Catching up and Recovery

After traveling for almost a month the last bit of summer followed by bringing my sister's children home with me, I'm ready for my down time. My poor kids won't get much of any, they actually DID travel for a month then came home with cousins. School starts tomorrow, much to their dismay.

My sister's children are an interesting mix. She has a 14yo daughter, 11yo son, and 9yo son. My son and her youngest get along very well (mostly), so they're generally off on their own. My daughter attaches herself to my niece (which my niece is generally good enough to tolerate). My niece reminds me of the cruise commercial where the mom is "hunting" for the something elusive which turns out to be her daughter's smile. I have to pat myself on the back, though, that I actually saw that smile several times during her visit.

On the other side, my tough nephew (older of 2). He allows my daughter to twist him around her finger and gets him to do stuff for her. To the extent that after they leave she's determined that she can't do anything for herself any longer. (ugh).

For the most part I had few problems with the crew. I'm more recovering from finding things to make sure they're busy with. We did the "let's go see all this" stuff which kills the wallet. They did the "there's nothing here at the house to play with, we're bored" thing back at me. I'm ready for a break, but I'm sad it'll likely be another year before they visit again.