Are We There Yet? Going Fishing

DAY SIX:  GOING FISHING

The kiddos had a fairly decent amount of sleep.  Not like their home routine, mind you, but better than they’ve had for a while.  We tried to get an early start today—we did make it in time for breakfast, but didn’t hit the road quite when we wanted to.

We had a very long day of driving and hardly stopped for anything.  K & S were great B entertainers as long as we made them close their books and put away their DSI’s.  We had a surprise for the kids in Topeka which kept them cooperative and guessing as to what was in store.  It was sort of depressing losing an hour while driving east, almost like it was a trick that was keeping us in the van longer than needful.  We were driving ahead of some big storm, which has sort of been the story of the last several days.  It always rains at night, but the days are clear for driving.  I’m grateful that the weather hasn’t slowed us down.  We’ve got a lot of country to cover.

At LONG last, we reached Topeka and tumbled out of the van, zoomed up to our room to throw on swimsuits.  The big surprise involved water, as the kids had surmised.  B was so excited about the prospect of swimming that she climbed the stairs in record time.

A three story waterslide—that was the big attraction.  The kids had a blast.  This was a much needed outlet for their pent up energy.  B was absolutely fearless and was ready to go ahead and attempt to swim the length of the pool.  She was even trying to do the proper arm movements for freestyle.  I had to keep a very close eye on her.  She wanted to go down the slide, but had to settle for jumping off the stairs into my arms, though she didn’t always wait until I was ready to catch her.  She is unfailingly eager to do what her older siblings do.

R went down the waterslide for the first time.  She was quite eager to slide and showed no reluctance.  But once on the slide, she wouldn’t let herself go fast.  She’d slow herself down by dragging her hands along the sides of the slide.  She came around the bottom bend sooo slowly and it was only when she saw me (or K who was sometimes assigned to catch her) that she would tuck her arms in and let herself finally speed up.  She was visibly relieved to see that there was really someone waiting there to catch her.

At one point, I was sitting on the edge of the pool with B sitting right beside me.  I was trying to snap some photos of the kids as they came down the waterslide and had assigned one of the girls to keep a close eye on B due to her daredevil antics.  Unfortunately, their attention must have lapsed just at the moment B decided that she was done sitting there and was ready to get back in the water.  She pushed herself off the ledge and slid into the water . . . and proceeded to sink.  I deftly fished her out without even dropping the lens cap I was holding, a ninja move if ever I saw one.  It’s nice to know that I have some ninja reflexes that can surface when there’s a need.

B came up sputtering and fine, but I wish that this little experience had helped her develop more of a healthy fear of the water.  No such luck.  Within five minutes, she was back to jumping off the stairs into my arms.

After a terrible dinner from Panera (NEVER let them mix soups for you just because they are running out and ALWAYS check that they actually give you the sandwiches that you bought!), and some nice warm baths, we wanted to tuck our tired babies into bed.

But our tired babies still had too much energy from being stuck in their buckles for 8 hours, so they had other ideas.  Like horseplay and jumping from one bed to the other.  I figured that as long as they didn’t land on the floor with a big thud, making our downstairs neighbors think the ceiling was collapsing, we were all good.

We shall see what craziness tomorrow brings, because we’re not there yet.