The Vacation That Wasn't

Our bags were packed and our alarm clocks set. Our family had not been to a tropical destination in winter since the girls were born. And when Rob and I tried to figure out when we had last traveled in winter, we think we might have been in college. Needless to say, we were all pretty excited to travel to Jamaica Monday morning.

Rob checked the status of our fights right before going to bed to discover that because of possible snow in Atlanta (we would be connecting there to go on to Montego Bay), our flight had been canceled- just in case, I guess. We spent the next four hours on the phone with our travel agent and our travel insurance company trying to come up with the best alternate route to Jamaica. Due to the snow covering the country and the fact that it is winter break week, this was a challenge. For a while, we considered flying through Toronto or even spending the next night in Detroit, all to get to the beach. We finally went to bed after midnight, knowing that we wouldn't get to Jamaica the next day but with hopes that we could postpone by a day or two and still have a vacation.

The girls knew that we were to leave Monday morning and that we would be getting up super early to do so. They had fallen asleep singing, "Aruba, Jamaica...". At 6am, Caroline called me in, shouting "There's something wrong with my clock!" She had known we were to be up before six. Unfortunately, I had to let her know that there wasn't something wrong with her clock, but rather something wrong with her vacation.

After a full day of looking at all the various ways to get to Jamaica this week, we finally decided it wasn't worth it. We have taken our money (thank goodness for travel insurance) and are starting from scratch. We hope to travel over our spring break.

So instead of building sand castles on the beach yesterday, we built snowmen.

Happy Valentine's Day

Overheard as the girls were making Valentine's Day cards for me..

Katherine: "Daddy, how do you spell, Mommy, I love you. You are sweet and nice. You let me do things that Daddy doesn't."

You can't make these things up!

Pictures

For a bit now, I've been confused about having pictures on this blog. For privacy reasons, I hesitated for a long time and then I decided loved it. Then I realized I needed to be on top of downloading pictures in order to put pictures on the blog so then I didn't like it. Then for some reason, I felt compelled to have new pictures of me and the girls to include on the blog. Now I like having pictures again. How else would I have decided to take pictures on a random weekend afternoon? It wasn't a holiday, a birthday or a particularly cute hair day. And maybe it's important to document those days too.

Capris

There are lots of things that have surprised me about becoming a mom. The fact that the sleep deprivation doesn't stop after 3 months, that children really don't eat whatever is put in front of them, that a hug from a child can erase a bad day... Needless to say, the list could go on and on. But one of the things that has surprised me the most about becoming a mom is the fact that I am ok when my daughter wears a bad outfit in public. I'm often not ok when strangers wear bad outfits in public so you might think this would bother me more. Maybe it's because the outfits are often so bad that people couldn't possible think I put them together. Or maybe it is because I love watching Caroline's independent spirit continue to grow.

The other day, Caroline showed up in my room in the outfit above. She stated that she hated not being wear capris more often so she figured if she covered her legs with socks that it would be ok. After taking a deep breath, I said, "You go girl!" and hoped that the trend wouldn't catch on- I'm not sure how I would look in the capri/sock combo!

Gran'dad

My dad died three years ago tomorrow. When he died, Katherine was just a bitty baby and Caroline was close to the age that Katherine is now. I guess it makes sense, therefore, that Katherine's questions about her gran'dad and death seem to be coming with greater and greater frequency these days. She didn't really seem to grasp the truth of my dad until pretty recently. For quite a while, when we talked about Gran'dad, she would make the matter of fact statements that children make like, "Yeah, he's dead."

Now though, the questions are here and they are as hard to answer as they were when Caroline asked them three years ago.

A sampling is below:

"Does Gran'dad live in a hole?"
"How do you die?"
"Do you die like this (as she lay on the floor) without blinking or breathing."
"Are there ants in the ground near Gran'dad?"
"What's cancer?"

I can only hope that my answers are comforting and that Gran'dad is looking down on her from somewhere wishing he could answer all her questions himself.