Footwear Optional

My mom and I just returned from taking the kids on an overnight to Mammoth Cave in KY.  It was a fun 2 days.  It's just about 4 hours round trip from where we live.  Just long enough for me to think twice about doing it again.  My older kids CAN NOT ride in the car without picking, fighting, irritating, etc. each other.  We do not have a DVD player in our car, so we rely on old-fashioned fun...how many blue cars can you find, highway bingo, stories on CD, coloring contests.  It gets a little old after a while.  But, the caves were really cool and they had fun.  My mom and I were worn out.  Mammoth Cave is very impressive, although it's a dry cave in most parts which means that there are no stalagtites or stalagmites.  We also saw Diamond Cave which is very wet and full of formations - almost to the point that it looks fake, like something you would see at Disney if you went in a cave they had replicated.  The little girls were troopers and did well.  (Except for Gwen pooping right as we were entering the cave for our 2 hour tour - with no bags allowed and therefore no diapers or wipes)

Gwen has a shoe problem.  As in she takes them off randomly.  Today at Target as I was headed to the checkout, I realized that she only had one shoe on.  We had to retrace our steps, finding it in the middle of the bread isle.  Everyone just stepping around it.  Last week one morning when it was about 35 outside, I had taken her clothes all the way off because she had spilled juice.  When I went upstairs to get her new clothes, she pulled on her slippers and let herself outside.  Buck naked except for the pink slippers.  The boys, who were outside shooting hoops, were mortified and brought her back in.  She was mad that she was being made to come back inside.  You think the cold air on her tush would have been enough to make her want to come inside immediately.  She's also totally regressed in the potty training department.  I thought we were very close to being done -- but alas, NO!  If she's home, with no pants on, she never misses.  If you put pants of any kind on her, she pees in them and then tells me afterwards.  Ugh.  I was having visions of no more diapers.  I guess I could always just take her out "commando".  But then CPS might come after me.

This week is spring break for our school system.  In our town the majority of the people travel over spring break.  So it's totally dead around here.  And then, to top it all off, it SNOWED today.  Really snowed.  Nothing stuck, but I have to admit that it made me envious of our friends in Florida for the week.  Although that would mean an even longer car trip.....probably better that we are staying home!