flight.

Arrive winded at the gate for flight as it is boarding.

Sit on plane for additional hour (feeding kids placating candy) while they investigate an oil leak.

Listen as you are told that your flight is canceled and they will tell you when a new one will materialize.

Grab carry-on, wait for gate-checked (now damaged) stroller and head back to departure area.

Two hours later, board new flight with cranky, over-sweetened children.

Wait for an hour for rental car.

Wait for half an hour for car seat to materialize.

Get lost (following GPS directions) on the way to finding hotel.

Get call from husband letting me know that he landed safely in Los Angeles in the time it took me to grab an hour flight to Orlando.

Check in to hotel and put everyone to bed in their travel clothes.

Lights out at midnight.
Additional note to self:

Do not travel to Orlando during spring break.


Is- still standing... but barely

The Keys to happiness

We sprung Jack from school two days early and traveled to the Keys for spring break. As we headed to the airport around nine to catch a red-eye to Miami, I panicked because Makena was wide awake. She walked through security, pranced around the departures gate, asked to watch Mulan for the seventeenth time and showed no signs of slowing down. The flight from L.A. to Miami is 5.5 hours so I needed every second of that air time to sleep. After we landed, we would have another two hour drive to Duck Key, where we were staying. Things were not looking good.

Neither was my derriere because as I leaned down to pick something up, I heard a ripping sound that took my breath away. My jeans tore. There was no way to keep the incident private because Jack decided to announce it loudly to anyone within ear shot and then promptly declared how embarrassed he was that my buttock (one cheek) might be revealed.

EM came to my rescue and declared the rip to be "sexy." Thankfully, It was a horizontal tear and, no, I didn't have a change of clothes for myself. I boarded the plane with my head held high, walking with very short strides and with visions of the perfect Mojito awaiting me at the end of the line.

Makena (there is a god) fell asleep upon takeoff and I managed to get some uninterrupted shut-eye all the way to Miami. The rip was revisited when I had to disembark so I did what I always do in situations such as these and I told myself that I didn't know any of the travelers around me and that I would never see them again.
We swam with the dolphins.
The kids spent entire days in the pool.
Makena was little Miss Sunshine...
When she wasn't being Pirate Girl.

It was an excellent, relaxing and sun-filled vacation.

Is-happy