There's a picture of Dominic and Emerald on the ride back to Abilene :)
I decided that who and what Benjamin is right now is still pretty ill-defined as he is only four months old, so he will get his own 'getting to know you' post next time around, when he is a little over a year and is starting to have more of an individualistic personality.
We got back to Jarrod and Julia's on Sunday night; we stopped at Eric and Emerald's on the way and had a pizza dinner with them. Monday, Jarrod and Julia had off so we went to Wal-Mart to get potty training stuff for Andrew, which Julia is going to start working on soon. While we were there, I found a leash puppy pal for Gabriel--it is basically a little fuzzy lab puppy that sits on his back like a backpack, with the four legs reaching around to clasp on his chest. It has a matching fuzzy leash.
Okay, so child leashes are a little controversial. I am well aware of the judgmental, incredulous looks that I get from other parents as Gabriel toddles about on the other end of the leash. After this story, however, you will see why I felt I needed a puppy pal leash and harness.
I buy the puppy and we head to the mall so the kids can play in the fun zone. I put Gabe's puppy harness on so that I can see how he is going to cope with it--I keep the loop of the leash around my wrist, but Gabe holds my hand docilely as we walk through the mall. Maybe he doesn't need it after all??
Feeling more confident, I take it off as we take off the kids' shoes and let them run around and play. Benjamin just sleeps in his car seat, and when he wakes up he goes shopping with Auntie Julia. Emerald made a friend right away--a pretty little girl that introduced herself as Blake. It was really funny because Emerald replies with, "My name is Jessica", the little story-teller!!
I am running around, getting pictures for the blog and trying to corral the kids when another mother approaches me and tells me one has made a break for it. The mall is fairly empty so I can see that Gabe has all ready gotten about five stores away and is running hard. I take off at a full sprint, people laughing at me as I give chase to a delighted and laughing little boy. It was quite funny to everyone else but to me it was terrifying--what if he had gotten lost or further away before I noticed he was gone? What if someone else picked him up? He was running for all he was worth and had a pretty significant lead on me.
I did, obviously, catch him fairly quickly; the rest of the time we were there, I stood guard at the entrance so that he couldn't make a second escape attempt...the little stinker crawled over the wall!! It made me realize to what extent I have a "wanderer"--a child that copes with stress or boredom by taking off. A woman on my ASD forum posted a great article about wanderers that was full of great advice for how to contain Gabe and how to recover him as quickly as possible if he does slip away. One of which was: Leash him while you still can! It will help in public places.
For dinner, Jarrod made a venison taco cheesy noodle casserole--he made the mistake of telling Emerald that it was deer meat, because she refused to touch it saying "I don't want to eat moose noodles!" How she arrived at that conclusion, I can not fathom, but it was quite hilarious.
Tuesday we went to the zoo with Emerald and the children she watches during the day, but I am going to give that trip it's own post.
Jarrod and Julia had to go back to work on Wednesday, so the kids and I got back into a bit of routine, taking an extra long bubble bath in their clawfoot bathtub. Jarrod came home and had lunch with us, and when Mom got home from work we made tacos for dinner. The really neat thing about Wednesday was that Benjamin slept through the night for the first time; mom had bought him infant rice cereal and baby food, so little Ben ate until he was too uncomfortable to move. He was apparently full enough to stay that way all night long!
Wednesday night was also church. Jarrod and Julia and Mom all go to this relatively small church--about 15 members, plus Jarrod and all his friends--so they have dinner provided every Wednesday night; one of them volunteers to cook it. Emerald and Jarrod collaborated to make cheesy broccoli soup and shredded chicken mixed salad, plus there were peaches and peach cobbler and M&M cookies.
Thursday Jarrod came home again for lunch and took me and the kids to Burger King. Emerald and Gabriel loved playing in the play place, but it was hard to drag them away to eat. Emerald of course loves fast food and watched Oso Special Bear; Gabriel completely ignored his food to look sadly at the play place until we were ready to leave. Mom brought home Carino's for dinner--I got lemon-pepper mahi mahi with artichoke hearts and squash and zucchini, which would have been really good if I had thought to warm it up. We tried to watch Mars Needs Moms but the kids were too loud and rowdy.
The low note of Thursday was when I went to take a shower after dinner--as soon as I had climbed in the aforementioned claw foot bathtub, it began to lean precariously. I yelled for helped, but unfortunately my mother answered the call; she could not stop laughing because I had broken one of the feet off the tub. I had to go get Jarrod to come and fix the tub, feeling like a rhino the whole time for breaking a solid tub like that. All my friends got a pretty good laugh out of that one.
I ended up staying up quite late that night because Gabe opted out of dinner as well; by the time we were laying down for bed, he was too hungry to sleep and too sleepy to eat. I made him a caramel cocoa, but he just cried and cried for hours, his little tummy growling noisily and him refusing to eat or drink anything I gave him until he just fell asleep out of exhaustion.
Friday passed quietly enough with us generally trying to pack up and get ready to go home the next day. After Mom got off of work, she took the kids and me to a frozen yogurt shop to get a treat. I got limoncello with strawberries and blueberries; Emerald got red velvet cake with chocolate chips. She loved it so much, but it look like she had just eaten a squirrel or something because she had red dripping down her face and all over her top. Gabe doesn't do utensils so well and would be more interested in finger painting with the fro-yo than actually eating it, so we gave him a small cup full of M&Ms and gummy bears.
While we were eating our snack, Mom and I decided we wanted to make a nice dinner for Julia since it was my last night there. We discussed getting together a picnic dinner to eat at the park because it was unseasonably warm, but we worried about Gabe not eating or wanting to run off. So instead we got groceries and we made: Parmesan and herb-crusted panko chicken, crushed red potatoes, braised and browned Brussels sprouts with red onion, and potato rolls. I think it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.
Julia took me out to a martini bar after dinner with Emerald and Marnie, friends of hers and Jarrod's while Jarrod and Mom watched the kids. It was a cute place with big fancy chandeliers and girly touches everywhere, with drinks with names I was much to embarrassed to order aloud. It was a lot of fun hanging out and talking. Afterwards, we went to Emerald's house and had tea.
Saturday was the day we were going home--Mom was driving us. I called Michael who told me he had to work late and wouldn't be home until 7 pm, so none of us felt in a big rush to leave until 3 at the latest.
Poor Michael was trying to surprise me because Joe gave him the second half of the day off to greet us when we got there, but he couldn't surprise me because he fibbed and we didn't get out of there until 3.30. I felt really bad when he told me, but he was expecting us home at around 3 or so.
We went to Kohl's and exchanged Emerald's gift, and got her a big floppy sun hat, a pair of mittens with hearts on the back, and a pair of chocolate-colored corduroys. Once Butters was done at the pet salon, we picked him up and headed out to Lubbock. We ended up getting home at about 7 that night, incidentally the time Michael would have gotten home had he opted to stay at work. We got Chinese for dinner, which was super yummy; I never get to eat Chinese any more.
Mom stayed the night and we took her and the kids to church the next morning at Monterey and stayed for church for the first time. The kids went to the hero worship, which is a special program for the kids during service. Michael and I went to that while Mom stayed with Gabriel; it was pretty good, if you ignore the beatboxer behind us (which we tried very hard to do).
She headed back to Abilene after having a fajita lunch with us, and told us she would come visit again the next long weekend she had.
It was a good visit, and we are happy to be home now :)
--Andie--
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