Red, White and Cute

So the 4th was pretty low-key during the day.  First we held the First Annual Running of the Flags, followed by the First Annual Placing of the Flags at the Curb, followed by swimming w/ Nana in the pool.  It was totally epic.

In the late afternoon we made our way to Castle Hills, which I hold is the perfect 4th of July celebration. Big enough to have great fireworks over a lake and small enough that they have free bounce houses, kids' activities and food trucks.  Added bonus is that we have a bunch of great friends there. We'd be crazy to go somewhere else. The kids had a blast.

After this year we have learned the secret of how to become a 4th of July Rock Star - Bubble guns.
The Pied Piper has nothing on the bubble gun.  Note the 2 year-old holding court w/ tweens by holding the bubble gun.  That's no accident.


The fireworks themselves were awesome.  I was a little concerned that Dalton might get spooked, but  he could not have loved it more. He sat on my lap and clapped for every single one. And he kept prompting me to clap each time too.  It was greatness.


The week after the holiday weekend is always a let-down.  Back to work and school is never popular, and bedtime is the worst. For some unknown reason, Darby wanted to lie on the floor to go to sleep.  It may have to do w/ a recent camping obsession of hers.  I'm good w/ it, but I'm pretty sure Daddy would be willing to pay his weight in money to get out of actually camping. Anyway, we started the evening last night w/ the 2 of them laying down on her floor to sleep.  That quickly disintegrated w/ various potty breaks/ways to get out of actually going to bed.

My big shock came when I went to check on Darby before going to bed.  I was expecting to find her alone in her bed, but to my surprise, this is what I found on the floor:

It's basically impossible to do anything but love this...

Water-logged

Dalton is a Splash Park animal.

It is incredible to watch him there. He dives (literally) into everything full force. He jumps, slides and splashes with wild abandon. This is clearly where he is in his element - and watching him you really have to keep to keep reminding yourself - he's 2...Hoping for his sake that X-Treme Splash Park is in the 2028 Olympic Games.


I think we are have finally arrived at the day when we switched over from Darby and Jordan being playmates to Dalton and Jordan being playmates. The two of them were hard core runnin' buddies all day at the Splash Park.  Darby and Bailey's day is fast approaching.



That's not to say that Darby wasn't into it too.  But it's like comparing someone doing a 5K to someone doing an Iron Man.

She did enjoy playing at the park as well.  The motorcycle image will haunt me for years...

We followed this up with a pool party at a new friends' house.  No pics as it was a crazy mass of parents, kids and pool toys.  My children both decided it was the perfect time for both of them to learn how to swim...at the same time.  It's lucky they were birthed by an octopus. It was a good day.

Today, Nana came over and we did more swimming practice.  

 

 

I remember fondly when I used to enjoy having a pool. Kicking back, relaxing, floating on a raft w/ a frozen cocktail and a book.

Now Dalton wants to jump to me every 30 seconds - and you damn sure better be ready! Darby would prefer I swim around the pool, dragging her lifeguard style. I am starting to dread the pool. Hopefully some day it will be enjoyable again. Damn they're cute though...

Night Terrors

So, since Tim has been gone, nighttime has been a challenge.  Darby has wet her bed twice which she hasn't done in over a year.  The first time she tried to claim her leg just got sweaty. The second time she owned it. Poor thing. She was so embarassed.

We have also had quite a few "slumber parties" where D&D both sleep in Darby's bed.  We tested it out last weekend and it went reasonably well, so I let them do it a couple of times during the week. One night Dalton lasted there the whole night, although usually he toddles out after a while and says he wants to go back to his own bed. I assume he gets tired of hearing Darby barking orders at him.

This is a bummer for her because she hates sleeping alone. She is constantly trying to talk one of us into lying down with her or for us to let her sleep in our bed. This happens when she first goes to bed, and then the whole begging/cajoling process repeats in the middle of the night when she has to go to the bathroom. Or sometimes in the middle of the night when she just gets lonely. So last night, post potty trip at about 2:30am, she talked me into letting her lie down in the bed with me - "just for a few minutes". Then she made the mistake of demanding that I go to her room and get her "pets".  When I refused, she kept demanding. This won her a free ride back to her own bed real quick.

It was then that she lost her freakin' mind. Crying/screaming - way over the top. Which led me to shut the door so she wouldn't wake up Dalton. That back-fired. That just made her cry harder and scream louder and of course that woke him up. I lay down with him to calm him back down. He was very concerned about Darby, so after I calmed him down I told him I was going to go check on her. He then went back to sleep. Then I calmed her down and lay down with her for a bit.

I finally got back to my own bed about 3:30 and got some lovely sleep until 5am when I hear "Mooommmmyyy...Mooommmyyy..." - Dalton. I go in there to check on him and then the cuteness cloud became suffocating.

"Mommy, is Darby still crying? Is she ok?"

"No Buddy, she's fine. Go back to sleep."

And this my friends, is why we don't strangle them.

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.