The rest of the trip
I meant to post parts 2 and 3 of the Tennessee trip already. When I saved the draft, though, those parts got lost, and only part 1 remained. Upon realizing this, I knew that there was no way in hell I wanted to write in detail the rest again, and I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to read it.
So here are the highlights and lowlights:
Saturday we worked through a lot of Philip's elevator fear, but never truly conquered it. Neither did we truly conquer his anxiety of entering the hotel room and being there.
When Jilly is freaked out she covers her eyes and buries her head in my (or Russell's shoulder), saying "I can't look!" I have no clue where she got this, as no one I know does this.
They both played very nicely with their cousin E.A. who is about 9 months older than them (and the daughter of Russell's sister, A).
Philip did okay, actually, at the church daycare. He was pretty freaked out about it, then calmed down within around 30 to 45 minutes. Things that helped this happen (I think): low furniture that was all kid sized, an overabudance of toys, the three cousins were the only kids there, the door out and away is a half door/dutch door with only the bottom half closed.
I hung out in the daycare during the wedding, and slowly worked my way away from Philip's line of sight. He kept searching me out, but eventually got fairly engrossed in what he was doing. By the time the wedding was over and everyone (Russell, the grandparents, and EA's parents) was coming back down, I was about to head out on a provisional basis (btw, as expected, Jilly was fine with the whole thing and happily played). My SiL and her husband picked up EA, while Russell and I left the kids in the daycare for a bit to see how it went.
It went fine. This was the second half of what I dreaded about this whole trip, and it went much better than possibly could have been expected. Is Philip slowly conquering his fears? Not sure.
We got the kids back from the daycare fairly quickly, though, as we wanted them to meet everyone.
We had dinner out with the extended family and then went back to one of their houses to hang.
The kids had no naps, and passed out around 10 o'clock each night of the trip, with much hysteria near the end. It was way too much for them, but we survived.
We left early on Sunday to hit the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga on the way home.
This was beyond fantastic and only about an hour and a half away from us, so we are definitely going back. There's also a children's science museum across the street that looks fairly kick ass.
Philip and Jilly both loved the aquarium, and were the most impressed with (in no particular order): the butterfly room, the penguin exhibit, the sharks (one of Jilly's 2 proclamations of "they soooo cuuuute!"), the turtles, the huge amounts of massive tank wall rooms and corridors, and the snakes (the other one that Jilly found to be "soooo cuuuute!").
We were home on time to make dinner, give the kids a bath and have a normal bedtime routine with the kids, which the definitely seemed to appreciate.
So here are the highlights and lowlights:
Saturday we worked through a lot of Philip's elevator fear, but never truly conquered it. Neither did we truly conquer his anxiety of entering the hotel room and being there.
When Jilly is freaked out she covers her eyes and buries her head in my (or Russell's shoulder), saying "I can't look!" I have no clue where she got this, as no one I know does this.
They both played very nicely with their cousin E.A. who is about 9 months older than them (and the daughter of Russell's sister, A).
Philip did okay, actually, at the church daycare. He was pretty freaked out about it, then calmed down within around 30 to 45 minutes. Things that helped this happen (I think): low furniture that was all kid sized, an overabudance of toys, the three cousins were the only kids there, the door out and away is a half door/dutch door with only the bottom half closed.
I hung out in the daycare during the wedding, and slowly worked my way away from Philip's line of sight. He kept searching me out, but eventually got fairly engrossed in what he was doing. By the time the wedding was over and everyone (Russell, the grandparents, and EA's parents) was coming back down, I was about to head out on a provisional basis (btw, as expected, Jilly was fine with the whole thing and happily played). My SiL and her husband picked up EA, while Russell and I left the kids in the daycare for a bit to see how it went.
It went fine. This was the second half of what I dreaded about this whole trip, and it went much better than possibly could have been expected. Is Philip slowly conquering his fears? Not sure.
We got the kids back from the daycare fairly quickly, though, as we wanted them to meet everyone.
We had dinner out with the extended family and then went back to one of their houses to hang.
The kids had no naps, and passed out around 10 o'clock each night of the trip, with much hysteria near the end. It was way too much for them, but we survived.
We left early on Sunday to hit the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga on the way home.
This was beyond fantastic and only about an hour and a half away from us, so we are definitely going back. There's also a children's science museum across the street that looks fairly kick ass.
Philip and Jilly both loved the aquarium, and were the most impressed with (in no particular order): the butterfly room, the penguin exhibit, the sharks (one of Jilly's 2 proclamations of "they soooo cuuuute!"), the turtles, the huge amounts of massive tank wall rooms and corridors, and the snakes (the other one that Jilly found to be "soooo cuuuute!").
We were home on time to make dinner, give the kids a bath and have a normal bedtime routine with the kids, which the definitely seemed to appreciate.