end of vacation, part 1

...
Tomorrow afternoon, DH arrives. Things are going to be a lot different with him here. When it's just me & the kids, we're a lot more relaxed and go-with-the-flow. At least it seems that way. I'm not sure how we're all going to adjust to having DH here. We're in a pretty good routine now...

We're all excited about his arrival though. We have all really missed him a lot. Still, since it was our last night of vacation-from-DH, I let the kids stay up until 10 watching Pirates of the Caribbean. Say what you will, I contend that is a near-perfect movie.

Having said that, though, it was a quite a shock to me to find that my mother couldn't stand it. Yes, it's violent -- but the violence is very clean, there's barely a drop of blood in the entire movie... I'd say it's on par with any Errol Flynn movie. It's basically a live action cartoon. But Mom gave up on it after the first really good sword fight between Jack and Will at the blacksmith's workshop. I believe the word she used was "barbaric", and she was kind of annoyed at me for letting the kids watch it. (DS2 pegged it, though: "This reminds me of Peter Pan," he said.) This is the same woman who intends to screen the literally hundreds of movies she has on VHS tapes (long story) before getting rid of them... she never watches movies, and if PotC is too violent for her, the idea of her going through all those tapes becomes even more absurd. That was a telling moment.

We had a pleasant day today, even though it was cool and cloudy. We went out and did a litte shopping, got DD a beginning piano book, and then went downtown to the splendid Eight Cousins Bookshop, where I got the kids some books and a really cute card game called Hisss, where you have to build snakes. It all depends on luck, and in the last game we played I felt really guilty because I kept on drawing heads or tail pieces and I ended up with 5 snakes and DS1 had none. He handled this loss impressively well, though -- not even the slightest sign of a tantrum. I found DS2 and adorable Kipper pop-up book so of course I had to buy it even though it was $16. Yes, he's spoiled, but the truth is we all really love those books, so it's not like it was just for him.

We took a very long route home, past Wood Neck beach which is gorgeous. I hope we get to go with there with DH at least once... the forecast for the next few days is pretty bleak. C'mon, I want my beach weather back! At least with DH here, I have someone to spell me on the driving if we head up to Boston for the day...

DS2 seems to finally have turned the corner on his illness. He threw a couple of major tantrums this evening but they were just that, tantrums, not indicators of illness or anything. You can always tell when they switch from crying and screaming to laughing like turning a page... it's remarkable. He ate a little more today, too, mostly sweets of course but we'll work on real food more tomorrow. I'm relieved because I was wondering when the antibiotic was going to kick in. Seems as if it's finally working... I didn't have to give DS2 any Motrin or Tylenol today at all.

Well, now I truly have no idea what's in store for the next 2 weeks... this should be interesting, and fun, I hope!