Rested?

Last night I was Fonzie's mother. I was letting him stay at a friend's house, and the other two kids were disturbed by that. Hubby was trying to hang a street sign across the road so that I could see what the street was named. I was upset that all I had to serve for breakfast were cookies. Along with that was mixed in trying to rescue all of my children from bears and some strange cats that kept returning. What a dream! We are back from vacation, but as my dream implies, I am far from rested. Having J-1 with us has turned out to be more stressful for me than I thought. He is an easy kid, don't get me wrong, but I feel like I need to be the hostess all of the time. However, I came home from vacation to a boatload of work that needs completed. So here I am trying to treat all of my children fairly, get a good meal on the table, save us from dangers, and remember where I live. I guess all of that shows up in my subconscious. Vacation went relatively well. I took all the kids on a horse back ride for an hour and paid for it for a day. It stoved my back and I ended up with a headache that wouldn't go away. I guess that made the vacation relaxing since I spent the next day in bed sleeping. J-1 did well being thrown into a large group of people that did't speak Japanese. He became very attached to my nephew, who is two years old, and cried when we had to leave. I think it was part sheer exhaustion since he hadn't displayed any jet lag symptoms. Sunday we rested, and yesterday he learned that we do also work around here. We spent the whole morning doing yard work. It was a hot, humid morning, and of course he didn't know there was a light at the end of the tunnel. He disappeared after a while and I found him in his room. I told him we don't go outside after lunch, and he worked much better after that. J-1 made dinner for us last night. Cold noodles in a cold dipping sauce. The cookbook said it was for a hot summer day, and it hit it right on the mark. We also had pork and cabbage pancakes that were good, though not to the kids, and rice with a sushi sauce mixed in. I really liked the rice. My boys didn't eat much and it made me think they would be very hungry by the time they got back to the USA if they were the exchange students. J-1 has eaten very well while he has been here. He doesn't care much for our breakfasts but he does well with the other meals. Today we head to a 4H meeting and #2 will be giving a presentation about survival skills in the wilderness. J-1 will be presenting the tea ceremony. Perhaps he ought to talk about survival skills in a strange environment.