wordfull wednesday

chris and spent five glorious days on a cruise to the bahamas a few weeks back ... and the following two pictures are the only ones i took the whole time we were there.  which is perhaps the most pitiful statement i have made in 2010.  i'm sure you'll agree.

this first one wasn't even technically on the cruise -- it was standing in line at the x-ray machine to board the ship.  there were two couples standing a few feet away dressed in their matching outfits.  you can see the super cool man pretty well, decked out in his tropical button-down shirt, coordinating pants, and white hospital shoes.  the two women in front of him are a bit harder to see, but one has a skirt made out of the same tropical print fabric, and the other woman has on a matching dress.  the second husband didn't make the cut (i did the best i could, trying to be discreet while holding up my iphone in the air), but he was there, completing the ensemble.  i immediately sent it to my best friend lainey, promising her that in twenty years, this would be us.

the second picture is of the "towel art" our steward left on our bed one evening.  quite appropriate since elephants are my favorite animal.  (i've had a soft spot in my heart for elephants since i was like two, when my great-grandmother wrote my mom a letter, urging her to take me to the doctor because my ears were so big.  the letter is tucked in my baby book -- my mom discarded much of our sentimental mementos from growing up, so it's nice to know she held on to the important things.)

the next cruise we're on, we're bringing our real camera and taking pictures of things we'd actually like to frame.  in the meantime, i guess the tropical print threesome will have to take center stage in our family room picture collection.

the little things in life

for the life of me, i will never understand what excites my children (and, for that matter, what doesn't.)  for example, a few months ago both liam and susanna had friends over to play.  i was getting ready to make lunch, and simply grabbed a notepad to jot down what they wanted. 

they were so thrilled that you would have thought that elmo himself had become incarnate and walked through our front door.  so i rolled with it, hamming it up as Waitress Sara, going over the day's specials, side items, beverage choices, and dessert offerings.  i then showed the foursome to the kitchen table, served them their meals, and made sure their every need was met.  (which is pretty much what every mom does day in and day out anyway, just without a made-up accent and hastily-scribbled nametag.)

for days afterwards, they pleaded for Waitress Sara to return.  worried that the novelty would quickly wear off, i informed them that Waitress Sara only works for big tips, and a party of four was the minimum required to lure her out of retirement. it was, all around, a huge hit.   

now, compare that to yesterday.  that afternoon my parents had just offered us a week's stay in orlando sometime next winter, and i couldn't wait to share the news with the kids that we're finally biting the bullet and planning a trip to DISNEYWORLD.

susanna immediately began jumping up and down and clapping.  but liam -- well, liam sat there, morosely, before shaking his head.  "no thank you," he said.

umm ... huh?

"liam, you'll love disneyworld!  why do you not want to go?"

"well," he replied, obviously scrambling for a reason in his head.  "well, disneyworld is in florida.  so we'd have to drive through north carolina AND south carolina AND georgia AND florida to get there." 

after saying a silent thank you to God for giving my son a gift of geography that i do not possess, i explained, "we'll probably split up the drive halfway.  i was thinking that we could stay with aunt mary in atlanta."

aunt mary is liam's favorite great-aunt, mostly because she owns a wii.  "oh!  great!"  he beamed.  and then, "but can i just stay in atlanta while you and daddy take susanna to disneyworld?"

determined to get to the bottom of whatever issue was behind his lack of enthusiasm, i delved deeper.  "but liam, we'll have the best time!  you know that so many of your friends have already gone, and they've all loved it."

"but i like to play," he responded.  and now i was really confused.  "i mean, i just don't want to go down there and watch those movies in the dark."

and finally, i understood.  our poor son equated disneyWORLD with disney MOVIES.  he thought that we'd be driving down to florida to sit in some big movie theater and watching disney movies all week.  (if you couldn't tell by now, liam absolutely detests movies of any kind.  i blame "up" for that.  dadgum pixar.)

so we spent the next half-hour perusing the disneyworld website, clicking on their interactive map and oohing and aahing at pictures of the rides, shows, parades, fireworks, characters ... he was actually smiling at the end, and i felt much better about starting to plan this vacation.  chris got home shortly thereafter, and i called him upstairs.  "we've got some exciting news for you!" i said.  "kids, why don't you tell daddy what it is?"

liam ran up to him, about to burst.  "guess what!"  he exclaimed.  "susanna's having a playdate tomorrow and so am i ... so mommy's going to be our WAITRESS!"

geography

geography is not my strong suit.  anyone who knows me well knows that.  it was only recently that i learned that the kazakhstan in the movie "borat" is an actual country.  but still, i don't blame my poor geography skills on the almost-debacle that occurred surrounding our trip to the bahamas.  and since i'm overdue for a  long blogpost, i'll warn you right now that you're in for a doozy.

so let me back up.  last monday at this time, chris and i were aboard "the monarch of the seas", sipping long island iced teas while watching the sun set.  but the monday prior to that, i was beginning one of the worst weeks in recent memory.  we were still staring at five inches of snow on the ground, which, in north carolina, is perfect reason to shut down school for four days.  and let me just explain to you the havoc that ensued because of this.  not only were the kids absolutely climbing the walls after being stuck in the house for days on end, but i wasn't able to accomplish anything.  i had given up on completing any errands or appointments as soon as the first snowflakes began to fall.  but the afternoon i walked into susanna's room to see both of my children's suitcases emptied with the contents strewn all over the floor while they gleefully sat in them instead -- after i had carefully packed six days' worth of clothing for them for their stay with their grandparents -- well, let's just say it was not my most shining moment as a parent.

and work?  don't get me started about work.  i had spent HOURS drawing up sub plans for the week i was going to miss, complete with powerpoint presentations, warm-ups, online activities, homework solutions, games, a test ... and then watched almost all of it become unusable as we missed day after day of school.  i mean, my sub couldn't very well give a test on operations with integers when my students had missed the lessons on how to subtract, multiply, and divide.  i found myself back at square one (although not really, since we also hadn't had an opportunity to discuss exponents ... get it?  SQUARE one?) and worked into the wee hours one night just to get everything in order for the second time.  with the lack of sleep, i had two petit mal seizures leaving me nauseous and with an excruciating headache.  needless to say, i was even more ready for this upcoming vacation than i'd ever been in my life.

and so friday rolls around -- three days before we are to leave -- and i'm printing out boarding passes, confirming plane seat assignments, and taking care of all the last-minute details.  we'd planned on grabbing a taxi from the airport to the ship, but i wasn't sure how much time to allow.  i went to mapquest for directions, and the following result came up:

3 hours and 28 minutes.

i stared at it, dumbfounded.  and then i panicked.  i yelled to chris in the other room.  "chris!  it says it's going to take us over 3 hours to get from airport to the ship!"

always the voice of reason, he replied, "are you sure you don't have it set on walking directions?"

with the last glimmer of hope, i turned back to the screen.  but there it was, mocking me in its big bold font: 212 miles.  3 hours 28 minutes.  and then, just to rub it in my face, there was a big colorful florida map, with hundreds of miles on I-95 highlighted.

i'm embarrassed to say that i kind of lost it at that point.  i just wanted to crawl under a rock -- preferably one with no snow on top -- and wake up with the aforementioned long island iced tea in hand watching the aforementioned sunset on the aforementioned boat.

alas, i opened my eyes and still found myself in front of the same frustrating computer screen.  i got to work on plan B, and, four hours later, had finally come up with a solution.  of course, with three days' notice, i couldn't find a flight into orlando, or a ship out of miami.  so our only option was to rent a car and drive the three and a half hours down the coast (or up?  at this point i still don't know).  luckily, we'd booked such an early flight that we knew we'd have no trouble making it to the ship by boarding time.  the trip back home was another story -- we missed our flight and wound up sitting in the miami airport for nine hours -- but we made it home at midnight.  safe and sound.  on a runway coated with a fresh four inches of snow, of course.

BUT ... for the record, just in case anyone cares ... i've determined how this all happened, and, much like a five year old child, i'd like to assert that it was NOT MY FAULT.   when i retraced my steps, this is what i found:  if you book a cruise through royal caribbean, and in the process choose miami as the port you wish to use, you will find that port canaveral comes up as a "nearby" port.  some whackjob who designed that site is probably having a good laugh right now, amused at the thought of the number of people he could screw over by classifying a 3+ hour drive as NEARBY.

the irony is, despite my geographical shortcomings, i actually did know that cape canaveral isn't near miami.  i've been down to disneyworld enough times in my life to know that cape canaveral is outside of orlando.  but it didn't say cape canaveral.  it said port canaveral.  and before you roll your eyes at my foolishness, let me just remind you that i live in north carolina, where the town of wake forest is exactly two hours away from wake forest university.  (good piece of trivia to know if you're not from around here.  comes up in jeopardy from time to time.) 

so, lessons learned: one, wait until the very last minute before working on sub plans.  two, don't give small children easy access to packed suitcases.  three, quadruple check yourself before booking flights and cruises.  four, hunt down the guy who thinks 212 miles classifies as "nearby" and have a little chat with him as to what that word actually means.

and five, have another long island iced tea and forget it ever happened.

passing the buck

you all know that despite his most valiant efforts, liam did not receive a wii for christmas.  however, santa did offer him a small peace offering in the form of a nintendo DS, a handheld individual electronic game that's all the rage among the 5-9 year old crowd.  he's allowed to play for twenty minutes a day, and the kitchen timer we set to remind him to shut it down always comes too soon.  he loves it, and for those twenty minutes he's so completely focused on that little screen and pushing those little buttons that i swear a fire truck could come crashing through our house and he wouldn't even look up.  so i try to remind myself of the studies that show that the fine motor skills gained on these kinds of devices help in future professions like physicians.  (i'll admit that the article showcases that dadgum wii.  seems the mann family is being held captive to this elusive wii dream from which we will never escape.)

the only problem with this nintendo DS is that it's proving to be a constant battle to remind him to assume responsibility of the thing.  he'll forget to put the stylus back in the slot, or he'll leave a game cartridge out on the counter, or the case will be discarded on the floor, or he'll forget to charge the battery.

i picked up the charging station the other day and realized with dismay that the USB port had been damaged, rendering it pretty much useless.  it doesn't actually affect the functionality of the device itself, since you can charge it up directly, but it does show how he's really not caring for the most expensive thing he owns.  i held it up and asked him what had happened.

"i dunno," he said, perplexed.

now, let me interject here to say that i really don't think he realized he had damaged it.  his little five-year old fingers probably just tried to cram in the cord in the wrong direction, he figured it out, and remedied his solution.  i'm almost certain it wasn't intentional.  but just as i was about to rebuke him gently while showing him exactly what had gone wrong, he looked over at super, who was right at our feet like she always is, and said, "i think super probably did it."

"huh?" super and i chimed in together.  (well, that's the response she conveyed, with her ears cocked and her head tilted with a confused look.)  super hasn't even mastered the command "roll over".  ain't no way our slightly-low-level canine has suddenly taken up Mario Golf as a new pastime.

so then he tried a different approach.  "maybe ... maybe another kid did it."

"come on, liam.  there's no way that happened.  when your friends come over, y'all run around outside and play baseball in the yard, and on cold days you build things with your legos -- you don't even get out the DS.  the only person who plays it is you."

my soliloquy obviously fell on deaf ears, because he was still steamrolling ahead with his ridiculous explanation.  "yeah.  i think another kid did it.  i think santa gave the DS to another kid for christmas -- probably in australia where christmas starts earlier than here, and where they speak english and have the letters 'D' and 'S' -- and that kid messed it up, and santa got mad that he wasn't taking care of it and he took it back and wrapped it up and gave it to me instead."

new course offering:  Passing the Buck 101, by Instructor William J. Mann, II.  spaces limited due to the physical constraints of his 12x12 playroom.  enrollment starts tomorrow.  fees will help support the Liam Mann Wii Fund.  discount available to someone who can fix a broken DS charger.

wordless wednesday

snow!  five inches of beautiful, soft, white powder.  (i try to be somewhat positive on this blog.  so i won't get started on how we've been housebound for five days now.  suffice it to say that we've had LOTS of family bonding.) 

and THIS is what you do after the snow has turned to slush and you're still stuck at home: