Fun Family Weekend!

I think this past weekend was the first time since early February that Rick didn’t have to go into work at all – and we took full advantage of it. We had invitations to stuff for both Friday & Saturday nights but we waived them both off in favor of hanging around the house.

That was a good decision for us on Friday night…seeing as how Mallory ended up in full meltdown mode at about 6p. We planned to have dinner on the boat and wanted Mallory to go potty before we headed out. She is a pretty regular evening pooper and I didn’t want to have her get the “urge” while we were out on the lake, especially since she had run through the “I have to go poopy…I will fry later” routine a couple of times that afternoon, with no production.

Anyway, the bathroom turned into Meltdown City for about 20 minutes and I finally told her to put on her jammies and she was just going to go to bed, which she did without a fight.

First thing she asked on Saturday morning? “Can we go on the boat today?” And after each poop production since, she tells us “we can go on the boat now!” in her little sing-songy voice.

Rick was pretty grumpy we didn’t get to go on the boat so he & Cooper went out for a quick lap (and I think Rick practiced some swimming).

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Saturday I took the kids for a long walk while Rick went for a bike ride.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet but I *just* found out that I can get to a real neighborhood (ie with paved roads) from my street. This is fantastic because it means I don’t have to load everyone and the dog up to go for a walk at the metropark. I found a route that gets me just over two miles, and has some hills (mostly small, but one big one) and it is a pretty decent workout. Thank goodness I have my new fancy double stroller :-)

Anyway – near the beginning of the walk, there is a HUGE hill up a dirt road that we have to go up. Mallory & Carson have it easy – they are just chilling in the stroller that has shock absorbers, so Mallory of course wants to carry on some important conversation about something while I can barely breathe. I told Mallory that it hurt my tushie to walk up that big hill pushing 50 lbs of kids in the stroller and now every time we walk up that hill she says “it hurts your body, mommy?” (she uses the word “body” for “bottom”…I have no idea) and it’s pretty cute that she remembers that. But she also asks me if my “body” hurts whenever we walk up ANY kind of incline – like the big ramp in the football building for example. I admit I’m not in the best shape but I can walk up that ramp just fine, thankyouverymuch.

After the walk, Rick took Mallory with him into town to run errands and I did some gardening (or “garding” as Mallory calls it) and then Carson & I ran to the grocery store. When I got home, Mallory asked “where you went, mommy?” and when I told her I went to the grocery store, she asked “did you get me some lelolade (lemonade)?”

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After my groceries got unpacked and we loaded up the wagon with Mallory’s little potty (just in case…), two bags, two cameras, a cooler, boat coats, sippy cup, and snacks, it was finally time to go on the boat. This was the first time we’d done the trip up to Zukey Lake Tavern without anyone else and Mallory got pretty restless by the end. As soon as we got started, we told her we were going to eat at a restaurant and she thought we were just going to get pizza at the little place we usually boat to to get pizza. And when that wasn’t the case, she kept asking where was the “res-aur-rant”. It was a long trip up the chain. I guess I hadn’t thought to pack MORE stuff, like books or something, for Mallory. We better get another wagon.

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A couple of little funnies:

She likes this one song in the car “Dinosaur Dinosaur” – it’s on the Sandra Boynton “Philadelphia Chickens” CD. It’s about 30-seconds long and she LOVES it. She wants to listen to it over & over and I usually don’t let her because it gets very annoying. But on the rare occasion I let it repeat on my iPhone, she gets all giddy and says “I am listening to ‘Dinosaur Dinosaur’ EVERYTIME!!” while she does this happy clap. It’s HYSTERICAL. I had to start telling her that I can only take requests when we are at stoplights since I shouldn’t play dj while I’m driving, so this morning in the car, when Carson started to babble, she told me “my brudder just said he wants ‘Dinosaur Dinosaur’”. Hmmmm.

She says “not very tall” when she wants things not very full, like her cup of milk and she says “not very fast” when she wants whatever to slow or just not as much. Like if she is wearing a dress that doesn’t flare out when she spins, she tells us that the dress doesn’t twirl very fast. And if she puts on a good twirly dress, she says that it twirls very fast.

And lastly, she is a crazy helper. When she sees me putting milk into the plastic storage bags, she knows I am going to need the Sharpie marker to label the bag, so she will run and say “YOU NEED DIS PEN!!!” and will hand me the Sharpie. Even if she is mid-meltdown, she’ll fetch me a pen.

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And I haven’t written much about baby Carson lately – but that’s just because that kid is unbelievably easy and uneventful. He eats every ~3 hrs during the day, and sleeps all night. He LOVES his hands and will pull his paci out just to suck on his fingers…we think he might be teething already. Isn’t that super early? Mallory’s teeth popped up right on her 6 month birthday so we’ll keep an eye out. He was 14lbs 4ozs last week when we weighed him here at home. He’s had his feet dipped in the lake already and didn’t hate it and I was pretty religious about making sure he was staying in the shade of the canopy on the boat. He is smiling all the time now and I just love it!

That’s all for now – more later!