So, my sister Pam's husband Mark got a promotion that requires that they move to L.A. with their 6-year-old twins Juliana and Peter and their husky-shepherd-mix Cody.
As it happens, I am experiencing a lull in my work, and I feel the kids are old enough for me to make a lasting impression on them (and, of course, them on me), so I hope to spend some time with them.
Mark is already working in LA most of the time, and Pam plans to drive there from the Chicago area with the kids and dog. I volunteer to join them on this drive and spend some time with them in LA at the end to maybe smooth the transition a bit. I can also bag a couple of states I haven't yet been to if we take a northern route.
Flights go smoothly for me, the connecting flight in Denver only about 20 minutes late, and my bags and I arrive in good condition at Chicago Midway where my sister waits.
There are complicated issues around the sale of the Oak Park home and the purchase of the LA home, which I may allude to but needn't spell out in detail. Suffice to say this relocation is rather like stepping off a cliff and building a bridge on the way down. One of the issues requires us to stay in Oak Park until Wednesday afternoon July 23. It is sort of convenient that the kids are on a field trip at Magic Waters in Rockford IL on this day, so we can pack everything and pick them up there to begin the trip without tearful goodbyes at Oak Park, where both neighbors are good friends.
I spend the first night on the third floor of the house, and have much trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep. The rest of the time I will sleep on the first-floor couch -- and have my niece and/or nephew "camping out" down there with me. The first night of this I have a nightmare involving many rattlesnakes, and know that I whimpered in my sleep for some time before waking with a yell in a cold sweat. I hope the kids slept through it. I haven't slept around kids since *I* was a kid - as much as 40 years.
The second night, I have a very vivid dream that a friend and I discover another friend's bicycle at the end of skid marks on a mountain road, and we find our friend's body down on the side of the mountain below. (One of the first things I verify on arriving home later is that this friend is fine.)
So the day arrives and Pam and I pack the van more or less on schedule, and hit the road. As we near Rockford around 1:45, traffic slows to a stop. Construction, complicated by the fact that we really have no idea exactly where "Magic Waters" is located, but suffice to say there is no "magical" twinkling or glow in the sky around it. The field trip bus will head back to Oak Park at 2:10. If they leave before we get there, we will have to turn around and drive some 50 miles back to pick up the kids. Luckily, Pam has the cell phone number for one of the camp leaders, and we manage to get them to take the kids to security at the water park, where a nice lady takes them into custody waiting for us. They only need to wait about ten minutes, and we are ENORMOUSLY grateful to not have to make that drive two more times.
We are driving a Chrysler Town & Country minivan with the third row of seats removed. Pam and I are in front, the kids are in their child seats in the captain's seats behind us, our luggage and a cooler are behind them, and Cody in his crate is at the rear (the van has rear vent windows, and we have plugged a Wal-Mart fan in the accessory "lighter" plug near his crate).
The more I read and hear about House on the Rock, the more I am interested in seeing it. However, I believe in getting respectable mileage on the first day of a big trip like this, and if we stop at HotR, we will likely be rushing through a small part of it tonight, or sacrificing a large part of tomorrow. I cede HotR for a little more distance tonight and other wonders ahead. We find a place at La Crosse WI and settle in.
The kids are, naturally, competitive. They vie for their mom's attention and for mine. They are also acutely aware of the amount of attention, or number of toys, or length of piggyback rides, they are each getting as relative to the other. I hope to have quality time with each of them alone sometime. They refer to each other mostly as "my sister" or "my brother," and their parents as "my mom" and "my dad." They are leaving a place that has become familiar to them, and friends they have come to love. They have no interest in California, though they will probably live within an hour of Disneyland and other child-oriented delights.
My sister and others have implied (and will continue to imply) that I don't know what I'm in for. There is truth to that - I have almost zero experience with kids this age - but I trust my love, and my wish to make things fun and good, to pull us through any difficulties.
The kids are excellent swimmers, and they LOVE to swim. It is all one can do to keep them from crashing through doors and walls to get to the swimming pool at each hotel we visit.
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This day has been short, but has removed us all from the familiar. Forward into the unknown!
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