The Events of Monday, November 15, 2010

          Sleep. Ahhh, blessed sleep. Today was to be a “Chill day”. Comfortably parked in Gretchen Janssen’s driveway, I prevailed upon Jim to let us sleep in, waking when our bodies were fully rested. Over the years, Jim and I have come to realize that we hold to differing philosophies about sleep. Jim believes in a keeping to a regular sleep schedule, continuing to get up at the same time every day regardless what time one goes to bed. I, on the other hand, believe in sleeping often and long, especially when tired. A good nap does wonders. After a few episodes of tears and short tempers, I had come to the conclusion that the kids were tired. I knew this because I was tired. We had been on the go, doing something new and different every day, with some early mornings and late nights thrown in, since Cape Cod, October 25th. That was three weeks ago. So we were definitely due for some R&R. And we got it. We slept in until almost 8:30am.The only problem with our increased amount of sleep is that Jim believes that too much sleep affects the children. So, all day long, whenever the children were hyper or quarrelsome or laughing, I had to hear “it’s because they got TOO much sleep.” Yes, dear.

          Our “to-do” list for our Chill Day was short and sweet, or so I thought: haircuts, laundry, service the RV, clean the RV, blogging, and planning for our time in NYC. However, I didn’t count on Gretchen’s cleaning lady. When we finally emerged from the RV after breakfast, we found that today was the day Gretchen has her house cleaned. Not a problem, we could stay out of the cleaning lady’s way. Well, we found that easier said than done.

          We started off giving the boys haircuts in the basement. Lindsey is getting quite skilled at this and my “finishing touch” job where I check her work with the clippers is gradually becoming unnecessary. Clean up was easy, just sweeping the smooth concrete floor, and Jim, then Lindsey, then Ben all had their showers. I went to start laundry, but found that I couldn’t…the cleaning lady was doing laundry. Ben let me know that his shower was lacking in hot water – probably due to the previous showers and the laundry and dishwasher being run, so I told Abby and Caitlin to wait on their showers. I was going to have to wait on laundry anyway.

          Jim and Lindsey left to get the RV serviced, do some grocery shopping and run a few errands. Evacuating the RV for a few hours wasn’t difficult. The other kids had no problem with the idea of hanging out in a non-moving house. So they grabbed the computer and other items to fill the time, only they forgot to grab any food for lunch. Soon we were busy, quietly blogging, reading or in Caitlin’s case making friendship bracelets. And still the washing machine was busy and the cleaning lady was hard at work. Finally, the bathroom was clear for the girls to take showers, which they did, but (as I found out later) the water again was not hot. Eager to get in my shower, I headed into the bathroom, only to find the cleaning lady entering as well. She had work to do, so I acquiesced.  Next on the agenda was lunch….only there wasn’t any food. We ate some of the left over vegetables and cookies from the Humanity Awards reception, had a few slices of cheese and crackers and called Jim and Lindsey to see when they would be bring back the RV and the food. They said soon. So I restarted the kids on their blogs and reading and went to jump in the shower. My shower was perfectly hot and just as I was getting dressed Lindsey knocked on the door to let me know that Jim needed my help backing the RV into the driveway. Dressing hurriedly, I complied.

          Soon the RV was parked, leveled, slid out, and basically re-established on the driveway. Jim and Lindsey had lunch as the other kids felt their previous nibbling would sustain them. During their lunch, the cleaning lady left and I was finally able to get started on what turned out to be seven loads of laundry. By now it was nearly 3 o’clock and I was beginning to feel frustrated as I felt the day slipping away and realized that we hadn’t gotten much of our “to-do” list done. I am a list person. I like to cross things off my list. In fact, I’ve been known to put something on a list that has already been completed, just for the satisfaction of crossing it off. But the dark side of this nature is that I can get pretty upset if I can’t cross things off my list. Jim picked up on my frustration and quickly transitioned us all to planning our time in New York City.

          When Gretchen came into her dining room a little later, she found the dining room table covered with maps, books, a computer and six heads bent over the task before them as we tried to figure out what we wanted to see in New York City. We already had several items on our itinerary. Several of us had gone through the AAA tour book and highlighted things we’d like to see. Others had pored over maps to get an idea of the city and what it had to offer. Research completed, it was brainstorming time. We listed all the things and places we hoped to do and see in NYC. Next to each idea we put down the particulars – hours/days of operation, cost, locations, etc. Soon we were able to group like activities or choices that were near each other geographically. Next we developed a plan, assigning each location or event to a day. Then we were set. Phew, it takes a while, but we were happy with the final result. Funny thing – you know what they say about best laid plans…. Well ours didn’t exactly go awry, just not exactly as scheduled.

          Planning completed, we decided to divide and conquer. I sent the kids out to clean the RV. Each had a specific task to complete. Jim got busy on the computer trying to figure out the New Jersey and New York transportation systems to find us the quickest and cheapest way to access NYC so we could carry out our plan. And I got busy making dinner. Oddly enough, for some reason, our four children were having a hard time working together. Jim, of course, attributed it to too much sleep. I blame Adam and Eve. There were several false starts and blown a fuse or two, literally and figuratively. It seems we can’t plug the vacuum into an outlet in the RV while the RV is plugged into a house. It draws too much power and leaves everyone in the dark. The solution is to plug the vacuum, via a long extension cord into a plug in the house that is on a DIFFERENT circuit than the plug the RV is plugged into and drawing current. After several interruptions, I finally finished preparing dinner and Jim found a workable solution to our transportation dilemma. Soon we were sitting down to dinner with Gretchen and Michael, an intern with BMW visiting from Germany. Conversation around the dinner table was lively and enjoyable and shortly after dinner and clean up it was time to extract our kids from the house so they could pack up for our day in NYC tomorrow and get ready for bed. We have a lot planned for our first day in New York City. We wantto be well rested and prepared.