Monday, September 21, 2009

Boundaries

The past three days have been pretty hellish around here (from my perspective anyway). I've been caught in the grips of what I'm fairly certain is H1N1 and haven't been able to do much more than lie in bed in a fevered stupor wishing for the oblivion of death (or at least the oblivion of sleep uninterrupted by hacking, wheezing coughs). Erik has heroically been serving as both single parent and nurse this weekend, but today was the day I've been dreading - the day Erik went back to work and I somehow had to become responsible for the well-being of myself and two small children. To facilitate this, we put the blow-up bed in the living room for me, and the kids have been watching movies and jumping on the bed (and on mommy) while I lay there like a large, lethargic, blob of yuck. The two-year old decided that it would be fun to play hide and seek with all of the stuff on the shelves. So the cell phone was hidden down my shirt, I had a book up the left leg of my pants, and my waistband was stuffed full of 7 or 8 DVDs. And, yet, I barely registered that any of this was happening or that I might want to stop it until I heard myself saying, "No, Mui-mui, 'A Bug's Life' does NOT go in Mommy's underwear." After all, a girl's got to have some boundaries, right?

Friday, September 11, 2009

Just because they're cute

Go-go's first day of preschool at the YMCA:


Go-go and Mui-mui playing at the window:






Super Kids!


Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Great Weekend


Any weekend that starts off with an ice cream party on Friday night has to be good. We walked a few blocks over to a neighbor's house where there was plenty of ice cream, lots of toppings, tons of kids (and their parents) from church, and good conversation. I started out feeling like I must be the Grandma of the ward - I definitely seemed to be the only person there over 26 or 27 - but as the night wore on, we met some great families (of assorted ages).

And Saturday just continued the fun. The weather was perfect for a breakfast baby shower in the park and it was good to meet even more of the women in the ward. After it was over, three of us (Diana, Amber, and me) just sat under the pavillion and chatted away for several more hours. Eventually, we realized that it was 2:30 and that if we wanted to continue gabbing, we should do it somewhere with food. The obvious answer was endless shrimp at Red Lobster. YUM! Coconut shrimp, teryaki shrimp, garlic shrimp scampi, cajun shrimp - just keep it comin'. Mmm, makes my mouth water just thinking about it. The fact that Erik hates seafood made it all the better - no guilt at all about leaving him out of the fun.


As soon as I got home, it was time for another party - and we didn't have to go far. They closed down the street in front of our house, had a bounce house, a rockin' band, a face-painting booth, food, and tons of people. The block party was just for the 2 blocks of our street, but I couldn't believe how many kids there are here (and I scouted a few potential babysitters as well). Go-go and Mui-mui loved it! Erik and I had a pretty spiffy time too.





The highlight of the evening was the traditional "gutter sundae". The kids all line up on the curb with their spoons at the ready (iphone camera at twilight equals fuzzy, dark photos - but you can hopefully get the idea):


Then the sundae is brought out in the section of gutter that has been passed down from year to year and family to family (and, I'm assured, thouroughly scrubbed) and it's time to dig in.





Go-go was the last one still going at it.




Sunday was a day of rest. I stayed home with a sick Daniel (maybe too much watermelon and ice cream at the block party) and we just had a pleasant day. On Monday, we went to Rochester to the Museum of Play. It is the coolest children's museum I have ever seen. We've been there lots of times, but we never seem to make it very far. This time, we started at the end in Reading Adventureland where we climbed Jack's beanstalk, played in the giant's castle, had adventures in Robison Crusoe's treehouse, solved mysteries with Nancy Drew, and just had a great time. We also saw their amazing butterfly garden (it really was jam-packed with butterflies, despite the fact we didn't seem to catch any on camera).





When we first walked into the museum, I noticed a familiar face in line just ahead of us. Then, two, and three, and four (and then all of their kids - a total of 10 familiar faces!)! It was our new friends Amber and Diana and their families. We felt a little like stalkers (although maybe it was them stalking us - they obviously didn't get enough of me at Red Lobster), but we had a great time all playing together at the museum, and then the park for a little while when the museum closed. Then we all headed to LeRoy, NY (birthplace of Jello) for some delicious chicken pot pie.




All in all, an almost perfect weekend!