Our plan had been to take the kids to visit their grandparents over the week of fourth of July. After some serious sticker shock over the price of flights, we scooted our trip to the week of Labor Day and did this crazy deal where we flew into Memphis, drove down to Birmingham, drove from Birmingham to Friedheim, drove from Friedheim to Memphis, and finally flew back home. All in the name of saving money on our four plane tickets.
Ian is slowly making his peace with air travel
In many ways, our travel luck on this trip was terrible. It took something like two hours for us to get our rental car in Memphis that first evening, which pushed our arrival in Homewood / Birmingham into very late territory. On our way home on the last day, they simply cancelled the Houston to Austin leg of our flight, and we wound up renting a car and driving home. This wouldn’t have been too bad except it took them FOREVER to get our bags off the first leg of our flight and into our hands. We could have gone on and they’d have sent our bags to us, but we had to have them because Maya’s car seat was checked. We got home very late, and then on top of that, Sean dropped me and the kids off so I could get them to bed, while he went and returned the rental and picked our car up from the airport.
On the other hand, Ian seems to now be capable enough of entertaining himself that he didn’t scream for the entire flight. It was amazing. The amount of relief I felt cannot be adequately described. Here’s hoping it’s not just a fluke! Even the sometimes long car drives were handled with relatively little distress.
We got to do many fun things with the grandparents. In Alabama, we again got to go to the very fun pool in Homewood. Maya and Ian showed off some of the jumping-in skills they were learning in their swim lessons, and everyone had a very good time playing in the water.
Pop on a bed of nails
The kids also got to visit the McWane Science Center again, which kept both of them busy and entertained for a period of time.
What was nice about the McWane Center visit in particular is that Sean and I did our best to melt away and let Lolli and Pop hang out with the kids. With Ian, if I’m too close, he’s probably going to stick with me, and during the Alabama leg of our visit, he was still getting over a bit of a cold and wasn’t feeling very sociable.
More McWane center fun
The kids both loved all the cats at Lolli and Pop’s house. Ian, hugger of all things furry, was especially enamored with Baa-baa, who would put up with Ian laying on him and giving him a full-body hug without complaint. We even caught him several times sitting comfortably in Baa-baa’s pretty pink cat-bed.
Ian loves Baa-baa. Baa-baa tolerates Ian.
Maya, like her cousin AP before her, has developed a complete infatuation with Pop. It feels like we hardly saw her while we were in Alabama because all she wanted to do was hang out with him. He taught her how to play hide and seek, which she has been playing with us at the house ever since. He played with her endlessly, whenever she wanted. It was very sweet.
Grandpa teaching Ian about money and credit
The two things Maya had latched onto about her past visits to her grandparents’ house in Missouri was their really spectacular room full of toys and their equally fun pond full of fish and turtles that Maya got to feed. Unfortunately, their pond had “turned over” earlier in the year and everything in it died. When we got there, the pond had dwindled to “large puddle” status and was devoid of most living things. Maya and I still walked down there and watched the dragonflies skim along the water though.
Discovery Play House
The kids’ fun outing in Missouri was to visit the Discovery Play House. There were so many things for both the kids to do there. Other than Ian falling and knocking the bejesus out of his poor forehead, it was a very fun visit.
Aunt Rachel, Maya, Grammy, and Nathan
We had a day where all the cousins were at Grammy and Grandpa’s house too, and that was a lot of fun. Maya and Ian joined Henry and Rosie and Lily and Nathan in making spin art paintings. Paper spins quickly in circles and the artist drips paint (or in Maya’s case, squirts a giant glob of paint) onto it, and the spinning motion flings the paint outward. The kids all seemed to really enjoy it, and they made some really neat paintings.
Toucan twins – Maya and Rosie
As many of our trips have been, this one was hard, but good. The kids really seemed to connect with their grandparents more quickly this time around and spent a lot more time playing with them. It was fun to see Maya beckon Sean’s dad with an extended “Po-o-o-o-o-p!” from whatever distant room she happened to be in. It was cute to watch Ian climb around on Grandpa and grin when he played with his beard. It was adorable to hear Ian talk about his “Wahwee” (Lolli) and to see Maya monopolize Grammy’s time to color stencil after stencil after stencil.
