That's All Folks!

Camp is over.

Last Dance. Park's closed. Elvis has left the building!

No more traveling back and forth for us and...Daddy's home!!

Here are some of the fun things he came home to:

A new (earlier) wake-up time prompted by a baby monitor and hosted by the babbling no-one-has-any-idea-what-she's-talking-about-sometimes-it-sounds-like-French-but-it's definitely-not-Chinese kid on the other side of the house.

Toilet paper that is off the holders (Frankie likes to pull and pull and pull on toilet paper so I had to remove some them from "Frankie range" and instead place them on top of the toilets). Not my best decorating move --but it's better than the toilet paper floor plan Frankie came up with.

An A/C issue that may force us to have our kitchen ceiling ripped out. Always good.

The sweet scent of dirty diapers seeping from the garbage can and filling the open air of the garage.

Leftover Chinese food that had not been thrown out despite confirmation from wifey that it was.

A dead tree.

Missing rubber door stoppers.

Conversations that start with "Have you seen my..." "Do you know what I did with..." and "Where did I put my..."

Shoes in the kitchen (not mine or his).

A very excited daughter.

Cody came home when Frankie was napping so she had no idea he was in the house. When she got up, I did the usual blah blah blah, "Hi, Frankie--did you have a nice nap?" ...diaper change, etc. and then I put her down on the floor in her bedroom. She was not facing me because she was far too busy pulling all of the books from her nightstand shelf. I very badly wanted to put them all back (I am who I am--I can't help it) but I have accepted that to be an exercise in futility until Frankie moves on to another activity. I chose to ignore the collasal book buildup and focused instead on posing questions like: "Can you say MOMMY? Can you say FLOYD? Can you say DOWN WITH UofM?''...and then I heard Cody walk in. Fray J was still pulling books and taking gibberish so I threw out: "Can you say DADDY...?" I got stuck on DADDY until she was sick of saying it and finally she turned around and saw him. There was Daddy-- right there--in her bedroom! She was very excited; it was a very cute homecoming.

It's really nice to have Cody home. I love being at camp (and I know Frankie and Floyd do too) but I honestly don't think I had another road trip in me. Now, we are all in one place--full time--and I feel a lot less rushed and a lot more settled. I'm going to take a little break from Frankie's blog and hang with my family. I'm sure I'll be back at some point with more Frankie stories and I hope you'll all still be interested. Thank you for your fun and supportive comments and for checking in on us.

I don't mind admitting that I was a little nervous about doing much of my first summer as a Mom on my own--but knowing you guys were out there, and reading your comments (they go right to my email) helped me so much. Writing about our experiences was a healthy outlet for me and it kept me from shopping online while Frankie was sleeping.

I think the stores missed me though so it's time to give them some attention. Frankie needs some cute stuff for the Fall...and who am I kidding?

So do I.