In January we also went to Ohio (or “hi-o” as Carson calls it) to visit Rick’s mom for the weekend. And I do love how perfectly brainwashed my kids are because when we stopped to go potty at a gas station in Ohio, Mallory walked past a display of OSU Buckeye stuff and said “oooh yuck. Boo Ohio”.
We had a fun weekend in Cincinnati – Grandma took the kids to a Build-A-Bear workshop place to build-a-bear…Carson didn’t get that you weren’t supposed to take the full stuffed animal with you when you picked out what you wanted to make, instead of taking the un-stuffed animal carcas. But it was really cute…they had you rub a little heart on your face and had a cute saying they said while you did it (then they put the heart inside the stuffed animal).
The kids got to “wash” their stuffed animals after they were stuffed and sewed up, and then also dress them up. Not surprisingly, Mallory picked the pinkest and frilliest outfit for her pink stuffed bear, and equally not surprisingly, Carson picked out a Lightening McQueen outfit for his bear, along with a football (they only had Buckeye and Bengal football uniforms for the bears, otherwise I’d guess his bear would have gone that route).
The very last step was naming your bear and making a certificate for it. We threw some names at Carson, and not surprisingly, his bear got named “Nard”. Equally not surprisingly, Mallory named her bear “Katelyn” (which is also her American Girl doll’s name).
We also got to see Rick’s aunt & uncle (the Great Aunt Sharon & the Great Uncle Gary) for dinner at the great Montgomery Inn restaurant. The kids were surprisingly well-behaved at dinner, it made me happy.
It’s tough being in a one room hotel room with two kids who both want to be by your side and go out to eat with two kids who both want to sit by you (this happens at home too but I’m not worried about one crying about how unfair it is when we are in the privacy of our own kitchen…). And God forbid the other kid is sleeping where you want to sleep, etc. I try to be fair about who gets to be next to me but not having our routine of home (where for some reason Carson knows [or has resigned himself to the fact] that Mallory sleeps on mom’s side of the bed) is TOUGH with a capital T. After getting both kids to fall asleep, we moved Carson to the pull out couch and then when he woke up at 5a and came to the other bed, I moved back to the pullout bed with him and we fell back asleep until 5.45a when Mallory woke up from the big bed (where she was sleeping with Rick), and wanted to climb into the not quite full-size pullout bed with Carson and me.
By that time I’m wide awake anyway but ARGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!