First World Whiner

"How was your weekend?
"Great, but I'm totally exhausted."
"Wow, what did you do? Run the Iron-Man, climb a mountain, build a house for Habitat for Humanity?"
"No.  I looked after my kids. At my very suburban house. With a pool."
"Oh...that's just embarassing..."

Yup. That about sums it up. On the up side, Dalton's swimming is really coming along. First, he was swimming by himself with the noodle.

Then, he dove off the diving board by himself (and about drowned my father - that may not have been a good call on my part...I did save them for the record).

On the down side, Darby refused to swim because she wouldn't put the ear plug in her ear (she has an infection).  Between the rainy weather and ear problems, these kids just can't catch a break this summer.

So that was yesterday.  Today we woke up, at what I would traditionally consider the godawful time of 7:30, but since I have spawned, we like to refer to that as "sleeping in". One of the many techniques I have discovered at such early hours which will buy me another few minutes of peace is allowing the monsters to "look at pictures".  Usually this leads to 200 pictures of Darby's feet or a majority of my apps being erased, but today (among some trash) I ended up with 2 sort of disturbing pictures.  Surprisingly, despite the fact that they seem to point to my children being part of the undead, they have decent focus and composition. It made it hard for me to erase them for a change.


Also today we finally got Dalton's hair cut. I was soooo proud.  We brought his Kindle but he didn't want it and sat in their chair like a big boy the whole time.  I even had to take Darby to the bathroom and he didn't freak. Sometimes I have to remind myself that he's only 2 (sometimes I don't).


Later, Ms Katy and her girls came over to swim, which was really nice.  Probably not so nice for them, but possibly a good thing for us - Dalton peed against the fence 4 times today.  I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.  But then, I'm a girl.

Well That Escalated Fast...

It started innocently enough - "Hey Mom, can we ride our scooters outside?" No problem. 

Then they wanted to ride bicycles. Everyone was happy. Then Dalton decided he was big enough to have his own tricycle (Darby has one, he doesn't). A need for sharing ensued. That is always stressful. But we persevered.

Then Darby wanted to walk Stella.  Gave her the leash, she had to stay on the sidewalk in the cul de sac. Dalton played with the sticks. We're still good.

And then the trash truck came...

At first Dalton was excited. We waved at the driver. The driver honked the horn - which was "Too loud!" - but we were still ok. 

And then...Mommy made the mistake of saying "Hey Darby, go grab the Big Wheel off the sidewalk so the trash men don't think we are throwing it out." And Mt. Vesuvius erupted. Dalton lost his ever-loving mind. Not only did we have to bring the big wheel and the tricycle and the scooters up to the porch, we had to take them inside. "Right Now!" And the water bottles, and Mommy's camera, and Mommy's phone, and Stella, and all of us. Outside time over.

Now, we are braving the treacherous world of "Slumber Party" (just D&D). I'm certain I am jinxing it, but so far so good...

Daddy Goes on Summer Vacation

It's that time of year again. The pool is open, the mosquitos are buzzing, Texas is consistantly hotter than the surface of the sun, and Daddy goes on his 6 week vacation away from us (we lucked out this year, normally it's 7). He claims it's "work" but the jury's still out on this end. We do like the paycheck though.

We are already most of the way through week one. Mommy has been a bit slack on her update duties this year. But I'm going to try harder. Below is the Father's Day video we did for Daddy (he left on Father's Day - irony of all ironies). Dalton's answers may have been a bit repetitive, but it would be fun to do one of these each year and see the progression.

Probably the hardest part of Daddy being gone is that Mommy has to get everybody up, dressed, fed, etc., and out the door by herself. In the past I have gotten my Mom to come help, but this year I decided to put on my big boy pants, bite the bullet and do it myself. Side note: Dalton is also now wearing big boy pants - I sold the changing table yesterday.  Yay Buddy!!

What trying to get them ready by myself means is that we are always running late, despite my valiant efforts to get everything prepped, laid out and in the car the night before. Even to the point of putting breakfast in a cooler in the bathroom so when they eat it in our bedroom in the morning it's ready to go.  What can not be anticipated though is that there's a good chance the kids will need to gather every single one of their stuffed animals and load them into the rocket ship which resides under the shower curtain between the toilet and the tub.  When NASA schedules a launch there's not much we civilians can do to change it.

It's not just the morning that gets off track though. Mommy's a sucker for letting them stay up a little late if they can pull out some sort of cuteness overload. Whether that's taking family selfies in bed, wearing awesome hats or posing in superhero capes. They have my number.

Somehow though we will muddle through until Daddy gets back.  We have already started the countdown.