Spring "Break" Wrap up

This week was spring "break" for my kiddos (read: no at-school break for Mama), although I did manage to weasel my way into my AngelFriend's network of AngelNannies for three part days (right NOW included) so I could work. Truthfully, it was a good week. AngelFriend and her team of nannies are the bomb(s).

Monday the boys were at the AngelHouse for the afternoon. I picked them up all rosy cheeked and begging not to leave. AngelNannies did inform me that B had eaten "a lot" of oranges that afternoon. Okay, B is an orange freak. I know that. But he must have eaten a lot of oranges on Monday because twenty minutes after we returned home, full orange sections began finding their way out of his tummy and onto my, well, everything. Couch. Kitchen floor. Sweater. And finally, large cooking pot on the family room floor. Sure there was some curdled milk in there for good measure, but mostly he was spewing whole orange slices. That was fun.

The fact that he still looked a little green, er, orange the next morning kept us from keeping our beach play date at Stinson with best friend AM and twins (and a nanny in tow!). So, we stayed home and colored our faces with magic markers, as you can see.

Later in the day we decided that we should create our first family report, for our trip the following day to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I'm so lucky that my boys are equally into basketball, no-rules rugby, and creating Tables of Contents. They really got into it. Here is W's Title Page. I have no idea how he knew to write "By Wilson" on the front just like a third grader. Wow. Now I'm bragging shamelessly. (Okay he's not perfect. Look at that orange thing there - it's an Octopus. Um, hello? Has anyone told this boy that an octopus has six legs? Sheesh. (Yes I'm kidding, I love the picture and I know they have eight legs. I'm sarcastic okay?)).

By the next day, B stopped vomiting and we caravaned down with two of his buddies, their moms, and a sitter (another AngelNanny who is more like friend to all of us moms. She's fantastic). It rained all the way down but my FlowerFriend (the one I rode with) only had to stop her Suburban once, after she exclaimed "Why isn't there a damn microwave in this car?" to get hot water to heat up her one-year-old's bottle (this, to stop the high pitched screaming coming from the car seat just behind my head). On that little side trip we missed a few U-Turn lane positionings and had to pass McDonald's three times without stopping. Each time the golden arches loomed in the right hand side windows our three boys moaned (with decreasing vigor each loop) "oooooooooh McDonald's!" It was clear to me we could have stopped right there, ordered a few Happy Meals and been back on our way home with a car full of satisfied day trippers. But, on to the main attraction.

Once at the aquarium, we had a blast. We braved the crowds to watch gorgeous jellyfish undulate in electric blue back lighting, sea otters backfloat with sun-glistening ice cubes on their fuzzy chests (B now does a great rendition of an otter swimming by the way), and hammerhead sharks knock into the edges of the gigantic glass tank. We even lay down on our backs to watch the school of fish who have been trapped in a glass dome above swim in circles. My dizzy prone self could take about 1 minute of that.


Then we got some substandard pizza in the only non-crowded spot on Cannery Row, and visited Dennis the Menace park where we fed the kids chocolate soccer balls and were hit with various items (including bird shit and a full, but luckily capped, plastic condiment container of ketchup (apparently one of the birds there finds the food scraps lacking in zest and needs to spice up his meals).

Yesterday we mostly relaxed.

This afternoon we're bringing the week home with a pop at Jump Sky High as we head to a warehouse in Santa Clara that has basically blanketed the floor with connected trampolines. As my husband said when I told him about it, "Oh. Sounds great. I hope B doesn't kill anyone." The boy likes to lead with his head when he jumps. I foresee lots of protective bouncing in my near future.