Jiggety-Jog

The worst part about vacation is the coming home. It's like the Sunday Blues multiplied by the days you were gone, plus the number of miles it took you to get home. It's compounded if you're driving. I call it the Home-Agian-Doldrums. I usually try to stem the tide by making sure we have clean laundry before we leave, and that things are not packed pell-mell into suitcases so that when we get home, the unpacking is as stress-free as possible. If we're driving, NPR helps, and having lots of snacks is always good too.

As you might suspect, my plan was thwarted in the largest of ways.

My darling baby has been fighting a rash for several days. The ride home was fractious, and although my oldest was helpful, the wee one just couldn't stay happy for long. This made listening to NPR rather near impossible, and much yoga breathing was necessary to keep my head from shooting straight off my body. And, perhaps to comfort himself, my eldest ate all the Chex Mix! Now that was just downright dirty. As were the grapes I packed, dirty I mean. Inedibly dirty.

Finally, upon arriving home, we were able to see a doctor - without breaking the bank. (Try finding a pediatrician in rural northern Michigan who's in your plan, or an Urgent Care for that matter.) And thankfully, it's nothing serious, just a bout of contact dermatitis, which means something we used on his skin, or our skin, or in the laundry made him breakout. He is now feeling (and sleeping) much better with the hydrocortisone cream the good doctor prescribed.

Unfortunately, this means I have to rewash everything. Not just the baby's items, which took 2 loads alone. No, we have to rewash all of OUR things as well. I am just now digging out of the 4 loads of laundry it took to rid our household of the mystery chemical.

We are home, and the garden still needs attention, there are random baby items that still need to be put away, the mail needs to be attended to, and the bedrooms have been ransacked by a series of back-to-back sleepovers for the big kid. But the kitchen is clean and the laundry is done and I even canned my kid some sweet pickles today. Perhaps the winds are picking up.