home and a rest in my comfy chair....

Our trip to the children's museum was half good and half horrid. The horrid half? I had a tummy ache that started right after I payed the astonishingly expensive one year membership fee, which no longer includes four free tickets to the butterfly exhibit. The rumbling, aching, light-headedness...I had to run to the bathroom. Not once or twice, but eight or nine times. It was not fun. Thankfully Evelyn Joy is responsible enough to keep an eye on her siblings well enough that I didn't feel the need to drag them all with me each time. A few times when I told Evelyn I was going to make a run for the bathroom again, she sighed this huge sigh, like I was just doing it to bother her. As if! I LOVE that museum!

Then the kids started saying how hungry they were, and for once, food didn't sound good. We ate anyway. One mom of four boys pointed to our table and said to her husband, "She has FIVE kids and they sit quieter than our boys. Probably because she only has one boy." I didn't enlighten her, much to the relief of my kids, who were eyeing me with that Please Don't, Mom look.

They were good though, except for Camille, who started slouching at the table. Evelyn said loudly, "There's no need to eat like a slob, sit up and behave." Camille didn't feel like sitting up. So it left me having to support Evelyn's request/demand, because I do have her watch the kids sometimes, so they do have to listen to her. But. I would have said it differently, and not challenged Camille so directly.

Little ones in a big family do have lots of parents.

One good thing about today: I was prepared. I had stocked my purse with lots of Just In Case items for our trip to Gettysburg, so I still had tummy tablets in there. One bad thing about today was that I saw so many parents being snippy with each other. rrr, snarl. snap. Seriously? In front of the kids? Then I saw a little boy get a wicked spanking from his young blonde mama. She yelled at him, threatened him, snatched him up, sat down, put him across her knee, and whack whack whack. Then she started yelling at him, just in case his tears from the spanking weren't enough. He sat on the bench, she stood towering over him, finger in his face, yelling. I just walked away, tears in my eyes. Seriously? I know. Sometimes kids don't listen. But. And this isn't Walmart, either, most people in this museum have enough regard for their kids to be taking them on a fun outing, not just dragging them around a store. Not that I don't drag mine...ha.

The thing is, in my humble opinion, there are times when Daddy doesn't do things right, help enough, whatever.....but for goodness sakes, ladies, please don't act so witchy with a capitol B! It is not going to help! Use your nice voice, be kind! You want him to treat you well? Treat HIM well! And if you don't like something he does, either save it for later, or at least whisper....no on likes to be nagged at in public. Not kids, not adults.

anyway. I am here at home, don't know why my stomach acted up so much today. I had an apple and some almonds for breakfast on the road, and half a peanut butter rice cake thing for lunch...then a few "Paleo" cookies made with almond flour, on the way home. I was so hungry when I walked in the door, I ate two of the chocolate chip cookies that Margaret had just taken out of the oven, blah.

But my stomach is still hurting, I am tired, don't feel like making dinner. I would really like to take my library book and crawl into bed with it. Oh poor me.

Not.

I am glad to be home. I am glad the tablets I took kicked in so I could make it home. Perhaps I will just tell the kids it is a Get Your Own Cereal night. Won't kill them. And I am just not hungry at all, thank you Margaret....