The Small Things

We kicked off the 3-day weekend with a low-key Saturday: a little park time, a lunch outing, and some fun at home. The girls and I went to our favorite park (unfortunately a haul from the house) where Claire made instant friends with several girls while the twins entertained themselves with the sandbox, swinging, toy tractors, and the slides. I got a kick out of watching the twins play with "boy toys" (please note I am all about gender neutral toys and don't push my girls toward girlie girl stuff, but it's hard not to note two girls happily playing with tractors ...

... and here the twins are enjoying the sandbox together ...

... but one of the most fascinating items was the water fountain. My kids always love to push on water fountain buttons and drink from the fountain (Claire herself is still not immune to this small joy) ...

... and so this morning, I was again reminded of the truism that it's the "little things" that are the best sources of pleasure. For the kids, and for me - I wouldn't survive parenting three young kids without appreciating the small things in each day, because it's the big things that are often not right in my world.

Just A Saying

Me (10 minutes ago): "Claire, sometimes I don't know where your head is." [this is after she did something that was not very smart, and I was making my displeasure known]

Claire: "Mom, it's on top of my body." [said earnestly]

OK, sometimes, even I can laugh (mid-discipline) when a kid lets you know just how silly our figure of speeches sound when taken literally.

A Little Breathing Room

This morning was nearly a carbon copy of Tuesday morning (two conference calls for me, and kids to manage), but unlike Tuesday, the kids did a great job of playing together while I sat on those calls. I rewarded them with a lunch at Mr. Goodcents and some dog petting at the pet store in the same strip mall (some more great, free kid entertainment). This afternoon after nap and snack time we picked up dinner at Bravo. While we waited for our spaghetti bolognese, we walked to the fountain nearby and I took some (phone) photos of the kids which are posted here.

I much prefer WFH days that allow a little bit of fun kid time too. Everyone is the happier for it.

One Hour 18 Minutes 49 Seconds

Based on the kids' behavior this morning, I was lulled into a false sense of hope that my 30-minute conference call would go just fine. They were playing together so nicely (almost no fighting!), and so happily, that I didn't imagine anything would go wrong.

Ohhhh but it did. Inside of 10 minutes into my call, the crying started, and it never stopped. Literally never stopped. And as luck would have it, the 30-minute conference call went on for one hour, 18 minutes, and 49 seconds ... which meant I was in pure hell for that entire time. I had to leave my phone and run downstairs to yell (yes, yell) at the kids several times. Claire's "babysitting" job wasn't going well, and after yelling at her to quit pulling out the choking (small) toys and reminding her to watch her sisters and make sure they were safe, she took the mother hen approach and told them "no" for the next hour, and even put Lily in time out. Sigh.

And although I was present for most of that entire conference call, I think I listened to about 5 minutes of what was said. I was distracted, worried about the kids, and hugely frustrated by the situation.

The "fun" continued with several more unexpected work calls and more kid crankiness. Coupling that with the usual house tasks (laundry, dinner prep) did nothing to provide me a rosy outlook on the day.

Today was not a good day. I may gloss over this reality each week, but let me reiterate that juggling a job and kids and house tasks on any given work-from-home day is never, ever easy, and seems to be getting tougher.

Calgon?

Kansas City Zoo Visit

On days you push the kids to their limits, you've got to take the bad with the good. And so it went on our first KC Zoo trip with all the kids. All three girls loved the zoo, but we had some cranky moments. Claire went into a funk over the boat and train (we rode both, just not on her timetable), Molly didn't transition well between interesting areas, and Lily was fine until the end when she was tired and whiny. The worst part of the day actually came this afternoon and evening at home, when the twins didn't get enough nap time and struggled to keep their composure. But I'd do it all over again for the sheer joy of watching my kids enjoy the boat ride, the train ride, and several of the animal favorites.

So here's the damage:

Total ticket price: $28

All-you-can ride train tickets: $15

Boat ride: $6

A horrible lunch: $31.50

Fortunately the twins are under two and still free, and I quickly learned the lesson of taking a picnic lunch for the next visit.

I took some great animal photos, but instead I'll post the ones of the kids. Here's Claire loving the train ride ...

... and Claire loving the boat ride ...

... and the twins fascinated by the elephant ...

... and the "daddy train" stroller ride ...

... and my favorite of all, a not-so-private moment between Molly and daddy to fix a poop diaper (um, the zoo could accommodate the diaper crowd a little better, but I hear the antelopes were entertained by the diaper change) ...

... priceless.

Too bad our perfect outdoorsy weekend has to end.

Good Free Fun

After our berry picking morning, we woke the twins early from nap (or more accurately, Molly woke up early, so we proceeded to get Lily up too) and Kyle joined us in taking the girls to a couple new parks this afternoon. We first tried Shawnee Mission Park (where our professional photos were taken but we didn't have a chance to truly check it out). We found paddle boats - one of my personal favorites - but Claire was deemed not tall enough or old enough to go in them which was hugely disappointing. The twins were also fascinated by the boats and water ....

... but they were giving us too much of a scare around the water (and Claire was grumpy about the paddle boats), so we left in search of a safer environment. We ended up at some park in Lenexa with a lake, walking trails, and a small park which the kids enjoyed. The water view was much safer there ....

... and Kyle ran into some folks he knew who let Claire try her hand at fishing ...

... and while the kids were entertained, I actually took more nature photos than kid photos at the park (a rarity, yes), although I'm only posting my favorite here of the bee buzzing around the flower ...

... and our only bad (quite bad) moment was when Lily bit the dust and fell straight on her mouth. She had bleeding gums, but her teeth don't seem to be loose, but Kyle did find a piece of cracked tooth. We just haven't yet figured out which tooth cracked. Ugggg. It's always something, isn't it?

And after all this excitement from today, I'm fairly certain I'm as tired, but as satisfied, as the kids. Parks are the best, free entertainment to be found.

Berry Fun

Chalking up another first, I took the kids to the berry picking patch this morning. Blackberries are currently in season here so we quickly set to work looking for truly ripe berries. It seems the die hard pickers had started at 7am (we arrived around 10am), so we were warned the pickins' were slim. Boy did that turn out to be true, but even though we walked away with only $1.06 worth of berries this morning, we had a great time trying something new. Claire took her job very seriously and worked hard to find berries. Molly, after a bad start (per her usual personality) ended up enjoying the event especially once she realized she could pick them and eat them on the spot. Molly understood the concept of picking "black" blackberries (the ripe ones) versus the red ones, whereas Lily just couldn't get it down. Lily was desperate to pick something and put it in her bucket, but she never located even one black blackberry - she kept going for the red ones and hearing "don't pick that one, Lily!" from me.

Here's Claire finding our one "patch" of ripe berries ...

... and here's Lily looking ornery as I'm yelling, "no, don't pick the red ones!" ...

... and here are all the girls looking for ripe berries ...

... and here's where Molly and Lily let the picking devolve into a "digging" game (which, in their parlance, is 'dig dig dig', always said three times in a row) ...

... and here's my favorite shot of Claire very conscientiously looking for berries while Molly and Lily have some other dirt and bucket game going on in the background.

We had a great lunch together after the berry picking so a very satisfying morning for all of us.