Our crazy week

We have had a crazy week.

The last weekend in January, we had a reunion of the moms and babies we met at the breastfeeding support group I used to go to when Jack was a baby. How is it that all those babies are now four years old? And almost all of them have been joined by baby brothers and sisters as well. I'm so glad that so many of us have kept in touch through the years. It warms my heart to think that these children will be my kids' lifelong friends.

The next few days were a whirlwind - or maybe a hurricane is a better word for it. Tom had planned a trip to visit him mom at the beginning of the month to celebrate her birthday. We were making a mad scramble to get everything ready for his trip.

In the meantime, some very much-missed friends came down for a long overdue visit the following Monday. We were so happy to host Kelly and her boys, Kingsley and Charlie, for part of their trip. It was great timing for us, because having them over distracted Jack from missing his dad and gave me another set of adult eyes and hands to help with the kids.

The night before Tom's trip, he gamely agreed to watch all four kids while Kelly and I had a fun Moms Night Out with friends. He even bathed and put all the kids to bed himself!

The following day, we brought Tom to the airport. That afternoon, we went to a friend's house for a Chinese New Year party.

On Wednesday, we went to the zoo with a lot of our fabulous friends. It was probably one of the best zoo days we've ever had. I don't know if it's because the weather was cooler, but the animals were more active than I've ever seen. We saw baby goats head-butting each other, the monkeys fighting (and doing some, uh, other things), lions wrestling, and even saw a mommy hippo giving her baby a swim lesson. That evening, we went to what turned out to be the first of three visits in the next four days to Jack's favorite restaurant, Souplantation.

On Thursday, we had to say goodbye to our friends. But that afternoon, my mom and dad came down for a visit. We celebrated Chinese New Year at a nearby Chinese restaurant. The next day, my sister came down for the day to see us all. Jack and Violet had so much fun with all the extra attention. Both my mom and sister were able to watch Jack at his first tumbling class. It's so cute to see him paying attention to the teacher and trying to do the exercises that she shows them.

Saturday was the last day of Tom's trip. My parents had to leave early in the morning. After the goodbyes, we went over to our friends' house for a playdate and our third meal at Souplantation (we had gone the day before with my family). Jack LOVES Souplantation, so he was so happy. On the way home from the restaurant, the baby fell asleep in the car. I remember thinking to myself, "Okay, I finally have a few minutes where I can try to get the house in order before Tom comes home tonight."

Can you see where this is going?

Basically what happened next is that we got home, Jack used the bathroom, I flushed the toilet, and it started overflowing. All. Over. The. Floor. I brought the kids over to our neighbors' house while I mopped and bleached the heck out of the bathroom. We spent the rest of the evening until bedtime with them. Tom was home by the time we all woke up the next day, which was Super Bowl Sunday. Normally, I like to watch the big game with lots of friends, but after the week I had, we decided to keep it mellow.

Thank you to all our family and friends who stayed with us and played with us. I really do think that Jack was so excited to have them over that he didn't have time to miss his dad. I can't imagine how difficult it would have been on our own.