Friday Countdown - Counting the Hours Now

I'm actually writing this on Thursday evening because I expect to be absolutely bonkers crazy tomorrow. My flight departs the Philadelphia airport Saturday morning at 8 am for San Diego for my California vacation with family and, on Friday, my brother's wedding. I'm sure I should be doing a dozen other things right now but I have a headache and sitting, blogging and watching King George & the Ducky with my children seems to be easier on my head.

1. I wouldn't have survived this week or been able to complete half as many things on my To Do Before I Leave List without having Our Favorite Babysitter Julia for 20 hours this week. I mean, I am paying her and pretty well, but some days, when my children are making me particularly crazy, I don't see how it could be enough. And, in an effort to be kind to my husband, I have engaged her for another 20 hours next week.

2. This being the only full week of vacation Alex has between the end of the school year and the start of summer school (or, as it is officially known, Extended School Year), I have endeavored to show the kids a good time. Not only did they have Julia every day this week, we went to the beach with their cousins on Tuesday and to the zoo on with Mimi on Thursday. I think, tomorrow, though, our fun trip will be to Costco to buy groceries. But maybe we'll go to Chick-Fil-A afterwards; they have a great play area.

Here's a great picture of Alex on Tuesday in Surf City:


3. On Tuesday, since the children and I spent the day at the beach, Julia came after dinner so that Marshall and I could go see Toy Story 3 together. I liked it, but it's not my favorite Pixar movie. Although, thinking about it, I would have a hard time ranking those 11 movies from favorite to least favorite except that I think A Bug's Life will always be at the bottom.

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So I was working on this last night but then Miranda fell asleep on the couch at 6:15 pm which meant she got up at 5 this morning (which meant I also got up at 5 this morning) and so I've been running around since 7 (I let myself doze on the couch until then while Miranda watched tv) feeding the children and doing laundry and trying not to panic about my trip tomorrow. I have managed to do something awful to my iPod after Marshall was so nice to load more audio books on it last night and I'm afraid he'll have to start from scratch. Poor man. Some days I feel like all I do is cause more technology problems for him to clean up later, but then, that's what the children do for me. Well, they make messes in general. Sometimes they make technology messes, like when Alex chews up the power cords for laptops. He hasn't managed to shock himself yet, but that may be coming. Anyway, I am going to finish this list!

4. I am taking a variety of things to amuse myself on the long airplane rides to California (I change planes in Minneapolis/St. Paul), including Julia Quinn's new book Ten Things I Love About You and a history of the Napoleaonic Wars called War of Wars by Robert Harvey. I read a review of Harvey's book by Walter Russel Mead (see the link on the right for his blog) and it sounded like fun. If not, I'll leave it to gather dust at my aunt's house. I expect to be spending a good deal of my time on the flights back writing postcards, but we'll see. I am checking my cross stitch in my luggage because it's just too hard to work without scissors.

I hate the day before travel!

Moving on. Wait, I think the dryer stopped. Must go change out the clothes.

5. Alex was successfully dry for a number of nights and so earned the right to a brand new book of his choice from an actual bookstore (which he'd never been in before because he's rather destructive towards books; I usually order books for him online or pick them up at yard sales). So we stopped at Barnes & Noble yesterday on the way home from the zoo and he picked out his own copy of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. For the boy who taught himself to read at age 4, it's a little below his ability, but he's lazy.

6. While Julia is here this afternoon I need to finish the grocery shopping and start laying out my clothes. For the most part, the house is clean and the laundry is done. I should probably water my house plants so Marshall doesn't have to bother with them. But I've printed my boarding passes so I must actually be leaving tomorrow.

7. Pray for my trip. I hate flying, even without my children along for the fun. I hated it before 9/11 and hate it even more now.

Here's Jen. She just returned home from a peaceful vacation, so I'm sure she's a lot more relaxed than I am.