Showing posts with label three day weekends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label three day weekends. Show all posts

Monday, June 9, 2008

Swamp City!

What a weekend! It was hot, rainy and flood like all around us. In a word it was swampy this weekend! We took Matthew to the Zoo Friday morning. The ride to Indy seemed longer because Matthew has taken up selective hearing which is not really a recent development, just a development that is becoming more annoying with each passing day of this pregnancy. I even pulled for the 1st time ever: "If you do not listen to me, I will make your Dad turn this car around right now and we are going home!" Oh the pride & joy of parenting!

The zoo was nice but very hot & humid. I waddled about feeling sort of sorry for myself because I could do virtually nothing for or with Matthew. Kevin & Matthew had a great time (and really seriously that is what counts!) Mostly I was just hot and my favorite part of the trip was eating lunch in the air conditioning and going in to see the Hissing cockroaches. It was also air conditioned!! Matthew's favorite things were the playground and the rickety old bridge which is just a swaying bridge to the rhinos (and no, he did not care about the rhinos, just the bridge.) Of course when we (I) finally decided to leave Matthew wanted to see everything. I will upload the few photos I managed to take this evening and post for tomorrow.

Matthew started a Level 1 swim class Saturday morning and he totally rocked it. We were nervous because when I called to check they said Matthew would be going in on his own. We have not done swim classes since it was Parent/baby and we got in with him. And his only exposure to a pool really has been the blow up turtle pool in our yard and the beach last summer. They basically had two instructors to five little boys. The instructors were great. They came and greeted Matthew who was clinging to me like I was the last great hope to get him out of it even thought he was SO SO excited for swim class the entire week and we signed up for swim classes only because he asked me about doing them 10 billion times for several weeks before.

We think the only reason he let go of me had to do with Jacob the little boy sitting next to us. Ironically Matthew climbed right in and Jacob sat on the side most of the class. The class was great! They worked on blowing bubbles, jumping in, kicking, and floating. Matthew loved it!! He would look over at us and smile or wave. And when he came out of the locker room he had a crabby face. I asked him 'why?' and he said because he wanted to go back into the pool so I will take that as a rousing success! By far he was the youngest in the class so I was pretty proud of him for rolling with it all and I hope it continues to be a success!

I tried to spend time outside this weekend but the high temps/humidity are just killing me. The round ligament pain and sciatic nerve thing make doing most anything very difficult and painful. I am trying to ignore the pain and just live life but some days are more difficult then others. We ran a lot of errands. I bought the Ergo carrier! I also finally used some Best Buy gift cards I had from the holidays. I bought Matthew a Thomas DVD since it is near impossible to find the show on TV these days and two CDs for myself (Bob Marley and Van Morrison - old school music that I LOVE!) I bought Kevin one of his Father's Days gifts. We hit Sam's Club & Kohl's. Both of which we totally bought stuff we did not need - as much as we try to just buy what we need we never seem to be able to!

Our friends came over for a morning of running, jumping, and swimming in the pool Sunday. Oh BTW that was the kid's activities, not ours - we sat and watched! The whole not listening combined with the whole not sharing thing was fun to explore with Matthew. He even threw a bucket of water in our friend's daughter's face. Ummm, yeah. That is my kid. Sweeet. I know he will learn and I know if we keep talking about it and working on it this will get better and eventually he will learn but GAH does it suck right NOW.

We spent some time gardening Sunday in the sweltering heat which may have been wicked funny to watch as an observer because I looked like a 90 year old arthritic person bending over trying to prune the rose bush and dead head flowers. SO not pretty. I also need to cut my finger nails. They are dang hooks right now. OH and I did my toe nails. Again from an observational stand point, umm funny. Do not look to closely at those toes, they look like shit! Finally, we watched National Treasure II. I liked it, of course, I am a sucker for a mystery type thriller movie and cannot wait to finally see the new Indiana Jones when it comes out on DVD.

Matthew has taken to saying "as well..." which is something I say often. As in: "Mommy, may I have some watermelon as well?" It cracks me up. He actually is doing a fairly good job with his manners despite the issues with sharing and listening. It is nice to hear him say please and thank you every now and again without our prompting him to do so. It is like a teeny tiny victory that we pat ourselves on the back for.

AND for real finally, I have decided to stop reading all parenting/pregnancy magazines because Fit Pregnancy for June/July had me in a bloody panic last night over the stupidest things. I kept asking Kevin "do you think the baby is okay?" and I was worrying over foods I was eating and how much weight I have gained AND OMG BURN THE MAGAZINE NOW!!! SO no more magazines (or pregnancy books) for me, for now!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Three Day Weekends EVERY WEEKEND!

Wow, what a weekend! We did not do much which felt great, for me.

I have been experiencing terrible headaches almost every morning - I think this comes from sleeping in a funny position to compensate for the growing belly and this weekend was horrible for back pain. That whole sciatic nerve thing. I would do one little thing like bend over to clean a toilet and sure enough I was down for the count. I was stumbling around like Lurch from the Adam's Family. It would come and go which is a good thing but the day it hurt the least was Monday and that is because I sat, A LOT. I just refused to get up to do anything which sucks when your 3 year old is calling 'Mommy mommy come run with me." But whatever soon enough I will be able to run with my boy again and it will ALL good!

I needed to get some cleaning done. Our house is a mess. I have not cleaned since Matthew's birthday party weekend April 19th and things are getting out of control (no, no still no cleaning service hired as of yet...) I did get somethings done. Like clean our bathroom (mostly) and vacuumed (mostly.)

I also cleaned all of the baby gear. I was woefully remiss at how we tossed each item into our old and new garage after Matthew was done with it. Like the high chair for instance! At one point, we decided we were only going to have one child so as we finished with an item like the high chair we just stuck it in a pile in the garage. No pomp, no circumstance, no plastic bags, nothing. Just left it to the elements. Which in our old garage, GROOOOSSS. The highchair was not only buggy but also did we bother to clean it one last time before tossing it out there?! Umm, NO. Yeah nothing like cleaning two year old stuck on food. I also washed all of the covers to everything I could find from the car seat to the Jumparoo. We loaned a couple of things to another couple at one point and I realized how little care was taken of the items. I had to clean up crusted milk from another kid so that was kind UGH. Mostly things were just dusty and dirty.

Saturday, we were visited one of those huge all neighborhood garage sales. We bought a Little People train set for Matthew for a $1! It is regularly $15-17? And not one but two bouncers both of which cost me $15 bucks. I was planning to buy a fancy new bouncer with a name like MacLaren or Combi but then decided why spend $80 bucks on a bouncer when Matthew outgrew his after four months. SO now we have two - one for upstairs and one for down. I thinking about ONE more for outside and/or the bathroom so I can shower during those early months. Have I mentioned that garage sales rock for kid's stuff?!

Kevin did some more gardening and the yard is starting to shape up after two summers of intensive work! Our veggie garden is rocking and rollin' and we have already been enjoying yummy lettuce for the past few weeks! The blueberries look like they are going to turn BLUE in the next couple of weeks, there are some strawberries and tomatoes as well. As long as we can keep the bugs away it will be fun to enjoy those as they ripen.

The weather ended up being not so bad. No real rain, just gray skies but warm temps so we got out for some walks (we walked, Matthew biked), Matthew had some quality yard time in his pool & sandbox and generally we all just enjoyed the outdoors.

On Sunday, we had a little play date with our friends, Annie & Jason and their kiddos. The kids ran around and tired themselves out! Gotta LOVE that! We did our BBQ on Sunday as the threats of rain seemed inevitable for the next day. Turkey burgers, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and fresh fruit!

We also tried this recipe from Chop, Stir, Mix and I would highly recommend it. We grilled the chicken which took like 10 minutes tops. I did make some minor changes to it - I used Newman's Own Marinara instead of tomato sauce and I did not have enough Oregano and no garlic powder so I used Italian seasoning and 1/2 tsp of Garlic salt instead. I also added some additional Parm on top after the sauce. It was declared delish by my husband AND the three year old!

Monday dawned bright and early - Matthew was up at 5:30a. YES, I said 5:30a. Oy, this child. Any who, it was a good thing. We went off to have a special Memorial day breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Yum (and neither of us had to cook or clean up!) Kevin and I got Matthew down for a nap and watched Bee Movie (it was ehhh...) and then took a TWO hour siesta ourselves. We were both pooped and needed it apparently. Then off to groceries which was actually fast and fun. Matthew is a great helper! I send he and Kevin off for an item and Matthew is so excited to bring back what he found - it keeps him busy and he runs like mad all over the store! Basically it just makes for good shopping all around.

SO overall nice weekend. I could do with a three day weekend every weekend but I guess we have to take what we can get! What did you all do?!?!?