The Road Trip

Traveling with my son is always an adventure. His first road trip was about eleven years ago, at the age of 4 months. In a nutshell, the boy was an angel in the car. No problems at all. If was a few hour drive & I think he only woke up once to eat.

Not much has changed in theses 11 years when it comes to him & road trips. He is still pretty good in the car & only asks to stop to eat... except now it's a little more frequent... like every hour.

Well this past holiday weekend we decided to go down to Clearwater to visit my family. It's only a 3 1/2 hour drive so we just hoped Baby Mya (2 1/2 months old) would be a road trip baby angel like her big brother use to be & we would get there smoothly.

Now let me tell you something about Baby Mya... she is a day hawk. She does not like to sleep during the day. Apparently some little baby in Babyland told her that if she falls asleep during the day, she may miss something. So with that assumption, she tortures herself (& me), during the day, fighting sleep.

For those of you thinking that I should be happy since she sleeps well at night... I say to you... "HUMF!" A nap here or there would be nice.

Back to the road... there we were, driving down 301, approximately half to our destination when Baby Mya makes her first request. "AHH!" *pause* She waits to see if her request will be answered. "AHH!" There she goes again.

So we pull into a parking lot & check her diaper. Nope... clean dry. Maybe she is hungry... again. Nope... she's not showing any signs of interest.

Just when I was about to put her back in her seat, she gave me a look. Then stood up in my lap and started to do her squats. Her smile started to shine brightly. Then Isaac smiled at me & said, "she just needed to stretch her legs."

And he was right. As soon as she finished her squats, she went back into her carseat with no fussing.

Until...

About 30 minutes later, Isaac was deep into his book & of course, Baby Mya didn't like his attention being put elsewhere. She started off with a low coo-ing towards him... no response. Then she upgrades to the "AHH!" Now she has his attention.

He asked her what she wanted... (remember this is an 11 year old talking to an infant). She responded with some coo-ing & appearantely she asked him to read to her because he replied... "No Mya, I am reading Goosebumps. This is too scary for you."

Being that she has him wrapped around her finger, not even a minute later, Baby Mya is listening to some haunted tale about a rollar coaster (or at least that's what I got out of it).

Well, it's about 9pm & we are all home safe. Isaac is knocked out in his bed & Baby Mya is here on my lap... fighting sleep. I have about another 2 hours of her fighting sleep & then maybe I can get some work done.

My Sanctuary

So there I was in my sanctuary, relaxing... at peace. Since I cannot find my camera picture transfer thingy, let me describe my sanctuary to you. The bathroom itself is about 12 feet long by 10 feet across... maybe a little bit larger. In the far corner sits a garden tub across from a walk in shower... where I was when this story began.
Before getting back to the story, let me first tell you that I made it very clear to my son to not disturb me while I am taking a shower unless it is a dying emergency.
For instance, the time he was banging on the door & when I finally opened it, he asked if he could have a snack... was not a dying emergency.
Or the time he was shouting through the door & I thought something was wrong but he only wanted to ask me if he could watch a movie was not a dying emergency.
So for the last year I have been very pleased that I have not been intrupted at all while in the shower... or should I say, my sanctuary.
Until this morning that is...
"So there I was in my sanctuary, relaxing... at peace." My master bathroom door was open with my master bedroom door shut. Although I could hear any knocks at the bedroom door, I'm sure Isaac must have been knocking, because before I knew it, while I was relaxing & enjoying my shower he busts in the door screaming. Screaming what? I still do not know at this point.
Now this is a walk-in shower so he cannot see me the way it walks in & walks around the corner a bit, so I told him I would be right out. While washing the shampoo out of my hair I'm thinking, there must be an emergency.
Before I could even finish getting the shampoo out, here he is again. So I told him to go out & I'll be right out. I'm thinking to myself, "is the toaster on fire?"
I grabbed a towel, left the water running and stepped out of the shower. As soon as I stepped out I could here Isaac talking... & I heard other voices. Not like the tv... I am talking about real voices. Who the h*ll did this child let in the house at 6:30 in the morning while I'm in the shower?
Luckly I keep scissors in the bathroom for my hair so I grab them on the way out. I walk to the bedroom door & peek my head out to see Isaac looking up... talking... to the voice... a speaker box on the ceiling... It's the alarm company.
I identified myself & gave them the "code." The silent alarm was reset. And I was allowed to finish washing the shampoo out of my hair. All was well once again.

Isaac's Eco Indian Dwelling

Young Isaac had his first Social Studies project of the school year. He had to re-create a scene / scenario from his Social Studies book. Isaac decided to make an "authentic" Indian home. My first thought was, "here goes another 40 bucks."

Isaac instantly went outside & started collecting supplies. He said, "the Indians didn't run out to the store for supplies, so neither will I!"

So after spending a few hours outside... he ended up with a fair amount of building materials.

Everything he needed he found from around the house & declared his project, "green."

The next step for the young building contractor was to prepare his work space & develop the land & water. He actually added real dirt to the land (brown paint) & (cooking) sea salt to the water (blue paint).

Yet again, his creativity impressed me.

Luckily for Isaac, the paint he used was from my home art studio so it was a super quick dry formula...

Not even 30 minutes later, Isaac was working on his building frame. This part of the project might have been one of the more challenging areas.

Isaac wanted the sticks to be the same size in height & diameter so he ended up making a few more trips outside to try to match his sticks... I mean "logs." The Indians used logs to build their frames.

For the roof, Isaac cut the bottom of one of my baskets out. Normally I would have been totally against him destroying MY property but for the love of education & Social Studies... Cut on my dear boy... cut on.

The sides of the building were the other difficult areas of the project. This is where my help was needed so I couldn't take the step by steps. I will tell you that I held the glue gun while Isaac cut & placed the bark & although no children (Isaac) was burnt with the hot glue gun during this area of the project... I was. But like the great someone once said... No pain, No gain!

After the walls were up, I left Isaac alone for a few minutes & came back to a fire pit, benches outside the dwelling & a fully decorated interior. He made little cot like beds & I fire on the inside to keep them warm.

So that concludes Isaac's Indian dwelling for his Social Studies class... on to the eco-system project for Science class.

Down... Set... HIKE!

Cause I Love You...