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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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!"
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.
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.
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!
I suppose we really only have ourselves to blame. We got Alice the scooter for her birthday, then took her down to the sidewalk to practice riding it. Then, in Ohio, we picked up the green bike, and took Simon down to the sidewalk so he could ride it. Now, nearly everyday the kids will ask to go down to the sidewalk to ride bikes. That's fine; that makes sense. But one day, Zac brought the new bubbles from Oscar's birthday party down to the sidewalk for Simon to play with while Alice rode something. Now, Simon always says, "I want to go blow bubbles on the sidewalk" and refuses to blow them anywhere else.
So now, we spend our evenings with two little kids on a sidewalk right next to a well-trafficked street. It could be worse, I suppose--it could be a highway or main road. But still, it's not the most relaxing place to play. Luckily, neither kid has ever run into the road, but still, Zac and I live in terror as Simon blows bubbles and "rides his motorcycle" on the sidewalk.
Alice always wants to know what we're having for supper right when she walks in the door. I usually tell her that she will find out after she takes off her shoes and washes her hands, to motivate her to complete these simple tasks quickly. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Today, when Zac brought the kids home, Alice washed her hands really quickly and ran out to the kitchen while I was getting Simon's hands washed, a process that he always inexplicably resists. By the time I got back to the kitchen with Simon, I almost had a heart attack because Alice had pushed a chair up to the stove, had put on oven mitts, and was stirring the pot of spaghetti.
Although this was the third birthday party of Oscar's that we've attended, it was the first one held at his house. When we walked in the door and saw their train tables, the kids were so happy. That's the best part about going to their classmates' birthday parties: playing with the other kids' toys.
Simon is happy to see a train table!
Max, Lukas, Simon and Alice play with the train table
But then we saw the creatively-landscaped backyard, which was an amazing work of making the most of a small space. Let me see if I can list all of the features:
Felix and Oscar watch Izzy, Alice, and Grayson walk in the stream
two waterfalls and a stream
a chicken coop
a basketball hoop
a T-ball stand where you smack the ball on to the roof of the garage so it rolls back to you
a baby swing
a pergola with climbing pegs stuck into it and a fireman's pole
a cannon (cast iron, but not real)
a giant Connect Four game
a bubble machine (maybe just for the party and not a permanent installation)
a music wall with pipes and pots and plates to bang on, arranged artistically
a play kitchen
a mini-golf putting green
a scooter, tricycle and custom-painted batmobile
Needless to say, we were immensely jealous and felt like total underachievers.
Alice and Anna push Izzy
Lukas and Alice play with Connect Four
Simon in the Batmobile
Between all the outdoor playthings, the giant train set, and their friends, the kids had a great time. Then, add in some pizza, juice, and cake, and life could really not be any better.
Oscar, Alice, Grayson
Alice only had one meltdown. When they brought out the cake, Alice quickly formulated a plan to go sit by birthday-boy Oscar. She headed over and was nearly there when they started singing. I saw Alice's face start to crumple in disappointment, and I quickly scooped her up and took her inside so her crying wouldn't interfere with the festivities. Between sobs, Alice explained, "They didn't wait for me! They started with out me! I was left out!" I tried to explain that there were a lot of people there and they didn't know she wanted to sit by Oscar, so no malice was intended. She was eventually consoled, and managed to eat a few bites of cake, even although it was chocolate. Simon, on the other hand, who doesn't show much interest in cake, ate his whole (small) piece.
Shortly after the cake, we headed home. While I put sleepy Simon down for a nap, Alice played with her party swag.
On Sunday morning, the kids woke up early so we had time to play outside before heading to Oscar's birthday party. Alice was riding the green tricycle around in circles while Simon sat on his "motorcycle" and repeated, "Oh! I'm stuck in the grass, mommy!" It's this weird routine he does whenever he's on a bike. He barely scoots around, and then gets "stuck in the grass" for a long time.
Zac had the shed door open because he was getting out clippers to trim some bushes when Alice went in it and saw her red car, which we hadn't gotten out for a while. She immediately wanted to ride it. It was the first time Simon saw the car, and, because of his great love of anything with wheels, it was almost unbearable for him to see Alice riding around in the car and not him.
I soon convinced Alice to give Simon a turn, and offered to let her wash the car while Simon sat in it. Alice loves washing things, so it was a win-win, if you just overlook the reinforcement of stereotypical gender roles.
Whenever we go anywhere, at some point during the drive, Alice will always ask what side the point of destination is going to be on--her side or Simon's. She likes to know in advance which window to be looking out.
Tonight, one of Alice's bedtime stories was the ABC Universe book. As we looked at a picture of the sun, Alice said, "When we go to space, I think the sun is going to be on my side of the rocket ship. But I won't touch it!" I love how she imagines that in the same way we all pile into the van to go to the swimming pool, one day we'll just pile into our rocket ship and fly by the sun.
Later in the book, we were looking at a picture of a white dwarf, "a star that has run out of energy." I suggested it was probably because it didn't do a good job eating its meals, but Alice had another hypothesis: "I think it is because it barfed up its breakfast and its lunch and its supper and all of its snacks!"
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Earlier that day, Alice had somehow got on the topic of Easter, and said, "Does a real bunny come in to our house and hide eggs? That's silly!"
I avoided answering the question by saying, "What do you think?"
A moment later she conjectured, "Maybe it's just a person wearing a costume."
I just repeated what she said: "So you're think it's a person in a costume?"
I always get worried at moments like this that she'll pursue the topic to a point of no return, but just before a critical point, she'll shift topics to something completely mundane, like the location of her chair relative to Simon's. Phew!
It is too bad that Alice's greatest joy, swimming, is also the least documented because water is the mortal enemy of cell phones.
On Saturday morning we met Grayson and Lindsey at the Ridge Road Pool. It has a splash yard, a baby pool, and a large pool. Alice, with her short attention span, kept going back and forth from the baby pool to the large pool. She still always uses her water wings and tries to avoid putting her head in the water. But she enjoys kicking around. Grayson, who couldn't find his water wings today, did a great job of putting his face in the water and trying to swim, and jumping off the side. When Alice was two years old, she would do those things, but has become increasingly aware of her mortality, and is more fearful now.
Simon is liking the water more and more. He loved going through the "water tunnel" created by the fountains. He also spent a lot of time in the baby pool playing with toys.Then, in the large pool he let Zac and I push him back and forth across the water while he pretended to swim by flapping his arms and flailing his legs. It was pretty cute.
There was a tragedy during snack break when Alice got sunblock in her eyes (after I reapplied it) and cried for five minutes. I kept telling her to cry with tears, as that would help wash the sunblock out, but alas, not a single tear was shed.
We left just after noon and both kids fell asleep instantly in the van.
