I've been meaning to plan a weekend away with the older boys since between school, homework, sports, and music commitments, our qt time is a rarity. And lets face it, it won't be long before quality time with Mom will be about as appealing to them as a root canal.
So I packed up the car early Saturday and off we drove to a Marriott that evidently boasts one of the biggest indoor water parks on the face of the planet. Now, I'm not exactly a water park kind of gal. At the risk of sounding even crazier than previously perceived, I have issue with germs and sharing pool water with hundreds of people, most of whom are under the age of ten and well, why would they choose to take a potty break when they can just...you know where I'm going with this, right?
But I took one for the team because 1) I knew the boys would have the time of their life and 2) the thought of getting a full night of uninterrupted sleep in a hotel room was too good to pass up. Ironically, Puck ended up sleeping through the night at home with dad and I ended up listening to the guests in the next room practice what I could only imagine to be some kind of clog dancing routine until the wee hours.
The park was insane, with water canons, slides, rafts, tube rides, and pretty much anything else imaginable. And as long as no one develops any kind of unusual skin conditions in the next week or so, I would call the weekend a 'splashing' success.
Channeling my inner Mrs. Frizzle, I took the kids to the Aquarium again. It's one of their favorite field trip destinations, but this had nothing to do with the beluga tank, seal lion show, or ray petting pool. It's about the french friends. Evidently throughout the past few years as I've been taking them to every educational attraction in a three state radius, they've been hard at work surveying and rating the snack bar fries.
Would you like to see some more evidence showing that even if you ban toy weaponry from your kids' toy box, they still may grow up to be social deviants?
This is what happens when you leave a sweet, innocent five year old alone in the craft room with her older brothers:
This post is a tribute to the ass kicking ladies of the Breakers who took me under their wing this season as their novice recruit and showed me a new meaning for the term Soccer Mom. I've played on an indoor rec league with some of these women the past few winters, but transitioning from indoor (think beer pong) to the outdoor state league (think varsity) was a big leap for me.
They know how to play hard & have fun. They are the (ball) Breakers.
Daily life in the house of Spiderbyte can be pretty crazed, but when we're one parent down and the ratio shifts to 4:1 things get downright ugly.
With Jason in San Francisco this week for work, my strategy has been to shock & awe them with distractions so they lack time/energy to fight, whine, bicker, bitch, moan, mess make, complain, and did I mention fight?
It hasn't worked.
As a matter of fact when Spiderdad called to "video chat" with us tonight, he had to witness me physically breaking up a brawl right there on the video screen as they attempted to gouge each other's eyes out in pursuit of screen time. I'm sure it made him miss us...err, you are coming home, right?
When Monday's forecast called for temps in the high 60's, it didn't take me long to figure out what to do once I put the older boys on the school bus...cancel all otherwise imperative tasks on the schedule and head straight to the beach.
Everyone else may be talking about H1N1, but in our house it's known as SLIME flu. A mispronunciation really....these kinds of things tend to happen in a household in which the number of people with speech impediments outweigh those without.
So yesterday Will received his Slime Flu vaccine at school. He was fine through the entire process....well, that is until he saw his classmates waiting in line for their turn. Punk.
Heard about "keeping up with the Joneses"...? Well, let's just say the neighbors didn't have a chance at keeping up with Spiderbyte this Halloween...well, not that they really wanted to....as a matter of fact they just looked kind of annoyed, but I digress.
I'm not sure when Halloween became our holiday, but it did. And we own it, thanks to Spiderdad's specialized training in Halloween staging (otherwise known as art school) and my underlying need to fly my freak flag whenever possible.
Just imagine a full rockin' graveyard complete with stage lights, strobes, graves, body parts, "Stairway to Heaven" in heavy rotation over outdoor sound system, and a pack of youngins' freebasing sugar and breakdancing on the front yard.
The pics don't really do the scene justice...but just ask our neighbors, I'm sure they'll be talking about it....
I know, I know. You're sick of reading our posts about Halloween. But the anticipation is almost unbearable...we have checked and rechecked our outfits, carved the pumpkins, decorated/overdecorated, started gorging ourselves with sugar...bear with us for just a few more days....
