Close Quarters

This is going to sound whiney, so I must apologize in advance. But if Jonah sticks his fast, mean little hands down my shirt or in my armpit one more time when I lean over to buckle his seatbelt, I think I am going to scream. Maya is going through this sort of clumsy stage, and I feel like wherever I am, there she is too, all bony elbows and flailing knees. The sad thing is that usually when she clocks me she was only trying to be helpful. The other thing I am noticing about Maya is that she is kind of a space cadet. Whenever we get out of the car it seems I wait forever with my arms full of an awkward load because I can't lock the car until she gets out, and what is she doing? Maybe making a dress for her doll out of toilet paper and tape or licking the window to make interesting swirls or braiding a piece of lint. All while humming a tuneless song. "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were waiting for me!" By the time she makes it to the door, Jonah has sprinted around the building twice, knocked off all the new buds on the shrubbery with a stick and found 4 pieces of "treasure" in the parking lot.
All of a sudden it feels like 2 computers in one family is not enough. And why does it seem like there are three people always gabbing away at the same time? Or whenever Brett and I are talking the kids think the conversation is for them too? So they interrupt with interested, but sadly irrelevant questions? Eventually we forget what we were talking about because the divergent path the conversation follows invariably takes us to something like whether or not Hercules was mortal, or how many hours ahead of us our friends in London are. Or my favorite, wonder what The Wiggles are doing right now?
Brett is working lots of hours these days--today he worked all day in the field (we went to a nature walk to hear a lecture on the signs of spring, underneath the flight path of the abundant jet planes from Jacksonville Naval Air Station, which unfortunately drowned out the cries of the hawks we were supposed to be listening for), then we took him to the library for 4 more hours (we went to see a magic show at Chick-Fil-A Family Night), and he has been at it for another 3+ hours since we got back to the hotel.
When we eat dinner, we set up the kids first, since there are only 2 chairs at the table. Then we sit on the edge of the bed until they come over and start jumping on the bed. As we sit we are facing...the T.V. We can't help it, it is right in front of us. What to do but turn it on and watch T.V. with a plate of food in your lap? Ahhhhh, we never thought it would come to this! Eventually we move to the table and take over the seats (mostly because one time a clumsy jumper knocked a full plate of food onto the floor). I have actually started timing snack time at night because it can go on for an hour. "I want a.....grapefruit!" Then "I think I'm hungry for some...popcorn." Then, "May I please have a bowl of cereal and some salami." I don't get Jonah's appetite...today, for example, he ate a bowl of oatmeal and some bacon and toast, then he asked for eggs...I made him 3 and he ate them all. Then a half hour later he asked for more food and ate another whole bowl of oatmeal. I don't really care what he eats, but sometimes I feel like I just stand there, listlessly staring and waiting to see which dishes I have to re-wash to move on to the next item requested. We are pretty limited in that department, and so have to do things like measure oatmeal with a coffee mug and use a fork to get the brown sugar.
Whenever we go to the front desk, Jonah has this little ritual: he goes alone in the elevator and we race him on the stairs. He climbs up on the chair by the front desk "Did we got any mail?" he asks...usually we do, he grabs it and says "Meet you up!" and he races back to our room, leaving a trail of his shoes and whatever little people he was carrying in the halls. Then he runs down the hall as fast as he can. We are supposed to pick up all the discarded items and take them to the room, where we pretend we can't find him (he is usually hiding in the only hiding place there is--behind the far bed).
It isn't that our little rituals and habits here aren't charming...I guess they are in a nerdy, family sort of way. It is just that, ummm, how do I say this? They are about all we have in terms of a social life these days, and I, for one, am sort of craving adult conversation. Or at least, NO conversation, maybe just silence for a little while, that would be nice too. :)
Sigh...in the meantime, while our social life may be a little stunted, we are so happy to be here, and to be able to have the time to explore Florida... Things are looking up in NY though, the temperatures are sometimes creeping into the 50's!