Babysitting Co-Op Thingy

Just got home from a night out with some friends.  A little girl talk, a little Starbucks, and a smidgen of shopping, but mostly discussing a new babysitting arrangement we're going to try. I'm super excited about this and I'm hoping the other moms are too. We've got four families with four kids total (4, 2, 1 & 1 month) and one on the way (Baby Roth). Once Baby Roth is born we'll get three free nights and one crazy night with all the kids every two months. I think it'll be great and I'm praying that the schedule/plan we came up with works.

Nibbles

Went to Nibbles Play Cafe today with our friends Chanda, Darby, Elena, Hannah and Kalliah. The whole concept is a kid friendly cafe with lots of areas for the kids to play while adults sit and chat. Sounds great in theory, but Jack wasn't to quick to run off and play without me. I had to keep starting him in an area and sneaking away. Inevitably he'd come looking for me before too long. His favorite activities were driving trucks around the tables...not in the play area of course and carrying the chalk bin around. This would have been fine but he kept taking it where he wasn't allowed to so I had to keep getting him to take the bin back. He did do a little drawing on the chalkboard. I'll put up a pic soon. This particular computer can't get pictures off my phone.

Blankie x 3

Earlier this week I snapped a picture of Jack carrying around all three of his blankies. He normally only carries one, but once in a while he thinks he needs all three. 

Three Day Weekend

For the first time in a long while Paul actually had his 9/80 Friday off. He and Jack spent the morning doing some father/son bonding at Cabela's looking at guns, fish and other such manly things. We spent the evening babysitting our small friends, Darby and Elena. Had a good time with them and was quite pleased that all children went to bed with no problems. Except for the excess of toothpaste I put on Darby's toothbrush, oops! Saturday we got everything sent in for Jack's passport. His picture is super cute for that. In the afternoon we went to the mall and got Jack his first real ball cap, which is also super cute. Did I mention that I think Jack is super cute :-) In the afternoon we (mostly Paul) power washed the deck. Our deck looked pretty sad before. I was amazed at what a difference power washing could make. I wouldn't say the deck looks brand new, but it definitely has new life. The rest of our weekend could be summed up with Jack's new found love, a small, metal Caterpillar Skid-steer which went everywhere with us and slept with Jack one night, seems very uncomfortable. He loved to drive it around saying vroom vroom and also sorta learned how to say tractor.  We also had many readings of his current favorite book, "Goodnight Moon".

Someone had this article posted on facebook and I agreed with a lot of people who thought it offered a pretty accurate picture. Sorta helps explain why you feel so busy all day but can't always say exactly what it is you got done. Enjoy!

TELL ME ABOUT IT ®

By Carolyn HaxWednesday, May 23, 2007; Page C10
Carolyn: Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What'd you do today? Her: Park, play group . . . Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions. Tacoma, Wash.

Relax and enjoy. You're funny. Or you're lying about having friends with kids. Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them. Internet searches? I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed. So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head. It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15. It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier. It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense. It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything. It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

Pump It Up

Jack and I went to a new play place today. It is called Pump It Up. He totally loved it, once he got used to the giant, inflatable structures. At first all he wanted to do was run around in the big open area. Occasionally he would start to enter something and as soon as he looked inside he'd turn around. We found the little kid slide though and after a while he could do it all by himself. He even got really brave and did the gauntlet with me. I was so proud of him for doing the slide all by himself, since I knew how nervous he was. And of course we drew a lot of comments about how small, but mighty he is. One little girl told her mom "there's a baby and he can walk and talk". He was by far the smallest kid there, but he did great and was so upset when we had to go. These are cell phone pictures, so not great but better than nothing.

Climbing up all by himself.

One...

Two...

Three...

Weeeee!

Running around to do it again and again and again.

My Latest Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Mr. Noggin and Miss Pulmonary Embolism

The other weekend I went down to Morris for the day to visit my sister and her family. While I was there I did my best to take pictures of Hailey and Micah. Hailey is 3 and Micah is 9 months. Micah was looking super handsom with his little sweater vest and side swept hair. He loves to smile and did a great job until he fell off the chair and landed on his noggin. Oops! Hailey was her typical hard to photograph self. To help her smile in a natural and relaxed way, Amanda would have her say pulmonary embolism. Surprisingly this worked as long as she wasn't laughing too hard. Here are a few of my favorite pictures.

Well here I am embarking on yet another online adventure. I'm hoping this sticks and fulfills whatever need it is I'm trying to meet. Jack's tot site was alright for a year, but it really doesn't work for me anymore.

My goal here is simple - to have a place people can visit to see what's up and what's new in the Friend family.

Come back again, hopefully I'll have something new.