Spring break

Miss M's school had spring break last week. We used the time to travel to Iowa to see some friends and family.  We left Monday morning to head to Keokuk.

We didn't do much of anything except hang out at Aunt Janan's house.  Miss M liked playing with her toys, making bread with her, and finding the cat (who happens to dislike children a lot).  Mr. Man was obsessed with Glen. I don't think I have ever seen him attach/light up to another person. Glen played rough with him and Mr. Man loved it.

Miss M played so hard while we were in Keokuk that she went to bed at 5:30pm on Monday night and slept until 7am.  I wasn't sure if I should wake her up or let her sleep. I decided to let her sleep and see what would transpire.  I don't think I slept that night because I was convinced she'd wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and want to party.

Tuesday she fell asleep at 5pm. She slept until 6:15am.  I haven't seen anything like it. I was really worried there was more wrong with her than just being worn down. Turns out she just needed some sleep.

Wednesday morning we loaded up the minivan again and headed to Cedar Rapids to see Grandma D and Uncle Nick and Aunt Callie and E & A. Miss M is obsessed with Ella. She talked about her the entire trip.  She got her birthday presents from them and when I asked her who gave them to her she responds with 'my cousin Ella'. She had fun.

She's not really every shown much interest in Uncle Nick even though he has tired endlessly.  She was more than willing to get a horsey ride from him with her cousins. They had so much fun. It was cute to watch them interact and play.

Mr. Man just hung out. He took a liking to Audrey since she paid attention to him. I wasn't around that evening as I had dinner with a friend but I heard she was so nice to him. She loves to play with baby dolls so I imagine she was gentle and sweet.  He loves to watch kids run around and play but he does like when kids pay attention to him. 

Miss M was sad when we told her that Ella wasn't available to play with during the day because she had school. She managed to be content with Grandma and I. 

She was so good on the ride home but you can tell she was bored. She rode like this most of the trip.  She didn't talk. She didn't sing loudly. She just ate her blanket and hung over her chair. She did ask for a happy meal about 10 minutes after we left Grandma's house.  Happy meals aren't served before 10:30am so I asked her if she wanted a hash brown and biscuit. She of course said yes. I proceeded to ignore her request until she got violent about it. She didn't get violent so I kept driving.  When we pulled into town she asked if she could have her biscuit and hash brown. I drove through and got her a happy meal b/c she was good on the ride home and b/c I was pretty sure we didn't have any food in our house.

I left Saturday morning to go to the quad cities to see some friends and hang out without kids and enjoy adult conversations for 24 hours. It ended up I was gone for 30 hours. In that 30 hours Miss M got quite the black eye/cheek.  They FaceTimed me Sunday morning and it was the first thing I noticed. She had slept in our bed while I was gone and she fell out of the bed and hit her face into my nightstand on her way off the bed. She got herself stuck between the bed and the nightstand. Since it was dark when she fell Andrew just assumed she was upset b/c she had fallen and not because she had smacked her eye into the night stand so he put her back in bed and she went back to sleep.  

The pictures don't show the damage to the degree it was bruised and swollen. It looks awful.  Each day it seems to continue to get worse.

Day 3. I stopped taking pictures of it. The swelling has started to go down now but rather the bruising seems to be getting darker each day.

I joked that I didn't care what happened to the kids while I was gone as long as they were alive when I returned since Andrew hadn't really ever spent much time with just the two kids. I think I will be more careful in my requests the next time I leave.