Pizzas and Pools, Popsicles, and Boats

With the new job, we are starting to get into a bit of a new routine. Ainsley is still coming to work with me but we are trying to get out the door a bit better and then come home at 5 - and attempt to get supper on the table. We've barely been back to work fulltime for a month - and it shows! Ainsley is great about mostly sleeping through the night - will occasionally wake-up between 4 am and 6 am for a bottle but that's pretty manageable.

A brief about the kids -
E is all about the wiggly worms - she will put a bunch in her hand, if she can find them, and wander around with them. I think the most I've counted is 7. She's taken the role of Mama Hen around the place. Will boss both her brother and sister and there's a lot of hand on the hip discussions.

G's vocab has really picked up. He's pointing at things and we can understand what he's starting to say or understand the pattern. The saddest thing is at night, when he's woke himself up from a night terror and you walk in to comfort him, he'll call out "drink!" "water!" "drink!" He usually will settle himself again but it's usually once or twice a night he'll wake up crying.

A's starting to find her voice. She's loving the tub and will kick and kick and kick in the water. She likes being sung to and occasionally I'll get a good baby giggle out of her but she's observant of her surroundings and whether she likes it or not, her brother or sister is constantly fussing or messing with her. She also had her first helping of solid food! Peas! She didn't seem totally interested but it's a start.

We are starting to see the garden grow a bit. We've got a mess with volunteer cucumbers and weeds and the kids are bit hard on things that are willing to take off but Matt got his first harvest of radishes for the season, actually in ever.

Lowkey weekend... we started it off with the kids in the pools on Friday night.. .let them run and play to their hearts' content and when they got hungry, the munched on pizzas. Yes, I'll admit it's probably a bad parent thing to do as we didn't sit down and have a meal but it was nice to not fight them to eat or sit down. Watching them run around the pools and giggle while they slide down the slide into the water made for a relaxing night.

On Saturday, the girls and I stayed home and

Matt and Grady went out on the boat. This was Grady's first time really getting to go out and do something with Dad alone. Matt said he was pretty good - reorganized his tackle box for him, knotted up the anchor, and went fishing/casted his sister's birthday fishing pole right into the lake. (They bought a new one before returning home.)

That night, we took a walk to the gas station for popsicles. It's been warm and humid so I thought the treat would be something new and fun. Popsicles melt. Grady is the worst about staying to task with his popsicle. Eleanor will do pretty well with some slight drippage but at one time I looked over and it appeared that Grady had given up eating his popsicle and was in full acknowledgement of just playing in it. They had a good time and we hosed them and the wagon off when we got home.

On Sunday, we decided to take the paddle boat out. We decided to do it bright and early in the morning. It took us a FULL hour and a half to get ready. It was agony. It's one thing to get the boat out from under the deck and quickly hose it off but another to herd the cats into the house, put on their swimsuits, put on sunscreen, find their hats, find their sunglasses because Heaven-forbid that Mom and Dad have sunglasses and they don't, rechange their diaper because they pooped, find their shoes - BOTH the left AND the right, argue with them about the shoes that we found, get them into their life jackets, get them waters for the boat ride - because if one has their water the other one HAS to have theirs, and then get the damn boat into the water. We also ended up putting the canopy on the boat three times but who's counting.

EER: I'm bleeding! I need a bandaid
MJR: Okay. Let's go get you a bandaid
EER: YEAH!
MJR: Okay, I'm going to put on a bandaid, what are you going to do once I put it on?
EER: Take it off!
MJR: No! You leave it, don't pick it.
EER: Oh, right.