If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull

After I landed in town, I took my niece, nephew and mom in my sister's SUV to go to Ruby Falls and the Chattanooga Incline rail at TN.

Knowing our mom and her kids just a little too well, my sister had in her casual but sarcastic tone piped in I was with "awesome" company - right before we had stepped out!

From the minute we got out, my nephew was cranky, my niece was fighting with her brother and my mom was pissed we were starting two hours too late and that we may not be able to cover all points she had thought we had planned for the visit! Like these conditions were not all bad by themselves.. guess how they all wanted to communicate their feelings to me.. They wanted to speak to me all at the same time and all with breath-taking high intensity and fervor.

After a couple of hours of what I should not be calling my mom's cribbing came to a stop, we made it to our destination. My nephew thankfully had slept through the last leg of the drive and woke up after we reached Lookout Mountains containing Ruby Falls.

My nephew woke up.. well, as you may guess, cranky! He wanted to go home rightaway. I had managed to keep my niece engrossed with a story telling challenge (which I have to narrate as another blog entry!) Seeing a cranky sibling up and about, my niece easily distracted herself into fighting with him..

After the few hours of constant frying, my brains were ready to burst out of the seams and I wanted to run downhill screaming..even jump, but I managed to contain myself and keep my humor alive. A vain joke or two later, I got back to ground zero.

SO what do kids really want? I'm baffled! For that matter I'm baffled with what grown ups want as well.

Once we got on the inclined train and then made it into the mysterious caves of Ruby falls everyone was (blessfully) distracted to their surroundings. The sights and sounds of Ruby falls were an audio-visual treat.

I did not get to wield my photographic talent as much as I would've otherwise, but I was happy we went to this place and everyone getting into the car was a seemingly more happy person (including whiny me).

Knowing that some friend of my niece was going to be home by the time we would reach home excited my niece, my mom was glad she was going to have a few more mamis to speak to once home.. my nephew did not thnk either of those ideas were too appealing. He chose to switch back to his "I wanna go home" mode but one nag-ma is definitely more manageable than three..

Maybe, just maybe.. all's well that ends well. Some distracting games later, my nephew was in his right senses and I was a happier person driving back home! Isn't that the most important thing?