To Baltimore and back

Originally the plan had been that three cousins would stay in Maryland, two would go to Texas with their parents, and three would come to our house on October 12. After Yvonne flew back to BWI on October 18, she would drive up here with the two youngest, spend the night, and return to Maryland with five of her kids on October 19. It ended up being better for the Towfighis to come up here on October 11. Nadia really, really wanted Joshua to stay with us rather than in Maryland with his two eldest siblings. The problem was that Josh really, really wanted to attend a box tunnel event that their church was putting on for the youth group on October 18. Yvonne said if I would drive her kids back to Maryland on October 18 then Joshua would stay with us for the week. I hope and pray Nadia is already aware of how deeply I love her because I chose #1 to give up time with my sister and #2 to drive for 7-8 hours in one day (something I pretty much NEVER do) so she could have a week with Joshua. She and Josh did seem to have a good time together. We left the house a little before 9:00am yesterday morning, and we got home around 7:30pm. I put away some groceries, did a little laundry, and promptly went to bed at 8:30pm with a headache and nausea I was so exhausted. It didn't help that I had woken up at 5:00am and was awake for a long time before I got a tiny bit more sleep. I had been dreaming about my brother, and I knew I had been crying in my dream, but when I woke up my face was wet and I realized I had been actually crying while dreaming. So this is true love, Nadia. That makes me think of one of Yvonne's favorite movies when she was a teenager - Princess Bride. "We are gathered here today...."

When the eight of us were in the van, Joshua always sat in the front with me, the three youngest were in the very back, and Nadia, Nathan and Ian were in the middle. Nathan was gracious to sit in the smaller (spare) middle seat because naturally both Ian and Nadia wanted to sit beside a cousin not beside a sibling! During our short drives throughout the week, I didn't allow them to watch any DVDs, and I only allowed Nathan to use his tablet on Monday for a little bit while Nadia was in choir rehearsal. Yesterday was a different story. I said no to screens for the first thirty minutes, and they were rather creative in playing a version of charades, creating stories, etc. Then the back row watched a DVD for an hour while the other four took turns playing on an iPad or Nintendo Switch. Then we had another 30 minute break from screens before they went back to using the various devices. The drive from our house to BWI was *supposed* to take a couple minutes shy of three hours according to my phone. In reality it took about 3 hours and 25 minutes because #1 Julianna threw up (in a trash can we passed back to her once she said she didn't feel well) and I stopped at a Chick Fil-A to clean out the trash can and allow her to wash her hands and face. This also provided a bathroom break for others. #2 we hit some traffic on the Baltimore beltway. I remember many times over the years where if you timed it right you wouldn't hit any traffic. It was a little before noon when we hit the traffic, which definitely shouldn't be "rush hour." It used to take me 3.5 hours to drive from our house to the house in Glenn Dale, MD, but it seems the norm is now at least 4 hours due to increased traffic. And #3 I had trouble finding the cell phone lot at the airport. We looped around the entire airport more than once before I located it. A woman from their church met us there, and somehow she managed to fit four kids plus a lot of luggage into her Ford Fusion (four pumpkins, three pillows, two air mattresses, backpacks, duffel bag, Christmas presents, etc.).

After the cousins were on their way, we drove to the Inner Harbor. I missed a turn (twice!) so we took a few loops around the Ravens' stadium before finally making it to a street near the Science Center. I would have taken all seven kids there first and met their friend later at BWI, but it would have cost $80 for their four kids to get into the museum because they don't have an ASTC membership. Every other time I've taken my kids there (quite a few times over the years since we get in free and they love science museums) I've had to pay for parking, but I managed to find free street parking yesterday that was very close to the museum. I'm not the best at parallel parking the minivan, but I have to say I did a very good job yesterday! We only stayed for two hours because my goal had been to get on the road by 3pm to avoid rush hour traffic. We did succeed in getting out of Baltimore before the rush hour traffic began, but we hit a lot of traffic around Harrisburg. We hadn't listened to a chapter book for a week while the cousins were here so we listened to a book by Beverly Cleary for about an hour and music the rest of the time. Nadia and Ian also did some reading. On our way home we stopped at Wendy's to get dinner (to go) and at a Sheetz for gas for the van plus so Ian could use the bathroom. Then we stopped at Aldi and Weis for some groceries on the way home. The grocery shopping added 30 minutes to our adventure. I drove a total of about eight hours yesterday. It should be a little more than a month before we have another significant drive, and Paul plans to go with us to Virginia so I won't have to do all the driving. Thank you, Lord! When I was a teenager, I didn't think anything of driving from Maryland to Ohio when I was in college. It's a different story now as we're both approaching half a century.

While the cousins were here the weather was really nice Saturday through Tuesday. It rained most of the day on Wednesday. It didn't rain on Thursday but was much cooler out and very windy. It's the time of year when 51 degrees feels like freezing whereas in February 51 feels warm and balmy. The kids were putting on winter coats, mittens, earmuffs, etc. when they played outside on Thursday. The cousins (plus Oliver) played in the indoor playland at our church for awhile on Thursday while Nadia and Ian had art (plus chorus for Nadia). When we were in the Inner Harbor yesterday it was gorgeous. We were greeted by blue skies and temperatures in the low 60s. I was actually wishing I had chosen to do something outside rather than the science museum, but the science museum was free. I had toyed with visiting the historic ships or the Baltimore Museum of Industry because we've never visited either of those, but they had fun at the science museum. I typically have taken them there once a year, but the last time I took them there was December 2017. They always lie on the bed of nails, and do the tug of war with the pendulum (when Nadia was on the easy side the boys and I could not beat her!).  Yesterday they did screen printing in "The Shed," which is the room where they always have hands-on projects. And they did three of the five experiments in the SciLab (DNA, polymers, and using acids/bases to identify the identity of one mixture). We were parked right next to Federal Hill park which was used during the War of 1812 and the Civil War so we also explored that for a few minutes before we got back in the van.

We were on our drive home when Ian asked if he could use FaceTime to call Joel and Nathan. LOL! I am totally fine with them using FaceTime to chat like Nadia does with her cousin, Rachel (in Chicago), but we were just together for a week and had only said goodbye to them about 3 hours ago. I denied that request, but it shows that they had a great time together and didn't want it to end. Earlier they were trying to talk me into spending Friday night in Maryland, but I am not ready for that emotionally. Just talking about it with a friend earlier this month brought on a panic attack. It's just too painful for me at this point given the passing of my brother. It would be totally different if the Towfighis didn't live in the house where Maurice lived a little more than 30 years of his life. On Thursday the kids had opted to push some of their schoolwork from that day to today in order to have more time to play with their cousins, so each of them did some schoolwork today although they usually get Saturdays and Sundays off. One upside of coming back home yesterday was that we were all able to visit Paul's mom in the rehab hospital today. She looked much better than when I saw her last week. Paul wasn't planning to join us today because he thought he'd be at work, but the kids and I used the jacuzzi this morning (because we can't use either shower right now) and some water leaked from the upstairs master bathroom down through the chandelier (light fixture) in the dining room and on to the dining room table. This is why we had NOT been using the jacuzzi the last few years because part of the floor has been ripped out in that bathroom, but we didn't have any choice the past three weeks. Ian discovered it when he saw water dripping on his Legos before breakfast this morning. Paul did finish repairing the toilet in the kids' bathroom yesterday (after our guests left). He's hoping we can use the kids' shower again starting on Monday. It's been more than 3 weeks since I've had a shower. I will savor it greatly once I can take another one!