charleston part two

 Traveling with two toddlers is a breeze. Seriously. Until you have to be in a hotel room with them for longer than twenty minutes while they are awake. And by then even the least germaphobic person would be cringing and saying things like, Don't touch that. Don't open that. At least put some shoes on!! 

 Car ride down to Charleston. Awesome. Lunch out. Awesome. Aquarium. A dream. Being entertained by anything in my bag of tricks while in the hotel room...not so much.

 Because toilet paper is just waaaaay more fun than any book/game/puzzle/magnadoodle/TVSHOW(what?!)/snack on God's green earth. 

 Funny, they've never, ever gotten into the toilet paper at home and they have every opportunity to do so. This toilet paper was special, man. It just was.

 Seeing them barefoot in a hotel bathroom makes me cringe. I'm somewhere in the middle on the worried-about-germs spectrum. Maybe it's the fear of all-things-catchable instilled in me by well-meaning nurses when my teeny tiny babies were born. Or maybe it was that news story about germs in hotel rooms and how sometimes when the rooms are cleaned they only wipe the glasses with a rag that's been used goodness-knows-where else. And you should probably pack a ziploc Baggie to put the remote in before you use it because there are really that many germs on it. Didn't you all see that one? Don't you pack a ziploc for the remote? I don't. But I wish I did. {I only don't because this man I'm married to is not even on the worried-about-germs spectrum at all in that he would never even think twice about germs anywhere. And he would probably not speak to me if I did something ridiculous like pull out a ziploc for the remote when obviously there aren't that many germs on it. To which I say, germs are not that obvious. But communication is important in marriage, so they say. So rather than risk non-speaking, I let him turn on the tv and then demand he go bathe in hand sanitizer.} 

After a great and easy lunch out and afternoon at the aquarium, Paul didn't think we should push our luck with over-tired children out for dinner. I knew he was right. But I was about to lose my mind keeping them out of things in the hotel room. So we headed back to the down town area to walk around for a bit and have some dinner. 

     Water break.

Oh my stars, was it hot. We walked through the market and put our name on the list at Hyman's because everyone says you should eat there when you go to Charleston and we've been to Charleston a bunch and never been. (For the record, I think I like all the other places we've been to there better. It was good, though.)  The lady at the door said they had a place for strollers. No problem. Yeah, except 82 other people had already parked their strollers, walkers, double strollers, Vespas, etc. there. While Paul and a waiter struggled to find a spot to put ours, I got to hold both girls while chatting with a mom of triplets while also trying to keep C from pulling my shirt down and L from climbing onto the bar. She said, It gets easier. I said, If I had triplets I would need some doctors to figure out how to attach a third arm. Kudos to her for making it to pre-teen stage. {Which, just saying the word pre-teen, makes me think it doesn't necessarily get much easier, just ...different. Sure, you can all sit down and eat like humans at a table but what about cell phones and boyfriends and talking back and grades?! Not easier, I don't think... I'm in no rush.}

These two used up all their sitting-still-powers at lunch which is why everything is all blurry from then on. At lunch, they colored and decorated with stickers and drew on their magnadoodles and sipped drinks from big people glasses like they were meant to dine out. At dinner, they acted like they'd never seen crayons before. We even tried to be those people who put a movie on their phone to keep their kids occupied.  {The great thing about becoming a parent is that you become a lot less judgemental. Oh, your kids will never do that? Yeah, they probably will. And you'll never resort to such and such? You just might and faster than you might think. Because really, in the end, there are no those people. Or we're all those people. Whichever.} Anyways, bribing with some iPhone time didn't work. Turns out hush puppies and a view of the street did the trick until we got dinner. I was so thankful for our table in that tiny corner. 

And then when our dinner did come, of course, they ate ours and not theirs. Apparently that flounder in the above picture is superb. I didn't try it. Because look at it. It looks questionable. But Lo even tried it. And the people at the table next to us had it, too.   

                             

We discovered they both like she crab soup. And, when Paul had to go back in for his sunglasses, I was thanking my lucky stars for hush puppies, once again. I don't even remember where they got those from...whether it was from the take-out bag or the girl on the street giving them out. All I know is that it kept them from going two different directions. 

      

Boy, were they exhausted from all that non-sitting. {Paul and I are actually sleeping in the picture below, too. We can totally function and move and interact while sleeping. It's a gift.} 

We loved our time in Charleston with 'just us.' After this we headed to Tybee Island to meet up with Paul's family for a wonderful week of Savannah and rain and the pool and rain and the beach and...rain. Good thing we love porch-sittin' in a good rain storm. : )