Tater Tot Returns!

After three weeks away from home ( and one and a half without Mommy and Daddy), Tater Tot came home yesterday! It is wonderful - and crazy! - to have our family of five back together.

Of course, as most of you already know, we don't do anything the easy way in our family and this trip to pick up Tater Tot was no different! We went to sleep with weather reports of 6-10 inches of snow and woke up happily relieved to find only about 3 inches - if we hadn't been able to travel, it would have been another week until we could have picked up our little munchkin and we missed her lots!

So after cleaning off the car and shoveling, we loaded Bruiser Boy and G Baby in the van and headed off for a few errands before the long trip. There were no incidences as we returned our movies (Redbox is the answer to entertainment for every busy parent!) and we decided to make a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts for white hot chocolate (yum!) to ward off the chill of the day. Bruiser Boy settled in with a Deigo video and Mommy and Daddy had a few minutes to chat - a rarity in our lives!

So we were about half way through our trip when Bruiser started to demand a new movie. As the co-pilot, that duty fell under my job description! So as carefully as I could and without unbuckling (Daddy always says I'm not allowed to die and leave him with three children!), a wiggled in my seat and worked to change the movie and get it playing. As I was doing this, I suddenly felt something very hot on knee - and realized very quickly it was hot chocolate spilling. I turned around very fast, thinking I had knocked over my cup only to find out that the cup holder in my van had poked a hole in the side of the cup and sticky hot chocolate was spilling all over the rug and me!

Panic set in! I somehow had left home without my customary roll of paper towels and stash of trash bags - what was I going to do with this leaky cup going 70 MPH on 95? Daddy's brilliant idea was to just put the window down and throw the cup out the window (not that we condone littering but we had no other option at this point!). So, while holding the cup and a handful of HOT chocolate, I put the window down as far as I thought I needed. As I shoved the cup out the window, I discovered it wasn't quite far enough and the cup came flying right back in! After much screaming, Daddy realized that he could actually help me by putting the window down for me, and the cup and the majority of the mess finally made it out the window. The next ten minutes were spent scrubbing everything with baby wipes and discussing how we call Simonize to clean the rug!

We survived that drama and made the rest of the trip to the meeting point without incident - Bruiser Boy even settled down with his movie and slept for about 30 minutes. The best feeling was stepping off the elevator and hearing that little voice yelling "Mama! Dada!" As nice as it was to have time with one less child, we missed Tater Tot more than anything - she gives the best hugs!