Tour de Tejas, Day 3

Day 3 Houston, TX

After we had so much fun last night, we got back to the hotel and Finn had a fever of 101. I hope we didn’t pass anything along, but at least we gave full disclosure. Finn was a bit needy during the night, and I ended up “sleeping” on the sofa bed with Finn while Matt was alone in the king size bed. I’m a little tired this morning.

Finn has so far gotten to watch more television than in his entire life while we get a little laundry done, and then we’ll head to the Costellos to pick up Nana and Liam for the Space Center. So exciting!

The Space Center was so much fun! We started off with a tram tour that took us to Johnson Space Center, where we saw historic mission control, the astronaut training center, and Rocket Park. We also saw some cows, and I jokingly told Finn they were space cows. He took this very seriously and exclaimed, "Space cow!!" every time he saw one. The tour was really interesting, especially for the adults. Liam was totally amazed by the Saturn V rocket. We ate lunch after the tram tour and then went into the space center exhibits with two tired and cranky kids. They both like the computer simulations of docking the shuttle to the space station, the front of the shuttle with the command center, and learning about life in space. I can’t imagine sleeping with my head strapped to my pillow. After we had explored a lot of the exhibits, I decided it was time to go. Liam pled for a little time in the play area, and then Matt wanted to see the space artifact show, and then we found a whole other area of the center where you could control the Mars rovers, pretend to be Mission Control and the Apollo mission, and have all sorts of fun. Nana really enjoyed it, too, expecially after she saw Finn climb into a small space capsule, lie down, look up, and say “hi, mommy”. I was downstairs playing mission control, and we could see each other on the monitors. It was great, but then it was 3pm, Finn was huddled in a corner of a play area screaming “no!”, Liam was whining, and we realized we’d pushed our luck. Time to really leave!

After short naps, we went out to Mission Burritos, and met up with Melissa, Phil, Mary-Helen, Ellis, Alden, Nana, Sarah, and Jamie for a nice dinner and playtime for the boys. Liam went home with Jamie for another sleepover, and a very long day ended with a great visit with our friends. Alden is impossibly cute, and Liam and Jamie are complete BFFs.

Tour de Tejas, Day 2

Day 2: Laurel, MS to Houston, TX

Going to bed was pretty entertaining last night, even with Finn’s fever. The advil helped a lot, and he was in rare form as we went to bed, asking to switch pillows, sides of the bed, etc. At 1:30am he woke up thirsty and hot, and got some more advil and water. This morning he seems fine, having spent the night either adherent to my body or with his feet in my face.
5:00am Matt wakes up, confused about the time, showers and get dressed. The boys and I do not.
6:45am The boys and I are up, Finn seems healthy, and the bed is damp. Fun!
7:30am Breakfast takes forever, as Liam wants to try everything. So many choices! What a wonderful place the Hampton Inn is!
8:30am On the road again, leappads on hand. So far, we have managed to not show movies, but to listen to music, talk and play. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Well, I drove for the rest of the day, so no more play-by-plays, but we had a pretty good day! We stopped for lunch in a nice town outside of Baton Rouge, and Liam was intrigued by the swamps we crossed. Both boys also appreciated the words “Achafalaya” and “Opelousas”. They took really good naps, and we were all excited to cross into Texas.
The excitement waned a bit when Houston and the cousins didn’t materialize immediately, and at 4:00pm, we broke down and broke out the Backyardigans. Peace and quiet!
After checking into the hotel, we went over to “Jamie and Connor’s house” where they boys acted as though they were BFFs who had seen each other yesterday. They played so nicely together, which gave us a chance to visit with our friends Paul and Claire Brady, and to catch up with Mom, Sarah, and Leo. The Mediterranean food was fantastic, and Liam asked if he could have a sleepover.

Since Finn was still not well, we took him back to the hotel, and Liam got to have his first sleepover ever. I hope he behaves well! Last we saw him, he was happily reading books.

Tour de Tejas, Day 1

We are on the road to TX, and I thought I'd blog as we go, so here's day 1:

Day one:
6:00am The boys are up. Time to wake up and get finished packing.

8:30am We are officially on the road.

8:40am The ipod stops working.

9:00am We rig up the DC to AC power inverter to the computer, and play music directly from the computer through the speakers. Matt points out that the power is being converted from DC to AC, then through the computer’s cord back to DC. There are a lot of wires, and a computer in my lap. Not ideal. Hopefully there is a Best Buy in Huntsville.

9:20am Liam asks if we are still in Tennessee, and announces that his bottom hurts from sitting too long. Inauspicious.

9:25am We have a family conversation about hot pants.

9:36am Liam: Are we almost in Mississippi? No, Liam, we have to get to Alabama first. We’re going to spend most of the day in Alabama. Liam: I don’t want to spend the day in Alabama!!!!!

9:50am Liam reaffirms that his bottom is still hurting from sitting too long.

9:54am We enter Alabama. Finn points to the right and says, “There’s Mississippi.” I wish I could write it the way he says it, because it’s really cute. There is a big rocket at the Alabama welcome center. Liam is quite impressed. We learn it is a Saturn 1B, predecessor to the Saturn V that took the Apollo mission to the moon. Liam is also quite pleased with the Huntsville Space center brochure he acquires. Fortunately, he is too young to know to ask if we can go there.

10:30am The snackgates have opened. What began with a mid-morning snack of pretzels has now become pretzels, bananas, and dried blueberries. So far. The boys are now officially eating their way through Alabama.

11:30am Finn announces he is hungry, starts crying about wanting Liam’s space center brochure, and promptly falls asleep. Now we need to find a place to picnic in Birmingham. The Alabama adventure had looked promising, but it turns out to be a small amusement park, closed for the season. Good thing the boys were asleep, or they would have cried about it.

12:00pm No luck in Birmingham, but we find the Tannenhill Ironworks State Park on the way to Tuscaloosa. What a treasure! We have a picnic, a great little hike to the furnace works, and then learn all about iron smelting and the Civil War in the museum. Of course, the fact that Matt appears to have lost all of our travel money at the last rest stop makes it a bit less pleasant, as does Finn’s large splinter, but there you go.

2:30pm On the road again. The boys are having fun with their leappads and definitely not napping. Still no Best Buy or place to fix the ipod, but there is peace in the car.

3:30pm Liam napped and Finn was somewhat quiet. Upon waking, snacktime resumed, and we listened to some music.

4:30pm Almost there. We paased a sign for Pachuta, and somehow Matt and I started to sing Pachuta, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya to Bermuda, Bahama. Etc. Finn really enjoyed the “Bermuda, Bahama” part and started saying, “Babuda, Bobo, bathtub!” When we all laughed, he added, “Bob the Builder!” Liam tried to get some of the attention, repeating “Bathtub!” and we had to tell him it was only funny once. So he added in bumblebee, buck and bock. Matt tried to mess the game by saying “Underwear!” (yes, we were all laughing pretty hard at this point without a definable cause). He explained it was bumblebee underwear (Liam has transformer bumblebee underwear) which made Finn exclaim “Pull-ups! Pyjamas!” Oh my.

5:30pm We arrive at the horrid town of Laurel, MS. Don’t come here. Enough said.

6:00pm Finn has a fever of 102. Please, please let this be the prodrome to a simple cold. Here’s to tomorrow!

Tornado time

We woke up the boys at around 1am to go sleep in the basement. They were quite confused and we explained that there was a dangerous storm, so we had to sleep downstairs. Liam replied, as though speaking to himself, "But thunder is just noise, and lightening is just light." Nevertheless, they agreed to go downstairs, and seemed to think it was a bit of an adventure.

This morning I had the news on to see about the damage and what schools were closed. Liam looked at the pictures on the TV, considered them a bit, and then declared, "That's a junkyard." I explained that it was in fact the remains of someone's house that was damaged in the storm, and again he grew thougthful and looked at the tv a little longer.

Next thing I know, he has recruited Finn to play "tornadoes and buildings". Basically one of them gets to be the tornado and knock the other one down. It took a lot of negotiating as they were both eager to be the tornado rather than the building each time. I guess he had finally made sense of it as only a 4 year old can.

The Great Shoe Debacle

We couldn't find Finn's shoes the other morning. This was rather problematic, as we needed to get to work, and Finn only has one pair of shoes. I figure, if I'm going to shell out for the expensive shoes that don't actually fall apart on him, he's only getting one pair. This seemed totally reasonable to me until we couldn't find them.

So, Finn seemed unconcerned, Liam was dawdling with his own shoes, and Matt and I were frantically searching every corner of the house. Remembering how Liam had once put his in the laundry basket, I was going through all of the laundry in the house. We were desperate. Finally I turn to Liam, and say, "You get to be Detective Liam! If you can find Finn's shoes, I'll put a treat in your lunch box today!"

Within minutes, Liam had located the missing shoes under a bookshelf. I told Finn, "please don't hide your shoes again!" We were so happy, and Liam got lots of praise and a strawberry fruit leather in his lunch. We were quite late at this point, so I went to help Liam with his own shoes (yes, they were still not on!) while continuing to praise him for helping us.

Suddenly, Liam bursts into tears. "I'm the one who put them there!" He was nearly inconsolable with guilt. I didn't know whether to laugh or yell, so I just hugged him and we went to school/work. I'm glad his conscience works!!

Recent interests

Reading about Jamie's interests has caused me to ponder Liam's recent interests. I think I can safely blame playmobil toys for his recent interest in guns and swords. Sigh. However, Martin Luther King day has re-kindled his interest in death, and he explained to me how someone "shooted" him. Then we had to discuss why someone would do that. In the end, Liam decided that MLK didn't deserve to be shooted. When I asked if anyone deserved to be shot, he said that someone who didn't stop when the police told him to deserved it. A reasonable scenario. The topic was dropped briefly, and then Liam declared "Jesus is dead." Can't we go back to talking about space shuttles??

Liam's joke

Liam tells a lot of jokes these days, and most of them are not funny at all. For example, why did the ice cream truck cross the road? to get some more ice cream. The other day, though, he made a joke that was actually funny.

He was learning about weather at school, and studies thermometers. When he got home, he began to tell us what he learned, and how the mercury went up when the temperature went up. Matt tried to correct him, telling him that mercury was not used in thermometers anymore, but Liam didn't believe him. He repeated that Miss Jill said it was mercury. We obviously were never going to be able to contradict Miss Jill. Matt persisted, though, and really made his point that mercury was no longer used in thermometers, until Liam paused in his protesting, got a sly look on his face, and said, "I think thermometers have Pluto in them!" before bursting out laughing. It was actually pretty funny, and not a bad pun!