Anna's party at Pullen Park

Alice loves Pullen Park and Alice loves birthday parties, so when she found out we would be attending Anna's birthday party at Pullen Park, she was over the moon. She spent some time making cards for Anna, and then made lots of plans about riding on the tire swing with the birthday girl. The only problem for us is that when parties are at Pullen, it's really hard to keep track of the kids because they always run off together and don't pay the least bit of attention to see if their parents are following. At any rate, we survived the morning, and the kids had tons of fun.

Alice gives her homemade cards to Anna

Anna, Izzie, Oscar & Alice watch the train come in to the tunnel

Felix, Ellie Rose, Anna, Alice and Oscar wait for the train to start

Alice and Oscar smile for a selfie

Ellie Rose, Anna, and Alice smile for a selfie

Simon also loves selfies!

Anna gets shy and balls up while everyone sings happy birthday

I entertain Simon and Alice with selfies while they wait for their cupcakes to arrive

Cupcakes at last!

Izzie, Alice and Anna play with sprinkles and flowers in a party hat

Simon is excited to go on the carousel

Selfies on the carousel are even better!

Look Dad, no hands!

Izzie and Alice play on the stone turtle

Looking at ducks

The tire swing

There is only one tire swing at Pullen Park and it's a hot item, so it's hard to get a turn. We'd gone by a few times already and it was always full. Alice was determined to ride it before we left though. So when Zac went to get the van, I took Alice past the tire swing for one more chance at having a turn. She saw this girl on the swing, and, knowing it was her last chance, she quickly articulated a plan: "Mom, I'm going to make friends with that girl!" Sure enough, Alice walked over, asked if she could ride the tire swing with the girl, the girl said yes, and tire swing joy ensued. The best part was the random girl's dad pushed them (I wasn't quite sure how I was going to manage that while holding Simon at the same time).

The disappointing part was that when the dad said he was too tired to push anymore, Alice kept asking for more pushes, rather than saying "Thank you" as I was prompting her to do. She got a big lecture in the van about that.

On our way out of the park, there was someone handing out free carbonated beverages, as a promotion. Alice was so excited to try hers, but we made her wait until we got home. Here's how it went:

Beach trip planning

We're going to the beach next weekend for three nights with Grayson's family. Here are the typical stages I go through whenever we go on a little trip with the kids:

Self 1: It would be really fun to take the kids to the beach! I'll reserve a condo!

Self 2: I hate packing for trips! I hate Self 1 for doing this to me, again! Why does Self 1 keep signing me up for these things? It's 1:00 am and I'm still getting stuff ready...why does this take so long every time? It's so hard to make decisions when I'm so tired...

Self 3: Ah, what a nice trip. We're having so much fun. Thank you, Self 1, for forcing Self 2 to get everything ready for this nice vacation. My kids are having the best childhood ever!

Self 4: Why do we take so much stuff on trips? When will the kids just need a duffle bag? I hate unpacking. At least the trip was fun. As soon as we get all this crap put away, and the loads of laundry done, and caught up at work, it'll be fun to look at the pictures. We made a lot of great memories...Where should we go next?

I've been transitioning from Self 1 to Self 2 this week, and having some regrets, as the reality of getting ready for another trip sink in. On Saturday morning, Lindsey and Grayson came by for a bit so that Lindsey and I could discuss plans for our beach trip coming up next weekend (which we still haven't told the kids about). But Lindsey and I get along great, and I think the kids are going to have a blast, so Self 2, so far, is slightly less miserable than normal. It's not packing night, yet, though...

Alice got dressed ALL by herSELF

The universe must have heard my whining, because on Saturday morning, Alice picked out her own clothes and got completely dressed all by herself before we even came out of our bedroom in the morning.

She's been able to get herself dressed for a long time now, and we've been making her do it herself since she turned four, but she's never actually done it without us being present and telling her to get dressed.

Normally, I pick out her clothes the night before, and I've been dropping hints for a long time about what a nice surprise it would be if when we came in in the morning, she was fully dressed, rather than sitting on her couch in her pajamas reading books.

She seemed to finally take the hints seriously, and on Thursday night and she assured me she would get dressed right when she woke up the next morning. But she slept in Friday morning and we had to wake her up, so she never got a chance.

So even though I forgot to pick out the clothes Friday night, and hadn't really said anything about getting dressed in the morning, she took it upon herself to pick out her clothes and get dressed on Saturday morning. She was probably also really excited about Grayson coming over to play in the bouncy house with her, so that may have contributed to her motivation.

*She also picked out her own clothes and got completely dressed the next morning, too. Is this a new trend? I hope so!

Bedtime Q & A

Alice: Mom, why am I not a duck?
Sera: Because your parents aren't ducks. You can only be a duck if your parents are ducks.

***

Alice: Why do we only have one cat?
Sera: Well, how many cats do you think we should have?
Alice: Fifty-five.
Sera: Could you imagine having fifty-five cats meowing every time they want fed?
Alice: Ok, maybe fifty-six cats.

***

Alice: Why are Mater and Lightning McQueen not real?
Sera: Because they're just from someone's imagination, and then they made books and movies about them. Did you know that Peppa's not real?
Alice: Yes.
Sera: Can you think of anything else that's not real?
Alice: Yes. Unicorns are not real, and dragons...
Sera: What about dinosaurs?  Are they real?
Alice: Yes, but they're all dead. Except one.
Sera: Really? Which one?
Alice: The one with spikes on its back that can fight the T-Rex.
Sera: The Ankylosaurus?
Alice: Yes, that one.
Sera: Nope, those are all extinct, too. But you know what? The great-great-great [etc.] grandchildren of dinosaurs are still alive. They're birds. Whenever you see a bird, you can think that its great-great-great [etc.] grandparents were dinosaurs.
Alice: Where was I before I was born?
Sera: You weren't anywhere.
Alice: But, where was I before I was born?
Sera: Nowhere. You didn't exist.
Alice: Was I on another continent?
Sera: You know what, actually, you come from an exploded star. We all do.
Alice: Oh no, not a star!
Sera: What's wrong with coming from a star?
Alice: I wanted to be a princess before I was born.
Sera: Well, you can dream that you're a princess with fifty-six cats.  Goodnight, sweetie.

Twirl girl

Water Day

We went to Bond Park this morning to feed the ducks. Because I forgot bread the last time, Alice was very good about reminding me to bring bread this time. She carried the bag around the house all morning, and kept leaving it places. I finally got grumpy enough with her that she left it by the door, and we successfully brought it to the park. The ducks were quite happy (you can't see them in the picture, but there are a lot).

Then the kids tried fishing with Alice's pretend fishing pole. They both need some work on their casting--the timing of it is quite tricky.

We watched a caterpillar for a while.

Then we rented a row boat. This was Zac's idea of a good time. I thought it was too hot and sunny, but we just putzed around in the shade by the shore for a bit, so it wasn't too bad.

Back at the house, the kids took good naps, and then Zac let them help him wash the car and play with water while I went for a walk.

A rant on the tedium of parenting

So, here the kids are, having ice cream cones for breakfast. Because I give up.

Ok, I didn't simply give up. I gave up making rational parenting decisions because on this morning, that was the rational thing to do. (Catch-22, anyone?) Alice woke up with a sore throat, and Simon woke up covered in some vomit that he apparently slept in. Therefore he had to suffer through the atrocity of a morning bath, and it just seemed like ice cream cones for breakfast would solve all of these problems.

I like to believe that I am the epitome of a calm, caring, patient, ever-reasonable, fun-loving parent. But sometimes this role just seems unsustainable. Although Simon's developing verbal skills are exciting, the reality is that I just have two kids whining at me and demanding things at the same time. I'm not a dog person precisely because dogs are too needy. My one stint waitressing (serving drinks to people at a church potluck) made me eschew the hospitality business altogether. Not because I don't like serving people, but because we had run out of coffee and some older ladies kept asking for coffee. It drove me nuts.  Now it's part of my daily routine.

Simon loves apples. Or he loves the concept of apples. He is constantly asking for an apple, and then will just take one or two bites, or he wants to walk around the house with the apple, inevitably dropping it or leaving it in some gross place.

Lately, he's switched to oranges. Sometimes he'll eat it. Sometimes he just wants to play with it. Now he wants to peel it himself (but you have to keep getting it started for him) and sometimes he just wants to keep putting the peels back on the orange so he can peel it again. While the rational part of my brain knows this is just how he learns and explores, and sometimes it's even cute, the real part of my brain is just tired of it all. How much longer until these kids can feed and clean up after themselves?

Weekends are the worst, because there are so many snacks and meals, and each one always leaves a big mess on the floor. Our kitchen floor is so gross because cleaning it is Sisyphean. We do clean it, it just gets messy again an hour or two later. Again and again and again.

Somehow, most of the time, I'm fine with all of this. I was cheerful all summer, somehow. But for whatever reason (maybe a taste of having purpose and control, from going back to work?), my resilience broke down this weekend (as it does from time to time) and everything just seemed miserable and endless.

Contents of kitchen floor after typical lunch:
2 trains, 2 dirty socks, 3 orange segments, 2 orange peels, 1 hotdog remnant, 1 green bean, 5 macaronis.

Knocking over towers

This has been great fun at our house this week. Zac and/or Alice will build a tower out of blocks and then Simon will knock it down with his shopping cart.

Playing together

The kids are playing together more and more, and although sometimes the play consists of Alice pushing Simon down on the couch, it seems like our investment in two kids is finally starting to pay off.

Patriotic goop

Here I am, feeding our two-year-old the "goop" bedtime snack we developed back when he was nearly underweight and didn't like chewing yet.  I think we've been feeding it to Simon for at least a year now. I'm not sure how much longer he will tolerate it and I am optimistic that someday, maybe by the time the kids are teenagers, I will have forgotten this. Therefore, I will record the ingredients of the infamous goop:

1 avocado

1 banana

1 small applesauce cup

flaxseed

coconut oil

Each batch lasts three nights.

Uncaged

We've got Alice fairly well trained to let us sleep in on weekends (at least until 8am). This morning when we went in to get her, she had quite a surprise for us. She had evidently entertained herself for the last hour by trashing her room, or "playing" as she calls it. She had even moved her bed out from the wall.

After a leisurely breakfast of pancakes, we headed out for our two errands that morning: pet store and grocery store.

On the way to the pet store, I handed Alice her traditional in-the-van-banana that I always make her eat when we're on the way to somewhere, since she eats such an insufficient breakfast, and then breaks down from low blood sugar. When I said, "Here's your banana!" she immediately retorted, "Mom! I only have to eat bananas when we're going to somewhere that we're going to stay!" She was kind of right, although I had never stated the rule.  So I just went with it.

"But Alice, you and Simon are going to stay at the pet store. They'll give you a very nice cage and they'll probably even feed you twice a day! And after a few days, some nice person will come and buy you and take you home."

Alice simply replied, "I don't want to stay in a cage." 

When we arrived at the pet store, she had no qualms about getting out the van and going inside. I guess Zac and I tease her enough that she never takes us seriously anymore.

In the store, the kids looked at the birds and hamsters and fish. They chased each other up and down the aisles. It was great fun.

After the grocery store, we had our normal weekend afternoon of a late lunch with Simon going bonkers, then naptime and laundry.  We must have been inspired by seeing the dogs at the pet store get their hair cut because we gave Simon a haircut after supper.  Here he is, sporting his new 'do.

Building blocks

Alice has been playing with the blocks a lot this weekend. This top picture is of a design that she copied out of the booklet that came with the blocks. It's pretty cool that she can look at a (simple) picture and figure out how to make it now. Zac said, "I can't wait! She's almost ready for legos!"

Fun in the sun and sand at Jordan Lake Beach

It was a beautiful 90-degree day here in sunny NC, so we headed to the Jordan Lake beach to let the kids have some fun in the sun and sand. Alice went swimming a lot and Simon let us hold him and pass him back and forth in the water. They also played in the sand, which consisted mostly of Alice building mounds and Simon smushing them.

Wee down the hill

Simon loves to ride his motorcycle down the driveway. Miraculously, he hasn't wiped out yet. He also loves to run on the driveway and sidewalk, and he falls down all the time, leaving his knees permanently scabby.

Bites with flourish

Sometimes Simon is so happy when he's eating, that he adds a little flourish at the end of each bite.

Izzy's birthday party

Alice and Simon were really excited to go to Izzy's birthday party. Alice talked about how she was going to ride on the swing, while Simon practiced singing "Happy Birthday" and blowing out candles.

We were the first ones to arrive at the party, but all the other kids showed up soon. Basically, they have a huge property (also home to the annual Easter Egg hunt) and had set up lots of activities for the kids. I think Alice partook of everything, while Simon focused mainly on the bubbles and things with wheels.

This was the first time Alice jumped in a trampoline. She was nervous at first, but gradually got used to it.

Alice's favorite part was getting to ride on the tractor. The driver even took the kids to a big pile and lifted up some dirt so they could see how the scoop worked. Alice loved it!

I also made sure she got a seat at the cake table, so she wouldn't have a meltdown like at Oscar's party right when they started singing Happy Birthday.

All in all, it was a great morning spent with friends!