A busy family and holiday week is in the books.

We had visitors. My brother-in-law, his wife, and their three kids who live in Boston spent a week with us. Their kids are 6, 3, and 2. When I think of our kids being those ages and trying to spend a week as guests in someone else’s home, the word “disaster” immediately pops into my head.

But the week passed quicker than I expected and was more-or-less incident-free. There were some bedtime meltdowns but those are inevitable and didn’t grind the entire house to a halt or anything.

It was very funny having the two younger kids talk to me. The three-year-old comes across as an old soul. He would come up and ask me a question – Have you seen my mom? Do you know where my swimsuit is? Can I have a muffin? – and wave his arms around and scrunch up his face like he was an old man and the fate of the world depended on my response. He would also forget the name of whichever one of our girls was not in the room. So he would ask, “Where is the other cousin at?”

One night we were getting ready to watch a movie and he was irate at my choice. “I’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE!!!!” he screamed at me over-and-over. My brother-in-law whispered, “Just start it, watch what he does.” Sure enough, I hit play, the kid went catatonic, and didn’t utter a peep the rest of the movie.

His little sister killed me with some of the things she said, too. She has a sweet little voice and has very good speech for a not yet two-and-a-half year old. One morning she was asking me about breakfast, where her cousins were, etc and then dropped this bomb, “Can you stop hitting me?”

WHAT?!?!

I promise, I had not touched the kid. We think maybe she was asking me to tell her brother to stop touching her. We laughed about that all week.

Another morning she kept saying something to me and neither her dad nor I could figure out exactly what she was asking. Finally my brother-in-law said, “Oh,” and laughed, “She telling you she has a vagina.” Then she repeated it like three more times before asking, “Do you have a vagina?” More laughter. A few minutes later she told me her brother has a vagina which set him off. “MOM ALREADY TOLD YOU I HAVE A PENIS!!!”

Later my sister-in-law told us that while everyone was waking up, the little one started asking when she would get a penis like her brother, which led to an explanation of what different body parts boys and girls have. That left her with announcements and questions to share with the rest of the family. We missed out on fun like this with three girls.

Every day these little ones cracked us up with stuff like this.

Their older sister reminds us a lot of M at the same age. They both are/were very smart, could read well for their age, LOVE to talk, and have curly hair. If she pinned you down and started a story, you had to be prepared to listen for 5–10 minutes until she wrapped it up. I had years of practice with that so it was no sweat to me.

It was lots of fun to catch up with them since we don’t get to see them very often, and it had been 18 months since their last visit to Indy.

We had crazy weather over the holiday week. Early in the week we were stuck in a stormy, wet pattern. Wednesday morning we got three inches of rain in an hour, which set off our sump pump alarm at 6:30 AM and flooded the low point in our front yard. No water in the house, thank goodness. The next night we had another big downpour that put as at nearly six inches of rain in a 36 hour stretch.

Most summer nights you can hear frogs in our neighborhood after dark. All that rain must have forced all the frogs out of the ground because they were insanely loud Thursday night. It sounded like the Brood X cicadas of a few weeks back. At one point I realized they sounded much closer than before. Our garage door was still up, and when I opened the entry door, sure enough, there was a big, fat frog sitting between our cars. I grabbed the pool net and forced him outside then shut the garage door to keep him and his buddies out.

That was followed by two nearly perfect days, with cool nights, days in the 70s with low humidity. And then the normal July heat and humidity hit on Sunday for our Fourth of July gathering. The week ahead looks hot and muggy, so we’ll probably be doing a lot of sitting around in either the pool or remaining inside in the AC.

There were several gatherings over the week. A few informal ones around the pool during the days so the young ones could swim. Another of our local families hosted dinner and s’mores Friday night. We hosted the annual July 4th pool party for about 30, that included lots of food, drink, and Uncle D’s fireworks. We splurged for the extra-large Target fireworks kit this year. Monday we hung out with all of S’s partners around one of their pools for a few hours.

A pretty good week all around.

We have a quiet week ahead and then my in-laws arrive Saturday. My two brothers-in-law are flying down to Jacksonville Friday to load up a U-Haul while my in-laws fly up to Indy. Sunday we’ll all get them moved into their new house.