This time of life

Weekends would be so fun if all we had to do was play with the kids all day. That was the best part of staying home with them this summer--the relaxed pace and the ability to just enjoy hanging out with them, and watching them play.  On the weekends now we try to do it all: go places to have fun, run some errands, play around the house, do all the laundry, cook some big meals to have leftovers.  This is in addition to the normal maintenance of our children such as feeding them and cleaning up.  The result is that every weekend is packed full of fun moments, but we're just going from one thing to the next: either playing with the kids or working on some chore.  I always feel like I need a separate weekend day just to be myself and do my own thing that is not the kids or my job.  I tell myself that's what retirement is for, and so when I feel things are too hectic, I just try to imagine myself bored out of my skull at some old folks home and how much I would love to come back to this time of life.

Simon is getting better at cruising and is doing more of the reaching stage.

Simon and I played outside in the playhouse, while Zac took Alice for a car ride and to the park.

Bug Fest

We went to the science museum downtown for their annual bug festival.  Outside and throughout the museum there were lots of tables set up with insects and little crafts for the kids.  It's always a gamble to go to these things, because they are usually really crowded and we're not sure how much Alice gets out of the special tables vs. just going to the museum on a less crowded normal day.  Plus, we never know how much to intervene in directing her attention away from the normal stuff that she can see any time and towards the things that are special for that day.  It's like when we go to Marbles and she just wants to paint, which she can do at home and at school.  Anyway, we generally try to direct her towards the special things without really enforcing it if she is interested in something else.

These pictures are all of her and Simon doing stuff they could have done at the museum anytime.  Alice did look at a lot of the bug exhibits though, but usually briefly.  She had no interest in touching anything, and given that we often show her bugs outside (and we usually have plenty inside our house too) it's understandable that she was more interested in the dinosaurs and other fun stuff.

Simon loves fish!

Alice had a lot of fun looking out the second story window with binoculars.

She got to dress up as a T-Rex!  I should note that they had lots of costumes of things like lady bugs, bumble bees, frogs, etc, but she went straight for the Tyrannosaurus.

And then, to her delight, she discovered a pile of dinosaurs on the floor!  That was not acceptable --they had to be sorted according to size and put into a line.  The one on the far right swims in the ocean, so she had to separate it from the rest.

We had a snack outside around lunch time and Simon had great fun walking back and forth along this wall.

While Zac was taking this picture (actually it was several) Alice wandered off.  We found her downstairs on the ground level, where we had started.  This is the second time she's wandered off (the first was at Target last weekend).  I think part of it is because she is so used to being on her own at school, and also because at these places everyone talks to her and is so friendly, so she feels like she's at school.  Or she just assumes we're keeping track of her and that she is not in fact lost. At any rate, she has no sense of people as being dangerous yet.  The only thing she's afraid of is people dressed up.  There was someone wearing a costume of a water drop and she was absolutely terrified.  So we need to do a better job of teaching her to not wander off.  Although in both cases I didn't feel she was in any danger (vs. wandering off outside near a busy street), the other people nearby (who had noticed an unaccompanied 3-year old, or in the case of Target, a girl shouting "Mommy" throughout the store) sure seemed to glare at us as if we were the worst parents ever.  In a way though, it's probably good that she has these little experiences in relatively safe environments so that she learns how to deal with the situation if she is lost.  But we're still going to teach her not to wander off. 

Where's Simon?

We played this peek-a-boo game for a few minutes before I started to record it.  Then, twenty seconds in, he started pooping.  Seems like that always happens.

The Beard

Don was in town for the night doing a job at the PNC Arena, so he dropped by.  Alice always talks about how afraid she is of Don's beard, but when she saw an opportunity to have someone read her dinosaur books, she quickly overcame her fear.  By the end, she had gone to the bathroom to get her comb and was alternatively petting and trying to comb Don's beard.

Belly laugh

Sticks

Alice can never pass by a good stick without picking it up.

Simon at the park

I keep saying that I can't wait for Simon to learn how to walk.  It's hard to find outings that are going to work for both kids. He's getting too big to carry around and too active to just sit in the stroller, but yet he can't walk on his own.  But one of the things we normally do works pretty well: We go to one park that has a greenway connecting to another park. Alice gets to ride her bike, and I push Simon in the stroller, but he gets to get out and play at both ends.

Fiesta

One evening, we got a knock on our door and the little neighbor girl gave us an invitation to her birthday party. Later that evening, the dad knocked on our door to tell us the van headlights were left on (the result of Alice exiting the van via the driver's seat for some reason). He said there was going to be a trampoline and a pinata at the party.

These neighbors moved in across the street about a year ago after the elderly shut-in lady passed away.  We always wave to them and have chatted a few times.  I like them because they take good care of their front yard and they frequently get Little Caesar's Hot N Ready pizzas, just like us.

So on the morning of the party, we trooped to Target to get a present for an 8 year old girl that we really knew nothing about other than she often rides her bike in circles in the driveway and the invitation had Barbie on it.  As luck would have it, near the toy aisle I found a hispanic mom with a 9 year old girl and consulted with them on the appropriate present (a small messenger bag that you can color on with fabric markers and personalize).

So on Saturday at 5:30 with Alice holding the present, we walked across the street and found ourselves in another country.  Everyone at the party was hispanic and speaking Spanish except for us.  Even the crispy snacks set out on the table were different (Simon loved them).  We've been in the situation before, back in our wedding-attending days in Namibia, so feeling foreign was not entirely foreign to us.  I made some awkward small talk with the ladies while Zac drank beer with the men. For supper they brought out plates of rice, beans and meat.  The meat turned out to be from a deer that one of the men had hunted.

This party was pretty impressive.  There were pink balloons strung from a makeshift canopy, marshmallow-scewer centerpieces, and balloons with Barbie heads on them (Alice kept asking, "Who is that girl?")  There was a princess bouncy castle that Alice was afraid to go in until everyone else ran off to play inside the house, then she jumped her little heart out. Simon also enjoyed climbing up and down the ramp to the bouncy castle.  The birthday girl, Brianna, was an excellent hostess and kept trying to include Alice, but Alice was more interested in playing with sticks in the woods, a net under their deck, a shovel set against a tree trunk, and a ladder leaning on another tree. We really had to keep our eyes on her. Eventually she acquired a pink balloon and that kept her grabby hands out of trouble for a while.

Alice was really excited about the pinata: The idea that you get to hit something with a stick until candy and toys fall out is right up her alley. However, when it was her turn to actually hit the thing, she refused.  But, when the candy and toys fell out, she wormed her way into the group and grabbed some without hesitation.  The dad was so kind and brought her over a handful of stuff too.  After the excitement was over and the broken pinata was set aside, Alice found a small branch in the woods and went over and beat it some more.

It was late by the time they brought out the giant pink Barbie cake and adjusted the porch lights to illuminate it.  Alice was very interested in the cake and got in close for a good view.

Shoes and shopping

There are two new things in this picture: Simon is sitting in a shopping cart and he's wearing shoes!  So, up to now, we have not really been able to put Simon in the shopping carts because he couldn't sit well enough.  As a result, we rarely take him shopping.  Also, he's wearing shoes.  He's still not walking on his own, but when we're out we'll sometimes let him walk around while we hold his hands and it seems like it's getting a bit weird to just have him in socks.

We went to the consignment store last weekend and got the kids halloween costumes and some shoes for Simon.  Finding boy shoes is great -- they are all functional and practical.  I remember it was always so hard to find shoes for Alice that she could actually run around and play in.  But that could be partly because those are the types of shoes that get worn out and can't be resold, whereas the awful, uncomfortable sandals are always in perfect condition because no sane child would wear them for very long.  So we found a couple of pairs of nice Stride Rite shoes, but Simon hates them.  It took about ten minutes to even get them on because he kept curling up his toes and screaming (as if we were trying to bind his feet).  Later, when I did put him down to walk the aisles a bit, he was extra uncoordinated--it was like he had to learn to walk again.

Bathrobe

A friend from work gave me this cute hand-me-down bathrobe for Alice a year ago, but it was still too big.  A few nights ago she was cold after her bath, so I dug it out and put it on her.  The sleeves are a bit long, but otherwise it fits.  She really loves it and can't wait to wear it every night after her bath.

Who says moo?

Not me, not anymore.  That's right: Simon is finally weaned!  For the last month or so since I've gone back to work, he has only nursed morning and night.  Then for the last two days only at night, as I've been working towards weaning him.  The current bedtime routine is that he has a bedtime snack, then a bath, then I nurse, then I read him some books.  But tonight, when I put him in the nursing position, he fussed and just kept trying to reach for the books.  Specifically, he really wanted this book called "Open the Barn Door" where each page has a question about who says what, then you lift the flap and see the animal that makes that noise.  So both symbolically and literally, Simon passed on me in favor of a cow.  Although, literally is not quite accurate, since he's currently drinking soy milk (as we still try to figure out the allergy thing).

The other important developments that have led to this are that he now drinks cold milk from a sippy cup, he sleeps through the night consistently, and he is doing a pretty good job eating table food.  We're still feeding him baby food too, but the ratio will gradually shift until he is eating entirely table food.

So three days shy of 14 months, I'm finally free of nursing. Alice had spontaneously self-weaned right before she turned 12 months when I had been nursing her 4-5 times a day, so with her, I never realized the last nursing was the last nursing since it happened so suddenly (although it was not unwelcome, since I had wanted to get pregnant again soon).  But with Simon, I knew the end was near, and I knew that I probably wouldn't know that a particular nursing was the last one, since he would probably just decide he was done with it one random night. I was thinking all of this last night as I was nursing him so I made a point of enjoying his little chubby cheeks as he nursed.  And it turned out that was in fact the last time.

After I put him to bed, I went out and told Zac what had happened.  I cried a bit: a mixture of sadness that that part of my life was permanently over, but also some relief that it was finally over and had gone smoothly.  I'm free!  My child can survive without my sustenance!  At the rate he'd been going, I felt like we'd never get to this point, so overall I'm happy that he has made so much progress this past month.

A trip to S-Mart

 After supper, Alice and I took a walk to S-Mart to buy some more bananas.  The Korean grocery store is just down the road, but because Alice has to stop and blow on the dandelions and pick up sticks and ask a thousand questions, the trip took a while.  In the store, she likes to look at the live fish and touch everything in the section with whisks, chopsticks, frying baskets, and brooms.

This is what we get for trying...

We don't go to many adult social activities anymore because it's just too hard with the kids.  Even when we do go, all our energy is focused on keeping the kids happy and out of trouble, so we don't get much of a chance to actually socialize.

We used to be very active in our local Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) group, but after having Alice, and especially after having Simon, our involvement has plummeted.  However, every year the group has a Peace Corps Friends and Family Picnic at a local park, so we thought that would be something we could do with the kids.

So we went, and it really wasn't much different from anything else.  We got there a bit late (because we had to wait until after Simon's nap, and even then we woke him up early), and everyone was already sitting down eating.  So we got a little bit of food (Alice wanted a cupcake and broccoli) and found a place to sit, but only talked a bit because everyone was already in the middle of their conversations.

The other thing that made me realize how pointless it was to attend was that even when talking to the parents of a volunteer currently in Namibia and a person assigned to go to Namibia, I just didn't care.  We got back from Namibia ten years ago, and that part of my life now seems so distant that I couldn't really think of much to say.  I tried to care, I tried to make conversation, but it wasn't like it used to be when all of that seemed a much more recent and significant part of our life.  The Peace Corps slogan of "The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love" seems to apply more to parenting now than working in a developing country.

After eating her cupcake and brocoli, Alice ran off to play at the nearby playground, so I went there to keep an eye on her.  A bit later they started a thing where people stand up and tell stories, and since the kids can't be quiet, Zac and Simon also came to the playground.

Then Zac got stung twice by a wasp while helping Simon go down the slide.  He's allergic, but for some reason thought it would be fine to walk around for a while, so we went down to look at the boats on the lake.  Zac became increasingly miserable, so then we just went home.

Zac was soon covered in hives and utterly miserable, so he spent the next six hours in bed while I finished up the laundry, got the kids a snack, cooked supper, fed the kids supper, and got them their bedtimes snacks and baths.

It was a rough day.

Little drummer girl

Alice wanted to take her drum to school for show and share. That must have been a fun drive.

Alice's new beverage

I picked Alice and Simon up on Friday and gave them a snack while I was making supper to keep them occupied since Zac was not home yet.  Alice wanted some carrots.  I gave Simon some peas and bread.  Then of course Alice also wanted peas and bread, but her approach for consuming them was a bit unique.

Watch out for this girl!

I made some off-hand comment about "needing a helmet" while Alice was doing something dangerous (a daily occurrence).  Alice took it literally and insisted that she needed a helmet, so we got Zac's out of the shed and let her wear it around for a while.

Notebooks

Nelson and Alice reflect in their journals about all the fun had at the beach.

Aquarium & Dinos

On Monday morning, we had vacate our vacation home by 10am, so we packed up then drove to the aquarium on Roanoke Island.  Alice got to see a real life scuba diver in the shark tank and Simon was so happy to watch the fish.

Outside the aquarium, they had a little walking trail with some animatronic dinosaurs.  We just lucked into it, and it was the last day the exhibit was open.  Alice was scared of the first dinosaur, but got braver through exposure.  That was fortunate because the last dinosaur was a pretty scary T-Rex.