Mother's Day

For those who didn't get this on a card...

Everything that Rocks

We are going through one of the periods where the local Christian radio station doesn't come in very well. That is our standard station when in the car with the kids. Personally, I've grown a bit tired of it, but I'd rather they listen to that than some other stuff.

Lily really likes to have music in the car, so I scanned around a bit. One of my destinations is one of the local rock stations. I'd rather listen to that than some other things, but of course I need to be careful about the songs. For example, one time I went there I heard the beginnings of Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap, which I thought would take too much explaining. Later on, we heard the end of Dr. Feelgood. I figured that was innocuous enough. Turns out that Lily really likes Motley Crue. (sorry, I'm not sure how to include the vital umlauts in their name)

I don't mind if Lily likes rock music, I just hope that she doesn't end up liking rock musicians.

Running Amok

At my suggestion we took Kim to Goodberry's last night. The flavor of the day was pistachio. I had mine with wet walnuts and marshmallow, which was good. Amanda had her staple of peanut butter fudge and chocolate chip, Lily and Noah split a cup of chocolate, and Kim had the Hawaiian. It was a very nice evening to sit outside and eat custard, though of course I would consider a category 5 hurricane also to be a nice evening to sit outside and eat custard.

Noah had a blast. He loved running around the fountain. Being in Cary I didn't feel too self-conscious about all the little shrieks he let out. I'm pretty sure that most of the adults there had kids at some point in their lives. He certainly got a lot more smiles than frowns. He also did some stopping and staring at folks. He is so engaging that he begs conversations from people. He even had the girl working behind the counter talking to him and looking into his eyes.

The good news is also that all the running seemed to get most of the chocolate out of their systems. He and Lily went to bed in good order last night, though a tad late. Meanwhile, I was so exhausted that I went to sleep around 8:30. I was a bit restless through the night, but I think I probably logged a good 9 hours of sleep last night. I clearly needed it.

Sleeping Arrangements

Amanda's college roommate is visiting with us for a few days. Of course, this means that we had to free up Noah's room. The only logical place for Noah to sleep is Lily's room because he needs a door and quiet. However, that leads to the problem of what to do with Lily. We were keeping them together, but they tend to keep each other awake. This is a big problem on a school night.

We thought that maybe Lily could sleep in her tent in the basement. I wasn't wild about giving up the "man cave" for 3 nights, but it would be worth it for Lily to get a decent night's sleep. Lily misunderstood and thought that the tent would be set up in our bedroom. That wasn't going to happen. I gave her the choice between tent in the basement or sleeping in her bed with Noah in the room. She chose her bed.

The good news is that Noah got quiet pretty quickly last night. I haven't heard much from him this morning either. Plus, Lily can sleep through quite a bit once she is out. One time Noah dropped his blanket out of the pack 'n play and was screaming his head off. Lily didn't even wake up.

When I put Lily to bed last night Noah was standing up looking at the bedroom door. He put up his right hand and said, "Ba...Da." For those of you who don't hang around with Noah a lot, that was, "Bye, Daddy."

A Parent Will Understand

Last night Lily was going through her nightly constitutional and started yelling for Amanda. We try to discourage her yelling once Noah goes to bed since that just wakes him up and then he stays awake for a long time thereafter. Yet it was clear that she had something important to tell us.

We asked her to come down and tell us what was going on. What was the big news? Turns out that she "pooped a turtle." Not an actual turtle, mind you, but a poop that looked like a turtle.

She came downstairs to say goodnight to Amanda before I came up to put her to bed. Amanda kissed her and said goodnight. Lily got a slightly wild look in her eyes and then asked, "Aren't you going to come upstairs and see my turtle poop?"

Amanda acquiesced. I didn't check, but Amanda said that there was a resemblance. At any rate, it was a funny time.

Notes from Yesterday

I don't have any great stories to tell, so let me give you a couple of highlights from the kids yesterday.

Amanda discovered a tiny frog (less than 1 inch long) on the greenway as we were walking. Lily actually picked it up and carried it for a while. It took some convincing for her to leave it on the greenway. Later in the day she told us that she had always wanted a frog as a pet. We don't recall ever having that conversation with her.

Noah continues to impress us with a combination of 2 year-old naughtiness and sweetness. He likes drinking water from cups, but will occasionally spit it out on the floor or just plain spill it. He spilled some yesterday on Lily's foot. We scolded him mildly about it, but left it at that. Then, without any provocation he got a towel and cleaned up his mess. I told him to put the towel in the laundry room and he did.

It seems like getting his attention is going to be the major challenge. So far, it looks like we won't have to fight quite as hard as we did with Lily. On the other hand, it may be more difficult to be as consistent since we won't continually have our guards up.

Hard to believe that the Pook is going to be 2 in less than a month!

Picnic

As we looked forward to this weekend I tried to think of something fun we could do as a family. I thought about doing a picnic for breakfast, so that is what we did. I made some banana bread yesterday and Amanda made some lemon poppyseed muffins (really cupcakes). We loaded everything up and drove over to North Cary Park this morning.

Of course, just having breakfast in the park is not really that special, so we took a walk down to the creek. We found a relatively flat cleared spot and set up our blanket for a picnic. Lily, Noah, and Brenna had fun throwing rocks into the creek after they finished their breakfasts. Then we stretched out our legs with a walk down to Lake Crabtree.

We're all a little tired and hot now, but it was a good time. I suspect that everyone will take a good nap this afternoon. I guess we'll consider this a little throw-in to our babysitting offer. We'll give them a little free time this afternoon too!