Another highlight of the day was a family swim at the hotel pool. Madeleine was once again enthralled with the water, and Julia got a chance to go into the deeper part of the pool with Ethan holding her. Ethan also got to play "Hot Water, Cold Water" with her this time, so I was off the hook. After swimming, we took a trip over to visit my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Dave, who live in Austin, and we enjoyed the company of a bunch of other Osowski and Bellas relatives who had stopped by as well. Julia was acting cripplingly shy the majority of the time, and resorted to pointing, gesturing, and indecipherable pantomiming rather than speaking at all, so Ethan and I had no idea what it was she was trying to indicate half the time. Madeleine, on the other hand, decided to get down on the floor and go after Kenny the chihuahua with wild abandon; no shyness there. After a dinner out with my cousin Emily, we headed back to the hotel to call it a night.
We were up at 4am today to catch a 6:10 flight out of Austin. I had been really worried about the girls getting up so early because they have been so sleep-deprived this past week, but they honestly couldn't have behaved better on the flights:
Important piece of advice for parents traveling with small children: skip a bunch of naps and put them to bed really late every night of the trip, and then they will sleep like angels for the whole flight back and you and your husband will get a chance to - gasp! - read a book without interruption.
As we were getting onto the last flight of the trip, from Chicago to Boston, I told Julia that we had one more plane to go on and then we would be back in Massachusetts. She again asked me, "But why didn't we go to Texas on the plane yet?" I am not sure why she doesn't seem to understand that we had been in Texas the whole vacation. In fact, I'm sure she knows that, since she commented on being in Austin, Texas several times through the course of the trip. Maybe it's short-term memory or something. My guess is that she now assumes every plane ride will take us to Austin, since that's where we went in the first place.
Ethan and I had a fun time once again trying to lug all the suitcases, the kids, the stroller, etc. on and off the various forms of MA public transportation, but the good thing was that we had a LOT of helping hands from the other T riders. Another piece of advice for people who are traveling: bring a couple of kids with you, because then random strangers will rush to help you out with your luggage and the trains will wait for you if you're running a little behind (or literally running to get on in time.)
During our commuter rail ride home, Julia once again started loudly singing a new made-up song; something about "rockitude" that morphed into "walkitude." I'd like to think she was giving her parents a pat on the back for our rockitude dealing with all the walkitude we had to do today, suitcases in tow and strollers in front.
What sweeties asleep!
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