home again, jiggedy jig

Home from Victoria!! Wow, did we ever have fun. I SOOOOOOOOOOOO did not want to come home! It was nice to get away from the daily grind around here, and the gloomy weather. Victoria always has such nice weather compared to Langley.
The trip home was a gong show.
We missed the 3 o'clock ferry by about 5 cars.
[thank heaven for IPOD podcasts of Robert Munsch reading his books, and an adapter that makes my IPOD play music through my car speakers]
Riley was FUSSY
[he cut his first tooth last Monday and is working on tooth #2!]
so once we got on the ferry I put him in the Ergo carrier on my front, which comforts him and makes nursing while walking possible, but which makes almost everything else awkward. We were on one of the new ferries, which is nice, but disorienting since I don't know my way around on them. Having worked for BC Ferries I generally enjoy the experience of sailing to Victoria and back in an extremely familiar environment so it threw me a bit to have to wander around looking for the cafeteria!
I found it, and we bought some food [purchasing food with young kids involves almost as much negotiation as an international treaty], but after wandering around the seating area for 5 minutes I ascertained that there were no tables free. So, balancing a tray of soup, drinks, and croissants in front of a grabby baby in his carrier, and trying not to lose two wandering, daydreaming, ziz zagging boys, I decided to try the regular seating elsewhere on the ferry.
The ferry was full.
No kind person gave up their seats for a tired, frazzled looking mom on her own with three boys and a tray full of food and obviously nowhere to sit.
Eventually I found two seats together and Matthew sat on the floor.
I spilled soup on Riley's head.
Luckily by this time the soup was cold.
He mashed some crackers into my bra.
We discovered that Riley really likes clam chowder! Which is good, and not part of the gong show. Except that he smelled like clams for the rest of the day. Most likely that was because I spilled it on him, and not because he ate it.
The kids' play area was overflowing.
You know how when you see other parents in action they sometimes seem like kindred spirits, and other times they seem like strange feaks? Apparantly only strange freaks were on the ferry I was on yesterday. You know the types: over enthusiastic dad who talks really loud and gets all the kids overstimulated and then konks out; or too sweet mommy who baby talks her four year old, "Annie, come over here please?" and her four year old looks her in the face and yells "NO!" and sweet mommy sits back on her heels and does nothing; or Malibu Barbie with mini Malibu Barbie; or the mom who has no sense of privacy and talks about her sex life with her sister in front of everyone?
They were all there.
There was one momma who looked crunchy and down to earth, but she was busy. No small talk. I wasn't in the mood anyways. I have PMS which means (a) I'm touchier than usual, and (b) I'm physically drained.
I had run out of disposable diapers in Victoria and borrowed one of Sara's for the ride home, forgetting we were not going straight home. So I had to stop at a grocery store between Tsawwassen and South Langley (not much by way of grocery stores between those two places), take all three boys in alone, and pay way too much money for way too many diapers because I so rarely use disposables and the packages have so many in them that he often grows out of the size of disposables I have on hand before I use them all. Nevertheless, I had to buy diapers.
I get out of the store after spending too much on too many throw away diapers, and realize I bought the wrong size. I bought newborn size.
At this point I laughed. What else can one do?

My boys were golden though, very well behaved, and quite tolerant of the discomforts of travel.

Immediately after getting off the ferry I drove all three boys to Brent's mom's place and left them there and met Brent for a DATE! It's lobsterfest at the Boathouse right now, and there were coupons in the paper so we got our butts down and had some LOBSTER, BABY! This was our second date without Riley since he was born (first was Valentines Day). It was fantastic. It is so nice to eat delicious food without making it, cleaning up after it, being interrupted, or being distracted. Not once did I phone Sharon to check on Riley. He took a sippy cup with breastmilk in it and went to sleep, reportedly. In one of Matthew's pullups, since the newborn diapers I bought would not fasten around his fat legs!!
Oh, man.
Did I pay for that this morning: Riley woke up with a poonami that had run out of the gap between the pullup and his leg, and soaked him all the way to his ankles. As I was trying to take off his pjs to scrub the poop off him, he naturally flailed around and flung poop all over his stuffed animals, the change table, the floor, my arms, and himself.
Picture myself, swearing between grit teeth, laughing at myself at the same time.
Motherhood.
So glamorous.

My camera battery died on the Island but my cousin got awesome pix and is going to email me some. I'll post them when they arrive in my inbox.
:)
Sweet, y'all. Goodnight.