It is very possible that I have spent more hours packing than I will spend relaxing on this vacation.
Category: mumbling
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Field Trip – 6/20
I’ve got to get my diaper bag situation figured out. You don’t want to hear the gory details, but its causing me to continually leave the camera in the car or at the house or some other place that makes it really hard to take photos.
Like today. The camera sat forgotten on the floor of the car while we had our outing. Sigh.
So imagine these beautiful pictures of kids happily running around Highfield on a perfect low 80s day with little humidity. Akiko and Gregory joined Kate, Irene, Ezra and my crew. We made it in time for the class, which I was convinced was about compost. Turns out that on July 20th, they will be talking about compost, but today they were talking about root vegetables. Which was fine, but we didn’t get to hold worms which I’d really talked up to Neko.
Even though there were no worms, everyone had a great time and we left with happy, tired kids.
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Huh?
Sometimes when I download photos from my camera, little gems like this appear and it makes me wonder what else is going on at my house that I know absolutely nothing about.
All I know is that looks suspiciously like the tissue paper that we wrapped Tom’s Father’s Day gift in…
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On the mend
We’re on the mend around here, but still exhausted. We made it through the day, and that, in itself is an accomplishment. When five o’clock rolled around, Tom gave me the option to leave if I took Ellery, so we went to Target to pick up a $30 pool and a few pool toys. It was the best investment we made last summer, and we’re making it again this year.
Anyway, it was nice to get out of the house and walk up and down the aisles where no one was vying for my attention. And I got to eat a Crispani from Panera which was surprisingly delicious.
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Sick of sick
Shep spent Saturday throwing up. Cheerful and back to normal on Sunday. Whew! Must have been something he ate or some little bug. What a relief.
Back to normal life on Monday. But Tuesday, at about 12:30am, Neko started throwing up. Tom followed suit in the morning.
Having the kids all day isn’t that big a deal, but the combination of sick/post-sick/infant is deadly. Neko just wants to sit on my lap all day. And Shep, now feeling better, wants to runs around the house at 100 miles an hours, switching activities every three seconds. Did I mention the house in under construction? While I am thrilled that my wall is finally going up, it couldn’t be worse timing. We’ve lost 50% of our play space, and every few seconds our conversation is punctuated by a pneumatic nailer which sounds like a gunshot.
Poor Ellery is somewhere in the middle of it all, just hoping someone might notice her and feed and change her occasionally.
Must get healthy. Soon. And am desperately hoping we haven’t spread the plague to others.
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Grey skies
The weather has got to get better. It’s bringing everyone down.
We’re getting teased by these flashes of glorious weather, and then the rain and cold return. The sickness has kept the kids up at night, but no one is sleeping in or doing extra napping to make up for it, so we’re just getting more and more tired. Between the sick and the lack of sleep, we have behavior worthy of putting Supernanny on speed dial.
The kids are trying every ounce of my patience. They are pushing all my buttons. No one is listening. Shep misbehaves and then laughs at me when I try to correct him. He laughs when I put him in time-out. He’s throwing. And hitting. And screaming. When something doesn’t go her way, Neko snaps immediately into a screaming tantrum that is virtually uncontrollable. If I have to say “use your words and not your hands” one more time, I might put my head through a wall.
I’m not being the best mom this week either. Way more yelling than there should be. Too much TV and about zero projects and thought-provoking activities. And the laundry is piling up.
My only consolation is that Susie is having the same sort of week.
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It’s sprung
Today was the first sunshiney day in ages. Just like the moth, the sun finally crept out of its chrysalis.
We went to Highfield, which was fabulous as always. It was frog week, and Neko was pretty jazzed about it. Since we are slated to to tadpoles later this spring, I was glad to see her excitement.
Shep and Chris ran around and spent a long time at the trains. Chris couldn’t take his eyes off of them, while Shep logged a huge amount of time pushing buttons. Ellery and Alex each took respectable naps and then sighed when they realized both their mothers had forgotten to bring sun hats, and that this was probably a sign of things to come as in their lives as not-the-first-child.
I took lots of pictures there, but none of them were any good.
Later on I took the kids down to the garden so I could gather some starter topsoil for my kitchen composter, which I received for my birthday, but have yet to get going. The kids loved digging, and we had to pry them away from the garden. Even tonight, after we’d both played and dined outside, Neko was standing on the patio in her pajamas, refusing to come in with protests of “But it’s just so NICE out here!”
And it was. Thank goodness.
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Basement
Somewhere in the middle of prepping for having a baby or actually having the baby I forgot to mention awesomeness that is our basement.
Is it a finished basement with immaculately designed spaces? No, it’s totally unfinished with great views of our whole plumbing system. It took me months to shove all of our crap into the far corners of the basement so I was able to section off about 50% of it for play space. I knew that once we had the baby, in the middle of winter, the kids would need a place for some large muscle activity or I would end up on some bus to Vegas.
There’s a carpeted area for playing and the climbing dome, and a concrete floor perfect for chalk drawings and riding tricycles. I don’t like to toot my own horn too often, but making this basement thing happen? I AM A GENIUS.
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Exhale
After a big morning of over-stimulation, the kids needed a little calm. We sat on the patio and blew bubbles and soaked up the great weather. We cracked out the hose and the water table, and Neko and Shep both got thoroughly soaked.
I declared the day one of the best in ages when, on top of all the other good stuff, I figured out a way of configuring car seats in the Odyssey that has nearly doubled my usable space. Now that’s a present you can’t wrap.
