nor did I fall off the face of the earth. Although, it does appear that way. I know it all seems a bit suspicious. I throw a big Spring Giveaway....leave on vacation...and then no one ever hears from me again......Well, you can't get rid of me that easily!
Here's what happened.....We left for LA on Monday, the day after Easter, with one kinda, sorta, not feeling 100% kid named Carlos who insisted that he felt "just perfectly fine." Anyway, after discussing the issue with Gail and determining our need to chitchat overrode ambiguous symptoms, we took off on our 2 hour trip (as opposed to a three hour tour) in a car filled with so much excitement from a 7 year old, I'm surprised the whole car didn't self combust while driving past Laguna Hills. However, we arrived safe and sound and immediately the laughter of happy children filled the room until Gail and I told the happy children to take their laughter somewhere else so we could get right down to talking. They merrily obliged and headed down the hallway to the bedroom where more laughing, playing and arguing occurred. We ignored them the best we could while I tried to convince Gail to start watching Real Housewives of New York City and she tried to convince me to read Ekhart Tolles' A New Earth. We both obliged each other's request and went on to talk more. Children would periodically come into the living room demanding food and water. We would take turns throwing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at them to keep them happy.
As you can see from the picture above, the party never stopped! And, lest anyone think we completely forgot about them.....they were allowed to go outside while we watched over, told numerous times they couldn't go in the pool, were taken to a fun playground, participated in a "couple of days after Easter" egg hunt and got to partake in our version of Top Chef: The Ice Cream Challenge.
Let me tell you that one was fun. I got to play the part of Padma (because, of course, she and I are so similar in looks.......HA!) and judge everyone's ice cream creations. It took quite a bit of sampling and going back for fourths and fifths, but I was finally able to come up with the winner.
So everything was fine and dandy and good times were had by all until we were getting ready to leave on Friday afternoon when Carlos informed me his ear hurt. The same ear in which he had the infection a little more than a month ago. Uh Oh. Ambiguous symptoms were becoming more clear. The cries of pain continued on the road to San Diego. I suspected the "cries of pain" may also be related to the cries of "leaving of Sean my bestest friend in the whole world. It's no fair." So I suggested we stop at the In & Out for a vanilla shake. Because, as I told him, I had it on good authority that it helps an earache. Well, it was the miracle cure as I hoped and I continued down the road with a tired little boy, a sleeping 3 year old, and a mom who knew she was destined for the after hours urgent care at Kaiser........
So there you go. The rest of last week was spent close to home as the antibiotic he was taking didn't sit well with his stomach and I wanted him to get as much rest as possible. I spent my time tending to the infirm (who wished he was still in LA), the non-infirm (who had plenty of energy to spare, but gave me none), and decided this was a good time to clear out the clutter of the home in a bit of spring cleaning frenzy. I cleaned up my studio.....but it's already a mess again. Cleaned my closet.....it's still in pretty good shape. And started on the kids' playroom.....it's already a mess again. I finally emailed all the winners of my giveaway who I assumed had written me off as a deadbeat gift giver..... and finally got this blog post written. All is somewhat back to normal in the Chaos world. Talk to you soon!
