Safe and Sound

So we arrived back in the US less than two weeks ago, but I'm still struggling getting back to my real world.  Ryan and I are both missing the peace and serenity of Botswana.  We came back to a very happy girl, who appeared to have an amazing time with her grandparents.  She was spoiled by each of them and I'm sure she's wishing they were back since we keep her on a much tighter schedule.  Monday morning was a reality check for all of us.  Unfortunately, I was still on Botswana time and was up by 4am ready to go.  We had to wake Maeve up for school and she was not happy.

General feedback from our time away was that Maeve was good.  She got to spend lots of time with her aunts and uncles, have playdates with her cousins and get to eat lots of treats and watch more than her usual amount Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  When we walked in the door, she just stared at us for a good 10 seconds before it registered that it was us and then we got lots of hugs and kisses.  I'm pretty sure I didn't take a breath for those 10 seconds just hoping she wasn't going to burst into tears once she realized who we were.

I'll post pics from our trip next, but back to our girl.

Maeve is at a very fun, yet increasingly difficult age / stage.  She is talking like crazy, chatting and singing away, entertaining us on a daily basis.  However she had 3 incident reports last week (only 1 so far this week) due to biting.  There was Mother's Day Tea last Friday and I was so, so worried the rest of the moms would be pissed that my kid had been biting their kid.  Thankfully no one said anything, however she did bite Charlotte in her arm when she wouldn't let go of a balloon that Maeve wanted.  I had to tell Charlotte's grandma what happened and the teachers... very embarrassing.  Maeve would stand in the middle of the room at the top of a slide just taking in everything ... and blocking the poor kids from going down the slides.  For the youngest kid in her class, she's a bit of  beast.  She is talking so much that she'll even tell us which kid she bit at school that day.  I think I preferred not knowing.  I was able to confirm the first two names she told me with her teacher so she's already too smart for her own good.