The Overflowing Cup: February 2011

Friday, February 18, 2011

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

I've never had such a let-down from a vacation before. I wanna go back!! It doesn't help that here I am stuck in a Minnesota February. Yes, yes, I've heard it's nice outside. We've even been credited with bringing some warm weather home with us. But really, when you've been outside in this:

it's a bit hard to get excited about 50 degrees, dead things, and a bunch of dirty snow. We go from "Look, a whale spout!", and "Look at those beautiful flowers!" to my husband commenting, "Look at that black hill," on the way home from the airport, about a dirty pile of snow.

It's like comparing rainbows to dog poop.

Almost literally.

Now, I really, really loved coming home to my boys. I really did. In fact, I loved it unexpectedly much. But I still feel a little like saying, "Okay boys, pack your bags! We're movin' out!"

Is this a phase? A post-vacation slump? Or, could it possibly be the Holy Spirit telling me that we need to move to Hawaii? (This is my personal favorite interpretation.)

Our first night back, we were eating dinner and we were encouraging the boys to come up with three questions each about our trip. They were excited about learning more anyway, but Noah was a bit reticent at first and he wanted to whisper his question to Daddy first.

"Why does Mama look so pretty?"

Poor kid, I really looked good to him after 10 days!

It was very sweet and just made me more aware of the kind of unconditional love our kids give us. Here I was, having deserted them for 10 days, having literally not slept for almost 2 days, and Noah was impressed by my beauty. May it always be!

And now, I'm going to go live vicariously through my own vacation pictures and have some Tropical Dreams ice cream in my mind.

On the homefront

We're home, and amidst the brown deadness, even with 50 degree weather, it's still just not the same. But coming back to the tribe of 5 was somehow better than anything I'd experienced in Hawaii. Absence does, after all, make the heart grow fonder :)

Guess who learned a new skill while we were away? He started out with the pack `n play, but today at nap, he climbed out of his crib and happily greeted me in the hall because his bedroom door hadn't gotten all the way shut (thank the Lord he can't turn knobs yet!). I put him back in and then did a Math lesson with the boys. I kept hearing banging on the wall upstairs and suspecting he'd climbed out again, so made a mental note to check on him after the older ones were outside. Lo and behold...