Our Greatest Adventure Yet

Last week, I took the kids on perhaps the greatest adventure yet of my career as a mother. I took The Boy, The Girl, and The Baby on The Baby's first airplane trip to Houston, to visit Grandma and Grandpa Texas. The Dad stayed home to work.

Everyone did quite well on the flight down there. The Girl calls taking off "landing off," which I find pretty cute if I do say so myself. She was very anxious once we landed in Houston; she seemed to be afraid that they'd lock us in the plane and we wouldn't be able to get out. She cried and kept saying "Move, people!" which was quite amusing to the passengers behind us. Someone behind me told me that I did a beautiful job with all 3 of them on the flight by myself. It was nonstop getting out and putting away of amusements -- iPod with movie rental, markers and coloring books, little toys, snacks, etc. -- with a several trips to the bathroom in between.

We were unfortunately dogged by illness during our 10 days in Houston. My body seems to need to check out Houston's medical care every time I go down there. This time, I visited my parents' dentist to have a tooth extracted (it had abscessed) and, later, took The Girl and The Baby to Urgent Care with ear infections.

But we did manage to have some fun. My parents took The Boy and The Girl to the park several times, and my mom and I took the kids to the fabulous Houston Children's Museum one day. The Baby and I had a great time in their Tot Spot. I got to visit Andrea at Katy Mills Mall, eat the best tortillas evah at Lupe Tortilla with Julie, and The Baby and Michael oogled each other as his mom and I had a quick breakfast at La Madeleine.

The Girl ate mussels when my parents invited their neighbors over for lunch. She says: "Mama, I like mussels! They're fish!" The Boy went out to dinner with my parents and Aunt Sam. I snuck in a nap or two. The Girl did lots of "crafts" with Grandma Texas. The Boy wrestled with Grandpa Texas. The Baby practiced walking. They all colored with chalk on my parents' patio and dug in the dirt in their yard. The Boy and I looked at worms, grubs, roly polys and other bugs in the dirt. We took baths in my parents' giant jacuzzi tub (The Boy christened it "The Super Tub"). We had a picnic lunch and watched the Cessnas take off and land at Hooks Airport.

I didn't get to Chloe Dao's store, or to walk around The Heights, or to the Rodeo, or to the other things I wanted to do while we were there. But that's OK. The Kids got to spend lots of time with their grandparents. And we got to enjoy some warmth and sunshine while we were there too.