29 November 2009

We've arrived safely in Iguacu Falls and are waking up in the Hotel Florenca after a long day at the hotel pool yesterday.  Mamae and Papai are burned to a crisp (must. buy. waterproof. sunscreen.) and the kids are sleeping soundly even at 9am.  The plan was to arrive at the falls with the sun today, but the sun hasn't arrived.  It's pouring rain and booming thunder.  We think we'll stay inside for most of today and hope for clearer skies tomorrow.

The pool here is great (we're sure the kids will remember it more than they remember the falls), but we were so busy enjoying it with them that we forgot to take any photos.  There are two little water slides and a big twisty slide.  All the children had a blast and so did we.

For dinner we went to a "Shopping Center" (that's Portuguese for shopping center, and in this case it was a sort of food-court multi-restaurant plaza with an arcade and a play room for little kids.)  We had pizzas and juices (only in Latin America can you get strawberry juice, pineapple juice, mango juice and guava juice).  The big kids played in the arcade for a while and the little kids played and painted in the play room before we took a taxi back to the hotel.

I think I thought that being a mother of 4 would feel like something different.  I may have even had an idea in my mind of what I thought it would feel like.  Know what it feels like?  It feels like my life.  Just the way it was meant to be.  (It also feels a little more tired, dirty and stinky... but all that feels normal too.) Sometimes we look around and count to 4 to make sure everyone's together and have the funny feeling that even though the head-count was complete, somehow it doesn't look like we were toting enough people.  This is our family.  The way it was meant to be.