I swear, the trip to Southern Ontario to visit the grandparents gets harder every time. I suppose it doesn’t help that we keep having more kids, adding to the chaos. Somebody please explain what causes the babies, please!

The drive down was a typical trip — five hours of Pretty Good, followed by an hour and a half of Sheer Hell. The way home was more like two hours of Sheer Hell, two hours of Passable, then an hour and a half of Oh, You Thought That Was Sheer Hell Before? YOU WERE WRONG.

And that was just the driving part. In between we dealt with mommy meltdowns, temper tantrums, lack of sleep, ravenous hunger followed by complete refusals to eat, stranger-shy babies, allergic reactions, asthma attacks, stomach cramps, and packing and repacking the car at least four times. All done at top speed, because there were people-to-see-people-to-see-people-to-see-go-go-go!

Plus, the friendly Grandparent Lectures Of Love, on a common theme of you may think you know what you are doing, but you are wrong, with the occasional you really should try wearing your hair different thrown in for variety.

Anyway, we are home.

We didn’t get to watch much Olympic coverage while we were away, although I did catch an update one morning on the Table Tennis team. Did you know that all three Canadian Table Tennis players at this Olympics — two men and a woman — are from Ottawa? Is Ottawa housing some sort of secret Table Tennis Society that I don’t know about? Have I been living smack in the heart of ping pong in this country, and not appreciating that fact all this time?

Amends must be made.