Stairs of Doom

2 summers ago I decided to fly myself and my 2 kids to Houston to see my dad. The flight had a 2 hour layover in Detroit. Not fun! So I decided to get the oh so lovely kid leashes. I don't like them, but thought what the hey, 2 kids, busy airport, I'll suck it up.
We left from Midway in Chicago. My friend was kind enough to stuff all of us and all of our crap into her car and drive the 3 hours to the airport.
We get into the airport, check our luggage outside at the handy dandy luggage check. We enter the airport, with the carseat, 5 carryons and of course the kid leashes wrapped around my wrist. My son decides he wants to ride the escalator. Usually this is not a problem. He steps on, starts going down, my 3 year old freaks out and refuses to get on, I can't pick her up because of our ridiculous amount of crap I was carrying, my boy is still going down, down, down...until that is he reaches the end of his leash and falls backwards. I can't get it off my wrist cause it is pulling and I have too much crap. His pants get pulled down and he is laying practically naked on the stairs. Finally after a huge crowd gathers, mostly i think upset cause they need to use the escalator my son is so rudely hogging, I throw all of our stuff down the escalator including the end of the leash. While trying to convince my daughter that she really does want to go down the stairs of doom some kind stranger jumps in front of my and carries my boy to the awaiting airport security. We held some of the confiscated water bottles on his scrapes until the police officer comes by on his segway so that we can file a report. Not the way I wanted to start the vacation but we made it.
We get to Detroit. Karate Kid refuses to even look at an escalator and I keep yelling at them to hold my hand, since shortly after 'the incident' I threw the leashes in the trash. I am holding hands, carryons, a stroller and a carseat for about an hour when I beg the lady at the gate to let me set it down for a few minutes. She refused, thankfully another gate attendant took mercy on my and I stashed the carseat behind the desk for a awhile. When it is time to board the plane I get told, "I don't think we have room for that carseat" I said, "HUH?" The flight attendant then said, "well we don't have an extra seat" I replied " she can't sit in it?" She said " does she have her own ticket?" I said " umm yeah...she's 3." She says "oh, ok then your fine" I walk down the aisle, banging just about everyone in the head or arm or leg on the way down and finally we get seated and make our way to Houston.
When we got there however Karate Kid wanted to swim in the Gulf, I told him that would hurt like hell since he was scraped literally neck to knee caps. He agreed and was happy to play in the sand and look for sea shells. :)
The return trip home was not quite as eventful but not without its problems. When checking in the night before our flight I noticed that they have my and my 2 children seperated by about 3 rows, and the 2 of them are seperated by the same. Not cool! So I said something and the best they could do was put us in first class seperated by just 1 row for the first half of the flight. Some kind strangers let us all sit together and we all had a nice comfy ride to Minnesota, from there to Midway we were seperated by an aisle in coach but we made it. We came out of it alive. However I will NEVER fly alone with my kids again, especially since there are 3 now. I would much rather drive. And I decided to check everything except for 1 bag on the way home, Much easier!

Oh By the way. I am pretty sure there is now a label on kid leashes that say " DO NOT USE ON ESCALATORS" and it is all because of me, I was that idiot. ;)

How about you? any crazy vacation stories?

It's been about a week since I last updated my little space on the net. I really need to start doing this more often. :)
We are all unpacked, ok so most of the boxes are shoved into closets until I can figure out where I want to put the abundance of CRAP I have aquired. I started out my journey to Single Mommy Hood with not a whole lot of anything. And moving oh about a billion times since then I thought that my stash had dwindled significantly. Man was I wrong! For the first time in about 3 years I have all of our stuff in 1 place. Let just say for aout the next 10 years my kids shouldn't need much of anything. :)
It is about a month into summer, you know the kids holiday. The mom's holiday really starts when kids go BACK to school. My kids are with me 24/7. All the time, no matter where I go or what I do I feel like a momma duck with her ducklings following her in a nice quiet row. Ok thats a joke. There is nothing quiet about my 4 little ducklings, you may notice I have added an extra duck I will explain that later. They are loud and touch everything. Thankfully they have been spending most of their days outside.
We have been doing fun things together, watching movies, playing board games and we even tiedyed shirts one day. I ended up with 4 children looking like really pretty easter eggs.
This weekend is the baby's first birthday. I am sad, and excited. She is my last baby. I am in denial about her growing up. I will keep you all updated about how that goes.
Now about my 4th duckling...that would be Buddy. He is my stepson, I really dislike that word so from here on out I will only refer to him as my half son or my son. I have been his 'other mommy' since he was about 1. Thankfully I am still able to spend time with him. After raising him for much of his life, he is 10 now, I miss having him around terribly! He came home from a semester with family and daddy let me have him. I have my whole family, well almost, back together again and it is wonderful. But he will be leaving me again in just a couple weeks to go live with his 'real mom' btw I dislike that word too cause I am his real mom, ive taken him to dr appointments and conferences and ive gotten the handmade presents at mother's day and christmas, Ive seen all his christmas programs, I AM his Real Mom! ok sorry I will stop that little tirade now. I love him, he is my son, my oldest boy, my other kids biggest brother and I am going to miss him terribly.
Thats about it from the bend in the river. I will keep updating when I can. Things are a little busy here doing things alone. :)

Five Days since you Laughed at me.

Hello bloggers! How has everyone been? Things have been busy busy in the land on the river.
First back in April we started looking for a new(bigger) place to call home. Our 2bedroom closet just wasn't hacking it anymore. So we started searching, the kids and I. I found quite a few places most of which were either A. Ratholes, or B. WAAAAY out of our price range. While I would have Loved to live in a place that my kids referred to as 'the hotel' I just couldn't justify the price. Even if the square footage was more than in my 4bdrm house that I had in a previous life. Driving out to my moms house one day which yes is in Timbuktu. We saw a sign, I didnt think about calling it honestly cause I don't want to live in Egypt but we saw it. Then a couple weeks later I found an ad in the paper. House for rent...cheap...Ok so I bit. Guess what, its the house for rent out in Egypt by my moms house in Timbuktu! Small world. Turns out. I love the house, we love the house. No it doesn't begin to compare to 'the hotel' we could have lived in but its cute. And It is our own and for the first time since the end of my former life I have all of my belongings in 1 place and not scattered all over Central Africa! :) It is a rather nice feeling. There is just enough room for all of us, read: all of our crap.
So April and May were busy busy moving from the center of civilization to the middle of nowhere. But we LOVE it. The kids have been spending the days running through cornfields and the nights catching toads. What more could a kid want! Oh the Dog loves it too! Double bonus.
Now it is June and the Baby will be 1 in just a week! Oh My where has the time gone? So the last couple weeks I have been trying to plan some sort of celebration to mark this huge milestone of hers. Just to when it is all done start planning the Princess's Birthday.
I also got the wonderful opportunity to photograph a wedding in June. It was so much fun and I hope I get the chance to do more. I really like being a photographer
Always something happening in the house in the QC, oh I guess I am not in the QC anymore, oh well still a qcmama at heart.