Ritter Park

Lindsey suggested having a playdate at a new park this weekend, so Saturday morning we met at Ritter Park. It's amazing that we can still find new parks to go to that are less than 20 minutes away. It turned out to be a great park and the kids had a blast. The redbud trees were beautiful, and fortunately Lindsey and I color-coordinated.

Simon mostly played in the sandbox, at first.

Alice and Grayson went and did the climbing wall.

From a parent's point of view, one kid pushing another is the best thing ever.

After the kids played at the playground for a long time and had a big snack, they headed down to the adjacent creek, and eventually explored the culverts. 

Then, they headed back up to the playground and discovered some more fun things to do.

Evening on the sidewalk

With the warm weather today, we spent the time between supper and bedtime snack down at the sidewalk. It's always a bit nerve-wracking to be so close to the street, but the kids are pretty well trained to stay out of the road. Here are three videos of how they entertained themselves. Simon always wants to see himself on the video, so that's what he's whining about most of the time. In the third video, I finally turned the camera to front-facing so he could see himself while I made the video.

St. Patrick's Day green milk

For St. Patrick's Day, Alice said she needed to have something green for breakfast. Her idea was a green pear and peas. Zac suggested making green milk for her cereal. Alice was really happy about that.

Alice asleep

I found Alice fast asleep in this rather stiff pose this morning.

Lazy lollipops

Blame Zac for the vertical video.

Sunday morning and books and play

This morning, Alice woke up at her normal time, and went into the living room to start working her way through the pile of hand-me-down books we got from Julian last night.

When Simon finally woke up, Zac and I were both busy in the middle of something, so I told Alice to go play with him until we had a chance to get him out of bed. A while later, when I finally had a chance to check on them, this is what I found. Alice had moved the light with the colored bulb over to the bed, then climbed in it with Simon, and they were using the red light as an x-ray machine to perform checkups on the owls.

Our big day: Reptiles, restaurants, machines and trampolines

On Saturday, we had been planning to go to the annual reptile day at the science museum, but then Zac's dad invited us over to check out their new trampoline. So we made a new plan: We would go to the science museum in the morning, eat lunch out, then the kids would nap in the van on the way to Burlington.

The morning started out well. Although Zac burnt the eggs, the kids took advantage of the open front door (to get the smoke out) to play happily on the porch while round two of the eggs were cooking. Alice was very involved in cutting up a string, dipping it in water, then putting the pieces on her stick.

Once we ate breakfast and got packed up, we headed off to the science museum. I love that Simon can now catch on to the plan, because the whole way there, he kept repeating, "I'm going to touch a snake!"

The kids had a lot of fun touching all sorts of creatures, but eventually Simon started breaking down, so we decided to head on to the next stage: lunch. Because of the warm weather, the outdoor bridge between the buildings was open, so the kids had fun running across it.

To get back to the door we came in, we had to go down three flights of stairs. Simon wanted to walk down himself, but he was messing around and causing traffic jams. So I just picked him up and carried him down the stairs, and he got very upset. So, just like last year, I ended up walking out of the museum holding a screaming, kicking child.

Having deemed the museum restaurant food unlikely to be eaten by our children, we drove to a nearby Chinese restaurant, that had outdoor seating. It was perfect for the kids, since they didn't disturb anyone. Simon did OK, but Alice kept laying down on the bench and rolling around.

Simon wasn't eating very well, but luckily Zac had some toothpicks, so he kept giving Simon "samples" which he would willingly eat. At home, the kids will do lollipop "cheers" (because if you're a kid, lollipops look just like wine glasses). At the restaurant, they invented yet another way of spreading germs: sample cheers.

After we finished lunch, we walked to the nearby rail yard to look around. Here the kids are playing on an old, dilapidated luggage cart.

Then, of course, we had to check out the digger that was parked in a field adjacent to the parking lot.

The kids were covered in food and grime, so we put on fresh clothes, packed them up in the van, and drove towards Burlington. The kids each napped for about 20 minutes, so it was less than ideal.

When we were about 45 minutes in to the drive, Zac noticed the van seemed to be shaking a lot, and suspected we had a flat tire. Luckily, we were right by an exit that had a lot of gas stations, so we pulled off the highway.  Zac pulled into a parking lot and looked at the wheels and didn't notice anything, but decided to err on the side of caution and pulled into the adjacent BP that appeared to have a shop.  

This ended up being the most random, lucky choice. It was kind of a weird place, with lots of hand painted signs giving advice for life, but it gave off a friendly vibe. The shop in back of the gas station had a run-down kids' play area next to it, as well as a pen full of goats and chickens. We couldn't have asked for a better place to spend an hour while they figured out that our lug nuts were loose. Everything was rickety, and broken, and the slide was so steep Simon plopped right into his bottom at the end. The kids had a blast!

We finally arrived in Burlington. Simon just wanted to snuggle (his 20-min nap was not sufficient), while Alice enthusiastically used the trampoline.

The kids also did well at supper, which was spaghetti. It was possibly the first meal they ever willingly ate there (the fault is entirely on our kids, not the food). Then, after supper, they went and played while the adults visited for a while. It was miraculous. Maybe there is a light at the end of this tunnel after all.

Alice's night undies!

Alice slept through the night without tinkling in her diaper for a week, so we let her sleep in underwear last night instead of a diaper. She did just fine. Here's hoping this is the end of night diapers for her!

Simon loves bread

We recently discovered that Simon loves eating plain bread. This is the best thing ever. We discovered it on accident one evening about a week ago when I was assembling BLTs for supper, and Simon was hungry and kept asking for bread. He didn't want jelly or butter or anything on it. Just bread. A day or two later, when he needed a snack, I offered a piece of bread, and sure enough, he gobbled it right up. Alice has never been a fan of bread, so I guess that's why it never occurred to us that Simon would like bread. Although, in hindsight, we should have figured it out because whenever we have Indian food, Simon loves eating the naan bread. So now, in the morning when we're getting breakfast ready, Simon will say, "I want to stand in the kitchen and eat bread" and he will do just that. We usually give him half a slice, and he has a special way of eating it: he always eats the crusts first.

To and From School - Time Lapse

Here are two videos Zac made using the time-lapse feature on his phone. They are from different days this week, going to to school and coming home.  On the way home, Zac always shares his carrots with the kids, hence all the chewing.

2 little ghosts, laying on the floor

Cowboy Simon

For Dr. Seuss week in Simon's class, they were supposed to wear silly hats on Thursday. The only hat we really had was a cowboy hat, which Simon was happy to wear.

Chugga-chugga choo choo!

Simon ran around like this for probably twenty-minutes straight.

It was "dress crazy" day at school, that's why his outfit is so weird.

Alice's work

This only slightly resembles a swastika... Which, we must all remember, is an ancient sanskrit symbol that Hitler ruined.

Check out that S.

Alice's first* swim lesson

*Ok, technically Alice had swim lessons when she was about 22 months old, but it was more like time in the water for her to play.

I signed Alice up for her first real swim lessons at the Triangle Aquatic Center, an indoor pool about five minutes from our house, which is super convenient. The series includes 8 lessons, on Sunday afternoons from 4:20-4:50. I'd been prepping Alice for the lessons for a couple of days, emphasizing that she had better listen to whatever her teacher tells her, and if she misbehaved too egregiously she would not get any videos at bedtime snack. We also watched a few videos of kids at swim lessons so she would know what to expect, since she has no memory of the lessons from two years ago.

When the afternoon finally arrived, she was so excited that when I got back from my walk, she was sitting in the bathroom completely naked, waiting for me to find her "swimsuit with cherries on it." Her swim lesson wasn't for another hour. I convinced her to put some clothes on and eat a snack before getting ready.  She was in one of her crazy states, probably due to excitement, so it was surprisingly difficult to wrangle her through snack, into her suit, and out to the car. I was worried she would be bezerk at the lesson, but luckily she calmed down.

She did quite well. The only problem with the lesson is that even with only five kids in the class, they still just sit there freezing most of the time, while the teacher does each activity with each kid.

Simon's birthday party at the science museum

Simon got invited to a classmate's birthday party, held at the science museum. However, he was suffering from a cold, and seemed so droopy after nap that we almost bailed at the last minute. He didn't even want a Chinese fruit roll-up, a sure sign that something was terribly wrong. But the party had the potential to be a lot of fun for Simon, so we gave him a dose of acetaminophen and hoped he would feel better by the time he and Zac got there. Zac reports that Simon was indeed just fine for the party.

Our precious snowflake

Adventures at Pullen Park

In Simon's world, nothing beats eating gummies while riding the train at Pullen Park!

Both kids enjoyed the boat ride.

Simon declined the carousel, but Alice had fun.

Then they spent a long time climbing rocks and playing in the little tree area.

Pick-up

Here are two videos Zac took this week when picking up the kids from daycare.

Alice's elephant