Gullible

This was kind of mean, but in our defense, Lyla was an overtired howler monkey all day.

"Hey Lyla, did you know the tooth fairy stopped giving money and now gives only broccoli?"

"Just kidding!"

"Lyla, do you think we should give all your princesses to Rowan?"

"Just kidding!"

"Lyla, we're putting you to bed at 5:30 tonight."

"Just kidding!"

Gator

From Madison to Elk Mound, where Julie's parents live, Rowan was a terrible, terrible person.  Screaming, shrieking, the kid was inconsolable.  Horns grew out of his head and the tears boiled out of his eyes.

Then he rode Grandpa John's Gator, and that fixed everything.

He also unleashed a raging shit and got his diaper changed on said Gator.

And now we're home.  Finally.

One week later

We have all these parenting standards informed by countless discussions, occasional research, and, we like to think, an overall sense of decency.  But then after one week of vacation, we practically qualify for our own show on TLC.

"WAAAAAAAAH!"

"Give him the donut!"

"But that's his last shirt!"

"Just take it off!  Give him the donut!"

"WAAAAAAAAH!"

"Put a towel on him or something!  And get that bowl over there!  That one!  Just dump out the Apple Jacks!"

"Seriously!?"

"WAAAAAAAAH!"

Time to go home.

Almost over...

Good sky again.

We're headed home tomorrow.  Actually not home; we're stopping in Madison at a hotel.  Couldn't bear the thought of eleventy-mizillion straight hours in the car.

Day after day without a nap, the kids are slowly unraveling.

That's a five minute nap Lyla squeezed into the car ride from the hotel to the cabin.  Tomorrow in the car my guess is they'll both either sleep, whine/cry, or watch Rapunzel.  Probably all of the above, all at the same time.

Double bogey

My grandma's husband Merle golfs three times a week.  Julie and I have golfed three times total (combined), so we were a little nervous to insert ourselves into his round yesterday.  Then again, we got four hours away from the kids, so the accompanying feelings of glee ultimately squashed every speck of golf anxiety.

Plus, she looks like she knows what she's doing:

Julie and I were pretty evenly matched, playing best ball while Merle played through.  Usually each time we took a shot, one of us hit it far and/or accurately enough to give the illusion of semi-competence.  I can definitely see why people golf, though if I continue doing it, I hope I remain content to merely hit the ball straight without obsessing over everything that proper golfers obsess about. 

Twenty years from now, Julie and I will belong to some suburban golf organization and have golf friends and our own clubs.  We'll talk golf, reminiscing about tough lies and the time that drive hit a bird right out of the sky.  Hopefully I'll be only mildly embarrassed about my 100 handicap.

Bogey

Here's the sunset from the cabin deck.

I'm not much of a photographer, but if you zoom in, you can see Chicago in the background. 

Wind and autumnal temperatures kept us off the beach today.  Luckily we found a mall with a sweet mini-golf course right next to the JC Penney.  Black lights and everything.  While there we learned that our kids totally suck at mini-golf.  And Rowan cheats.

With penalties, he finished 7,319 strokes over par.  I had to get a second pencil.

Nap failed

Looked like rain today, so we took a break from the beach and went to a discovery/play center thing I found on the World Wide Web of Internets.  The place had a bunch of different toddlerish rooms, like a giant play structure.

There was also a dress-up area and a playing house area.

That's face-paint on him.  There was an area for that, too.  Also, trains.  Rowan got majorly in the zone.

Back at the cabin:

Actually, before we headed to the cabin, we had an epic nap failure at our hotel.  Our hotel rooms are right next to a little sitting room, so Julie and I were both in there while the children slept with the door open a crack.  Suddenly Julie's ears pricked up, and she went to check on them and found Rowan pulling all the kleenix out of the bathroom.  One of those caught-red-handed, shit-eating grins on his face.  Naptime went downhill from there.  Then, bizarrely, the kids behaved until we put them to bed at 9:00.  Tomorrow, we'll pay.