Mother's Day

The night before Mother's Day, Simon woke up crying. He had a little cold, so we thought he was just uncomfortable, so we waited a few minutes, and he laid back down (we were watching on the spy camera). But then he got up and started crying again. When I went in the see what was the matter, I discovered he had vomited all over his bed. Zac changed the sheets while I changed Simon. He then threw up a few more times. A few outfit changes later, I rocked him to sleep and put him back to bed.

Moments like these aren't miserable for me. It seemed somehow fitting that on the night before mother's day, my son was throwing up on me. It's for nights like this that parents are honored. If it was all bubbles and sunshine, we wouldn't need a special day to force children to thank their parents.

You may recall that last Mother's Day was a bit of a mess, so we decided to keep it simple. No lemon meringue pie, for one. And we got all the laundry done on Saturday. In the morning, we went to Harris Lake Park. It's a fun place, but we were also going to scope it out as a possible venue for Alice's potential birthday party. In the end, we decided it was nice, but probably too far away (30 minutes) to ask people to drive just for a playground and picnic shelter.

 

While Zac and Alice went to explore the green pond, Simon took a little nap on me.

Alice fell asleep in the van on the drive home, so when I brought her in the house, my non-snuggly child actually wanted to lay on me for a little bit. It was the best mother's day gift.

As always, Alice was very helpful in unwrapping the presents.

Grayson's superhero birthday party

Alice's good friend Grayson was having a superhero-themed birthday party in the Art museum park on Saturday evening. The children were instructed to dress like superheros, so we'd gone online and ordered Alice a cape and Simon a superman T-shirt with a Velcro cape on the back. 

On the way home, we saw a rainbow. Alice had been asking for a long time to see a rainbow, so she was quite excited to finally see one in real life.

Before and after

Cookie kids

We had a family shopping trip to Harris Teeter and the kids were pretty happy about the free cookie samples.

Superhero in drag

Daycare's mother's day

The kids' daycare had their annual Mother's Day breakfast, where you get to try and eat breakfast, socialize with other parents, all while having a squirmy kid on your lap. Then, when it's time to go, all the kids cry.

This year was a bit different in that I had two kids in different classrooms (the infant room, where Simon was this time last year, does not do a breakfast).  So I went to Simon's class first, while Alice went to her own classroom. Simon was happy to have me there for essentially his morning snack, but was quite upset when I left.

At 8:30, the celebrations in Alice's classroom began. They stood in a circle with their parents, and each child had to introduce his/her mom. Then they sang some special mom-songs (all of which Alice had been singing around the house for weeks). She actually sang this time, for the first time ever (normally she looks dumbfounded the whole time, even though she always knows all the songs). 

Then, they went through the morning routine where they do the calendar and talk about the weather and say the pledge of allegiance. The helper also gets to ask the line leader "five important questions." These are things like the president's name, the state bird, etc.  This helped explain why last week, when Alice was helping me weed some pine tree sprouts out of the flower bed, she kept saying, "Mommy, we're picking the state tree!"

Alice never gives us coherent narratives of what she does at school all day, so this morning was a fun little glimpse into at least a small part of her day.

After the morning routine was done, we were invited to eat the breakfast, which was set up as a buffet.  Part of the breakfast was cupcakes, so I sort of pitied the teachers for having to deal with a bunch of kids who essentially ate cupcakes for breakfast.

And, in an important break with tradition, Alice did not shed a tear when I left. She was ready to get busy with her work.

Hammock snuggle

When we first got the hammock out for spring, Simon was afraid of it and would cry if you tried to put him in it. But today, he wanted in with me and was so nice and snuggly.

Cape

In anticipation of Grayson's superhero-themed birthday party, we got Alice a cape.  The first thing she did was make sure it would help her fly.

Pullen Park

Although we probably should have stayed home and done chores all day, the weather was irresistibly beautiful on Sunday, so we (and everyone else with kids) headed to Pullen Park.

We started at the carousel, per tradition, and Simon was very happy to ride on a reindeer.

One objective for the day was to try and get a good family photo. It's always hard, and usually a complete failure, but today we somewhat succeeded.

We had our snack on a shady picnic table overlooking the pond.  It's moments like these where life seems to be becoming palpably easier.  Simon can sit on a bench and eat a normal snack now.  I still have to watch him carefully, as he almost fell off once, but this is a vast improvement over nursing in public or trying to feed him purees while he wiggled and squirmed and got goop everywhere. 

From our picnic spot, we could also see the train go round.  Simon especially was so excited to see it every time.

Alice enjoyed some rock climbing.

And some tree climbing.

Simon has a knack for finding tiny spiders and ants.

To avoid walking around the pond behind a large group, we went off to the side for a bit.  Since there is a steep drop down to a creek, Zac stood gaurd.  I asked if he was the catcher, and he replied, "Yes. I'm the catcher in the liriope."

Alice went "fishing" with her big stick.

Although we had a great time, Alice declared her disappointment at not getting to play on the tire swing, ride the train or go in the paddle boats. We'll have to go to the park when it's less crowded next time so we can do those things without having to wait in line forever.  But try explaining that to Alice.

Simon waiting

Simon waits very patiently while Zac fills his snack cup with animal crackers.

Gnomes and Fairies at Prairie Ridge

Prairie Ridge was having some sort of Gnomes and Fairies thing on Saturday morning. It had been a rainy, chilly week, so we were looking forward to the nice weather predicted for Saturday.  We continued our trend of going places with Grayson, but this time Izzy and few other kids from Alice's daycare were there as well, so the kids had a great time playing together. They didn't do many of the activities; instead they mainly played in the outdoor nature-play area. I was surprised at the number of kids who had fairy wings or full-on fairy costumes.  All Alice has is a pair of limp butterfly wings we got from someone. But she didn't seem to notice, and flitted about having a great time with her friends.

 

Kids in a field: Alice, Simon and Grayson