Sunday At The Park

Saturday was basically uneventful. Weekends are tough, as I've mentioned before, because we get into a routine of our own (that being "the girls" in the family, sans Kyle) and then when Kyle reinserts himself into the family for the weekends we tend to skew the schedule and be all out of sorts. I have a need to get a kid break, yet at the same time I want to join in "family time" (which is altogether too rare for all 5 of us), so I'm constantly torn between leaving those four by themselves or joining them for some activity. So I did a little of both yesterday.

Today, Sunday, I took Claire out for a brief shopping trip and then to lunch while the twins napped at home with Kyle, and then we spent the rest of the day at the petting zoo. Claire fished again (and even touched the fish this time - something I admit I've never done) and the babies enjoyed swinging and looking at all the animals this time. They are taking a late second nap now while we figure out dinner plans. I was hoping for a pizza outing to avoid the after-dinner clean up, and Kyle thinks we need to eat at home. So we haven't made a decision yet.

Today's photos are from the petting zoo and the one of Molly alone is from Saturday, when the kids played outside in the front yard with Kyle.

Another Park Day

We went to another park day today, one of my favorites with a tire swing and a canopy of trees overhead to keep the park cooler. Beforehand we visited a mom & pop ice cream shop where I was mistaken for the babysitter (quote from ice cream shop owner: "you look like you have your hands full. Maybe it'll make you think twice about doing that after you get married"). Later, he asked if I were related to the kids, and I paused, laughed, and told him I was actually their mother and as I watched the embarrassment on his face I said, "no, no, no, that was the best compliment I've had in a year". He then gave us free popcorn.

When the babies began to struggle with the lack of nap #2 I got the kids back home and Claire and Lily fell asleep in the car (and are still asleep). Molly stayed awake, and I'm not sure if she's asleep by now or not. Dinner plans are undetermined so far as Kyle is stopping by to look at the minivan just now.

I better go wake up Claire before she keeps us up until midnight tonight.

The Mall, A Nanny Interview, and a Test Drive

I pushed the babies again on their second nap today and they behaved pretty darned well under the circumstances. I am just determined to get Claire out and enjoying my "vacation" time but unfortunately that means the babies' naps have suffered all week. But Claire has had a great week so far! At about 4pm I had all three kids asleep in the car with me so that was rather amusing, and it's good to see Lily finally adapted to sleeping in a carseat for a quick nap. Claire wasn't supposed to be asleep but she was awake due to her cold for hours last night, so she fell asleep for about 20 minutes after some shopping we did, and I let her have the rest.

Today we looked at another minivan with all the bells and whistles - power doors, DVD, leather, heated seats, navigation system, and so on (it's used, folks, I wouldn't spend a fortune again like I did on my Volvo) - and Claire is in love because of the "tv" in the car (she calls the DVD player a "tv"). I had a second round of car guys being fantastic and accommodating my kid situation by bringing vans next to my car so I could view them while the babies stayed safely in their carseats. Unfortunately, that always gets Lily screaming, so she cried for another 20 minutes straight while Claire and I checked out the car. I gave up thanks to the crying, promised the guy I'd test drive tonight (which I did over dinner time while Kyle was with the kids at home), and took the kids to the mall. Claire loves the mall - she thinks it's all about buying her stuff (what great values we teach our kids, eh?). And she did get some new barrettes and a necklace and a chocolate chip M&M cookie too. She was thrilled.

We then picked up our second nanny candidate from a bus stop (she is new to KC and doesn't have a car, having just relocated from Denver where I guess the public transportation is decidedly better than ours). We brought her back to our house, where we talked and played for a few minutes before I had to return her to the same bus stop about 15 minutes away. There's a closer bus stop to my house - one just a few hundred yards away - but I don't think the bus schedule times worked for a quick afternoon visit so we had to rely on this bus stop a ways from my house. The nanny candidate is actually from the south of France (not Denver), so I enjoyed talking with her. I am starting to check references on her and the other candidate. Our third candidate is a much younger girl who lives in our neighborhood. I just have to decide if she's too young, but her location is obviously very appealing.

After dropping the nanny at the bus stop I headed to Claire's preschool's Open House night, where I picked up our forms and paid September's dues. Then I headed over and test drove the minivan, which was quite a nice ride. Kyle is supposedly going to check out the vehicle tomorrow.

And tomorrow is my last day of vacation. Bummer. I'm enjoying all this free time I have, and yes, you stay-at-home moms, I'm envious of your lives right now. Maybe it's not all perfect all the time, but not having to juggle the demands of childcare and the demands of my job has been SO much easier this week. And at least for one week, I don't miss the intellectual stimulation from work, so I'm not suffering from an overload of baby talk so far. Too bad a cheaper car won't quite help me fund my stay-at-home mom dreams.

So tomorrow we will need to come up with one more big plan for the day, and fortunately Monday is a Labor Day holiday so that stretches this time a little more for me.

Wonderscope

I've forgotten to mention that Claire has come down with a slight cold. Mainly a dry cough, but it's enough to drag on her energy level a little. I am still waiting to see what happens with the twins - whether they get sick or not. The worst part is she was supposed to have a (rare) playdate event with a new neighbor friend tomorrow, but I've forewarned the other mother about the cold so we are in a 'wait and see' mode until tomorrow. I have a feeling the other mom will cancel. I would (says the germaphobe).

Good job Molly & Lily! I hand it to the twins today. I basically made them skip their afternoon nap - other than a few minutes of snoozing in the car - and they hung in until past 8pm tonight and barely cried. Amazing. I won't do this to them every day, but it was nice to see they're old enough to be able to fight through the fatigue.

Today I took the three kids to Wonderscope, which is an old school converted into a "kids' museum". I have to say, I think they could do a better job of providing more exciting and interactive activities, but Claire still had a great time. The twins struggled sitting still in the stroller and watching Claire play, but they had a great time in the "baby room" where they could crawl around in relative safety. They chewed on all sorts of toys, so if they don't pick up Claire's cold they will for sure pick up something else from Wonderscope.

Enjoy today's photos.

Antioch Park

Our day was nearly ruined by the house cleaning this morning. The babies cannot, just cannot, nap when the cleaning lady is here. So their schedule was all messed up and that forced us to stick around the house, with me crawling up the walls feeling like I'd lost a whole day of precious vacation, until 3pm. At 3pm I woke up babies and packed them into the car for a trip to Antioch Park. Antioch Park is very nice, with walking trails, green rolling hills, a pond, several playgrounds, and a cute kid playhouse-size old western mock town (see photos). The only downside is the park also attracts from some sketchy neighborhoods, so I found myself lecturing this group of kids several times on their behavior and language in the park (somewhat surprising myself by going into mean adult mode). We spent about 2 1/2 hours at the park before heading home. We also did a breakfast outing to McDonald's this morning, so I guess I shouldn't complain ... we did get out of the house today. Yet, I still feel completely stir crazy now. I don't think we did enough today, and Claire even resorted to cartoons on a day I wasn't working!

Hopefully tomorrow we have more "success" getting out and doing fun things during the early afternoon.

An Arboretum Day

My first day of vacation in 2008 involved taking the kids to the Overland Park Arboretum for the afternoon. It's a nice, calm wooded area with walking trails, waterfalls, a big pond, and all sorts of flowers and trees. We just about had the place to ourselves for a good hour, and then were joined by a friend of mine and her two kids for extra excitement. I pushed the twins on their second nap, so we got almost three hours at the park before having to head home. They did amazingly well for over-tired babies. Molly never took that second nap but Lily crashed. Unfortunately, that put Molly in tired clumsy mode, so she just about bit her tongue off tonight when she face-planted on the floor while trying to crawl. I was horrified. Mouths bleed like crazy, so it was hard to tell for a while if she had actually bitten through or not (I still think maybe yes, Kyle thinks no). Uggggg.

No definite plans for tomorrow, but we are planning another big afternoon! Enjoy our photos from today.

And let's not forget to pay homage to the twins' 11-month milestone today. One month to one!

Hot Peas 'N Butter

Today I took Claire to the "Hot Peas 'N Butter" concert. I had a blast with the groovy kids' music, but Claire was definitely her mother's daughter: she thought it was too loud, and covered her ears for over half the show. And she begged to go home (I wouldn't let her). So my photos from today show the guys in the band and Claire holding her ears. We got an autographed CD and I felt like a band groupy for a kids' music band.

The best parts of the event for Claire were finding out about auditorium chairs (the seats that spring up/fold up) and afterwards, doing somersaults down the hill with her friends (photo of this also). She never got into the interactive music concert due to her noise sensitivity.

We had a lunchtime visit from Papa which also added entertainment for the day, and after a quick $200 trip to Sam's Club the rest of our evening was spent at the concert while Kyle tended to the twins at home.

This morning I did get to sleep in for a while, and Claire went out to work with Kyle, so she had a busy day. And I just spent the last few minutes responding to work emails so I could ignore my work email for my vacation week! I have all sorts of plans in my head about what we'll do, but the reality is we'll probably get around to far less of what I want to do because of the twins' nap schedules. What I really need is a babysitter for the twins during the day so Claire and I can get out on our own, but with school in session, that will be nearly impossible to find.

Whatever we end up doing, I'm just happy to get a break from work.