Kids on Vacation, Day 5

The place looks like a bomb hit it. You can't step anywhere in the living room without getting a lego embedded in your foot, there's a stuffed Backyardigan at each corner, the puzzles are officially unfinishable because key pieces are shoved into vents, and when I put my foot down I almost hope I step on a lego because the alternative is one of Jack's little cars that will end up landing me on my back, or a piece of the apple slice Kate was wandering around with yesterday afternoon. Along those same lines, there's a smell in the kitchen that I'm not sure what it is. I'm hoping it's some kind of food.

Jack licks his lips too much, gets whiny the more tired he gets, and likes to stack the deck in "Candyland." Kate doesn't want to sit in her high chair anymore, does colorful things like spitting out her milk, and wants to do whatever Jack is doing, even when it results in her nearly braining herself on the edge of an end table.

It's absolutely impossible to get anything done with both kids here. Kate wants to be picked up or have books read to her, and when she plays on her own, I'm constantly running to save her from climbing up the stairs, falling over the arm of the couch, or otherwise risking injury. And that doesn't even include stopping her from beating on the TV, sitting on the DVR, eating magic markers, or hitting Jack with small blocks. Jack either wants to play with me or, when playing "by himself," says "Daddy?" every minute and a half, typically with a question like, "Will you fix this?" or "Can you open this?" or "Will you play with me?" I'm exhausted. My bad elbow hurts from picking Kate up all the time. I'm probably getting Emily's cold.

That was basically the week, start to finish, in a nutshell. The kids drove me up the wall, capped off by today, when we went out in the driveway and drove Thomas the Tank Engine around, the two of them taking turns on the toy that's really too small for Jack and too big for Katie. But not too small that Jack didn't have a blast anyway, and not too big that Kate didn't say "Whee! Wheeeeeeee!" when she sat on it and Jack pushed her around the driveway, me worrying about her falling off with every harrowing foot of pavement.

So yeah, really tough week. And I'm very lucky.