We had a seriously fun trip to visit the grandparents in Florida. These grandparents are Iain and Fiona's grandparents of course, but still my parents. *wink* We braved the jet plane sans Husband. It was quite the feat, and would not have been accomplished unless we had our new, very snazzy, two seater, collapsing, big wheeled stroller. It was essential for the maneuvering in the airports and eventually pushing the babies on the beach. We needed the big tires and the canopy and the ability to run with the babies in case of delays in the airports.
Fiona had her first dip in the pool and her first trip to the beach. She doesn't care for the heat, but I think the change of scenery was good for all of us. We saw new things and new faces and places in a very lovely climate. I had/have a relatively nice tan considering I have not been South for 1.5 years. It has been kind of a big deal to me, especially since I used to go 4-? per year.
We flew back to Chicago to spend 4 days visiting family and hanging out in Chicago while Jake was at a jewelers conclave. We had a wonderful time visiting my aunt and her family and my grandfather. We ate all kind of very fattening food that packed all of the weight I lost in Florida back on my belly. When I go to Chicago, I love eating all of those fabulous things that I ate during my childhood. Everything is still there, the same as I can remember, and it is so important to indoctrinate Husband and the offspring to my nostalgic taste buds.
Jake sprung a surprise gala evening on me, so I went out and bought a fun party dress and equally fun (and tall) shoes and we had an evening out...but he spent most of it networking with industry people. I could have made the most of it, and I honestly tried, but the night and early morning after I was hit with a horrible SUPER bug of some kind. The lovely birthday brunch for Fiona is a bit of a haze, and the 5+ hour car ride home I was completely miserable. I didn't think that things could get worse with all of the numerous visits to the toilet and my body shaking from a raging fever, but this lasted for 10+ days! I had a fever for 9 days, and only two weeks after everything started did I feel well enough to leave the house.
The babies got the bug, but thankfully not as hard as I did. We all went through bottles of Infant Motrin and Children's Motrin and adult Motrin and even though I tried my hardest to wait out the fever to kill the bugs in my body, after 4 days and up to 103.5 I felt like my eye balls were cooking in a puddle of my brain. The comforts of modern medicine won out when I needed to still change dirty diapers and try to hold my sweet babies that were aching and sick as well. It was great to loose 12 pounds, but not quite the way I wanted to. I kept thinking of Emily in the Devil Wears Prada telling Andy, "I am one stomach flu away from my goal weight." Iain's little waist is tinier as well and we have been back in the cloth diapers hoping to hold his pants on his little butt.We are all mended and today was another great bike ride pulling the babies behind in the Doodlebug out to see Jake for lunch. I thought about leaving I & F with Jake since it is Take Daughters and Sons to Work Day. I thought that they could help greet customers and take a nap in one of the diamond rooms. Jake was not interested and I don't think many of the other employees would have appreciated little hands running through and touching everything.
Speaking of touching everything with dirty hands...my fabulous mother made a trip to Des Moines yesterday for a Spring Cleaning trip. After I got over the initial difficulty of having my mom help clean my house and realizing that she was here to help do the deep, dark cleaning such as base boards and dusting things like mini-blinds and washing...not dusting!...but washing all of my crystal and light fixtures I knew that this was not a normal house cleaning that I should consider complete responsibility. Well I should consider responsibility, however it is OK that my mother does come to help watch little people and remind me of all of those deep dark places that have been hiding for the duration of the winter and with the new sunlight streaming through the house it is easier to catch cobwebs and excess dust and dog hair.
My new found reality has been discovering that we have way too much extra clutter and junk that has been piling up during the short duration of our marriage. The little things that we just can't seem to get rid of, need a swift kick to the garbage can or and OOPS knock off of a shelf so that they can join their friends in the big black bag on the curb. I am sure I will have more to post on just the beginnings of the Spring cleaning bug that has landed on our planet. Also going to be dusting off the rough chore list for the housewife that only does chores all day. It is again kindly called a Motivated Moms Chore list. Here's to motivation! Thanks to my own Mom.Dear Mama, Since you are a devoted reader, please allow this as another Thank You and a public one. I can't believe how nice and squeaky clean the floors are and I thank you for your kindness when going through my own Shroud of Turin. I sincerely hope that our next meeting can be pure basking in the clean house that you helped along to a new level of cleanliness. I also greatly appreciate your history lesson of the "hired girl" that in the old days was hired to help a woman, especially one with multiple children, to help a couple of times a week to get those deep dark corners around the house as well as the mending pile and ironing. The little lesson made me feel that there is a great deal of work involved in keeping a house and that it is OK to have some help every once in awhile to...lick the drips from my ice cream cone and get me back on track to enjoy this incredibly blessed life that I do have.
