Blogging about life in Minnesota, raising our six kids with Down syndrome while battling Breast Cancer.

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says, "Oh shit! She's up!"

Saturday, July 28, 2012

NDSC convention: Getting There

It's a long drive to from Minnesota to Washington D.C. If we had driven straight there it would have been around 1,100 miles. I don't do anything the "easy" way. Well, we had trouble even getting out of town in the first place. Getting gas, stopping at the bank, etc. We made it a whole 90 minutes down the road and met my good friend Diane Higbie for brunch.

The first night the we made it to Michigan City, Indiana, which is 489 miles. If you look at a map you'll notice this isn't really along the way. Yeah, the last time Angela and I went to New York I messed up in the exact same area. I'm blaming my GPS. They kids were wiped out!




No pictures of swimming kids because...well I was in the water with the kids! This is when it occurred to me that I need two adults to take the kids swimming. Angela can swim but the boys are each HANDS ON in the pool. Axel doesn't understand why he can't just bend over and pick up something that's under water and tries to breath when he's under there, and he frequently tips over in the water. This happens while I'm holding Asher with my other hand and he is trying to pry my fingers off because he wants to swim! He is constantly putting his head under water, coming up laughing then doing it again. He's like holding a slippery worm in the water.

The next morning I got the kids up bright and early because we had to nearly double our miles from the previous day! We had 739 miles ahead of us. Good morning from my tired kids!


We were on the road by 8:00. This day we drove from Michigan City, IN to New Egypt NJ.
We arrived at 11:45 pm. It took about an hour to get everyone to wind down and get to bed. I promised the kids a swim in my friend Tink's pool in the morning, but in order to have a second set of hands we got up early to eat and get in the pool. I do NOT belong in a pool at 8:00 a.m. but the kids had fun! Asher was NOT happy when it was time to get out, and kept trying to drag everyone back to the pool.


We were on the road by 10:00 a.m. headed to DC, another 180 miles away. Since the kids had a swim first, they were pretty quiet. About an hour from our destination I received a phone call. The person who was lined up to help me out with the kids while we were at the conference called and canceled. I was not happy! Had I known before I left home I could have brought another caregiver along. This ended up causing me major difficulties over the course of the weekend and there were many things we weren't able to do because I only had one set of hands. It was a MAD scramble to find someone who could help me. Thankfully I have a friend in the D.C. area who was kind enough to rearrange her family's entire schedule to accommodate us.

Next up...the Convention!!!!

2 comments:

Kim said...

You might look up "Puddle Jumpers" by Stearns (the life jacket company) for the boys in the pool. They are awesome and keep the kids "heads-up" while they are in the water. I got ours at WalMart, but they're also available online. The only thing to watch is that they have a weight limit of 50 pounds.

Leah Spring said...

Thanks. Yes I've heard of puddle jumpers. Axel is too big for them, and I don't know that Asher would tolerate them. Maybe!