Around 6:30 we were getting hungry for breakfast and the girls were starting to wake up so we decided to find some place to stop and eat. By this point I'm pretty sure we were somewhere in North Carolina or at least very close to it. All I wanted was a donut from Krispy Kreme. There was not one in sight. Really? In the state where Krispy Kremes originated from?! Anyway, we settled for a Shoney's which was pretty decent. Then again I had been up for about 24 hours (minus a few naps in the car) by this point so pretty much anything would have been good! We were definitely a sight: the girls and I were all in our PJ's, Walker and I were wearing our glasses, Taylor's hair had big snarls in it and was sticking out in every direction. And then at some point during breakfast, Taylor peed right through her diaper (and onto the highchair- don't worry we cleaned it up) so she got stripped down to just her (fresh) diaper right before we left.
We pulled into Greensboro shortly before 9. And after we all got freshened up we went to the toy store! Our niece Courtney is officially potty-trained; she filled up her potty chart which meant she got to pick a new toy out. But being the little ballerina she is, she opted instead for a new leotard, tutu, and ballet slippers. Here she is in all her adorableness:
Then, that afternoon, Walker and I both got to take much needed naps!
The next morning started off with a bang....literally. Walker (or maybe it was my sister) had taken Taylor downstairs to start her breakfast. Then Lucy was fussing so Walker came back up and was getting her. I was desperately trying to sleep in. All of a sudden I hear a loud crash, Taylor's cries and my sister shouting up the staircase "guys, guys!" Walker went down there right away. In my sleepy haze I assumed it wasn't a big deal and stayed in bed but after a minute I decided I really should go see what happened. I get downstairs and I see Walker holding Taylor and blood dripping down the back of her shirt. I didn't really know what to think or say- I was a little shocked honestly. But I guess Taylor had been sitting in the booster chair and pushed her legs against the table (something she's been doing lately) and this time pushed too hard and her chair tipped right over. The result of the crash was splitting the back of her head open. Thankfully, Jen's neighbor is a doctor and so Jen called her right away and she came over to check Taylor out. Would you believe that Taylor had already stopped crying by the time the neighbor arrived? The neighbor said we should take her to the ER because she'll probably have to get a staple put in to close the wound. But she said that the wound didn't look too serious. So Walker and my sister took Taylor to the ER and I stayed behind with Lucy. Turns out Taylor needed 2 staples. And apparently she took them like a champ! The doctor didn't use anything to numb the area and Taylor didn't even cry.
So after that whole ordeal, it was decided Krispy Kreme donuts were in order (YESSS!). Taylor very much enjoyed her first Krispy Kreme.
The spot on her forehead is chocolate, not an injury. And notice how her chair is now against the window? So she couldn't push on it anymore. We did the same thing at home; moved her chair in between the wall and the table. And when we go back to Miss Monica's in the fall, I'll ask if we can make sure Taylor sits against the wall. I mean hopefully she's learned not to push back from the table but you never know.....
Anyway, that afternoon we went to the pool that my sister's family belongs to. Taylor had clearance to go swimming as long as she didn't go under the water. So we stayed in the baby pool.
That evening, we went to my sister's in-laws' house since they had just moved to the neighborhood. They had their other 2 grandchildren staying with them. The older kids had a great time goofing around and Taylor had a good time just watching them.
The next morning my sister arranged a playdate with a friend of hers who has a little girl a few months younger than Taylor. The girls did some nice parallel playing. We played up in Courtney's room reading books for a bit. Then my sister took Zoe (Zoe's mom had some errands to run- can't say I blame her!) to do something so I was watching Taylor and holding Lucy. Taylor wandered out of Courtney's room over to one of the staircases. I could see her shadow and I thought she was on the otherside of the railing. Then I hear THUMP, thump thumpthumpthumpthump thump. And Taylor starts wailing. All I could do was yell "Sh*t!! JENNN!" Taylor suffered her 4th (yep count 'em, 4!) accident. She had rolled halfway down the stairs. But as always she was just fine. I think it scared her more than anything. I will say that I am SO glad we don't have any stairs at our house!!
That night I decided to do my middle-of-the-night pumps in the family room so I could sit on a couch (I had been doing them in the bonus room where there are only bean bag chairs) and watch TV. Too bad I forgot to tell my sister that and so the minute I put one pinkie toe over the threshold into the family room, this loud siren filled the house. Ho.ly. crap! It scared the living daylights out of me. I felt so bad I woke everyone up but I never heard any of the kids cry. Anyway, Dan turned off the alarm and I got settled on the couch for pumping. I was maybe 30 min. into pumping and I hear a WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! on their front window. Okay if my heart was beating fast before, it was NOTHING compared to this! And of course I couldn't jump up and hide; I was hooked up to the pump! So all I could do was get a couch pillow and kind of cower behind it. I sat there praying for someone else to wake up and come investigate it for me. Dan to the rescue again! He looked around downstairs and concluded that their house had been egged. I was kinda surprised that people still did that on nights other than Halloween. The next morning my sister reached the (probably accurate) conclusion that the eggers probably didn't see me on the couch (it's hard to see in their windows) but rather the flickering of the TV so they threw the eggs to scare whoever might be in the house awake. Well it worked. I was definitely freaked out!
Definitely not a relaxing night in terms of pumping goes but after that we made sure the alarm was turned off at night and the doors connecting the family room to the front room were closed so no one would be able to see me or the TV and get tempted.
On Friday we traveled to Raleigh to two museums. We went to the Natural History Museum and Marbles- a FABULOUS children's museum. The girls didn't get much out of the first museum although Taylor did like pushing her stroller around:
And Lucy just hung out- something she's very good at
On Saturday we went back to the pool and Taylor took a nice long nap on the pool deck. And of course I didn't have the camera. Oh well. You can just picture it. That evening the guys took the older kids to a minor league baseball game. Jen and I hung back with Taylor and Lucy and we watched The Adjustment Bureau, which was actually pretty good.
Sunday was our last day there and we drove about an hour and a half to Fairy Stone State Park. It had a nice beach with a very cool roped off kid's area that had floating structures for kids to play on. Taylor enjoyed more wandering around the beach.
And Lucy again just kinda hung out in her carseat. I guess that bottle was pretty good. ;)
Unfortunately for us, some rain clouds rolled in pretty quickly and it went from lightly sprinkling to heavy downpour within five minutes. We had to say our goodbyes through the car windows as we were leaving to get on the road. We thought we were saving time on our trip by leaving from the park since we were in Virginia. Turns out we didn't save that much time. We had to get out of the mountains first so we were on a lot of little country roads. I'm SO glad we weren't driving them at night because they made me nervous just being on them in broad daylight! Since we left in the middle of the afternoon, we had to stop a lot more, including when that nice West Virginia trooper pulled us over for going 56 in a 40. I don't know why he gave us a court summons; clearly we're not going back to WV!! We'll just have to pay the ticket but I guarantee if I had been driving, I would have gotten off with a warning. Well actually we wouldn't have gotten pulled over in the first place because I wouldn't have been going that fast ;).
We finally pulled into Champaign around 2:30 AM amidst a pretty good storm. We left everything out in the car except the bottles, breastmilk, and my pump. Oh and the girls! hahaha! We figured everything else could wait until morning. And then we all collapsed into bed.
We had a great time in NC and I'm so glad we went but I mean it this time: we are NOT traveling anywhere far with the girls for the next year!
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