Block Party

The Saturday block party, it seemed, entertained just about everyone but me and Lily. The babies are definitely sick with Claire's recent cold. This means Lily is cranky and wants to sleep all the time. And this means dragging her to a block party is a definite challenge.

Kyle went off for a golf game ("I haven't done anything for myself in a year and a half"), so I begged my mother to come over and help with Claire because I knew the babies would tolerate the block party for only so long. What happened is that I was back and forth from home to party to let babies nap and eat dinner. So I missed well over half the party, and missed Claire playing all the games they set up for the kids. Anytime I got Lily down at the party, she went into full meltdown and I had all my neighbors staring at me in that 'oh, poooooor you' kind of way. I tried to keep her happy. My mother even tried to help with her. But it was to no avail. She just cried.

Molly was entertained by the party (despite me cutting her long afternoon nap short, and her head cold stuff), and Claire LOVED it. They really did do a good job of having games and things for kids. Claire's favorite was the "bouncy thing" (see photo), but she also, I hear, got to do water balloons and jump rope and face painting and toured a real fire truck. And many other things I missed while I tended to Lily's needs. It was not very much fun for me at all. When Kyle got back from golf at 9:15 (after I had put three kids to bed by myself), I raced out of the house and met my best friend at Starbuck's to vent about my evening.

Today, Sunday, we were planning on taking all three kids to the pool, but we decided based on Lily's showing yesterday that dragging her to the pool would be a horrible idea. So Kyle stayed home with the babies and kept them on the regular napping schedule while Claire and I went to the pool on a cloudy day. Brrrrrrrrr that water was cooooollllddddd. My father met us over there to see Claire play in the water, the sun made a brief run at it, and then the pool closed early today. We headed back home and found the babies in much the same shape: Lily just a crank, and Molly being her usual (mostly) happy self. I predict now that Lily will end up with an earache again within the next few days, and this will be her third so far (with two back-to-back), so I also predict she's going to get those tubes in her ears. So much for keeping babies healthy when you have an older child. It's a losing battle.

Tomorrow starts another work week, with another WFH day tomorrow. Oh yipeee! If Lily (or Molly or Claire) decides to be unhappy thanks to the head cold then it will be quite a struggle for me tomorrow. And I was hoping for a nice brisk power walk tonight to give me strength to get through tomorrow, but a thunderstorm has rolled in and dashed my hopes of a walk again. Urgh. So house chores it is. Unless something better presents itself.