Errands

We had Brenna spend the night last night.  Tiffany had to get some work done in the afternoon, so Amanda just offered to keep her overnight.  They had fun in the afternoon and we had a nice dinner together, though the girls missed out on a lovely treat because they refused to finish their vegetables.  More chocolate and peanut butter for us!

Amanda had a few errands to run as did I, so we split up.  I took the kids to Lowes so I could get the parts for some workout gear I wanted to make.  They behaved really well considering that it had to be pretty boring for them.  Noah is happy as long as he is in a racecar cart.

I wish I could say that everyone settled down immediately to sleep, but of course that didn't happen.  Nevertheless, it was a pretty good evening.  Yesterday Amanda and our kids met Tiffany and Brenna at the planetarium in Chapel Hill.  They saw a pretty neat show, though Noah was a little scared.  Today should be Lily's swim lesson and then a dollar movie.  We are now officially 14 days from the start of second grade!

Our Little Dolphin

Lily has three more days of swim lessons, including today.  Yesterday she started learning the backstroke.  Apparently she's doing pretty well, but she doesn't quite understand about cupping her hand to scoop the water under her.  She's just kind of doing a reverse pinwheel.  The good news is that she is doing it.

Amanda and the kids spent the afternoon at Aunt Tiff's pool.  This is good because it gave Lily a chance to practice her strokes, besides it just being a great day for the pool (the high was around 99).  I don't think we're quite ready to throw her into the deep end of the pool, but she is making great progress.

Date Day

I took Lily out for something of a daddy-daughter date yesterday.  We left around 1:00 and did not get back until 4:00.  The highlights were shopping for a new leotard and getting yogurt at Marmalade Skies.  We also had fun at a local used book store.  I had wanted to check the store out for a while and it seemed like a good opportunity.  Lily had fun reading while I browsed.  It's great that she can actually read now.

This was not Lily's first choice of how to spend the afternoon, but she went along with it.  She is very much interested in what is in it for her.  Her dream date right now is to go to a Bulls' game.  It's not that she wants to see the game, but she wants to get a funnel cake.  She heard about her cousin Brenna having a funnel cake at a game she went to with her dad and now Lily wants to try one.  I've promised her one when we go to Lazy Daze.    She does not want to wait three weeks.

Anyone in the Triangle know where one can get a funnel cake besides the Fair or some other festival?

Helpers

Amanda was fighting a summer cold yesterday and was kind of down for the count.  Fortunately, I worked from home and was able to take the kids out pretty early.  We left the house at 4:30 for a fun-filled evening.  First, we went bowling.  Lily got pretty down about it until she had a spare in the 9th frame of the last game.  Noah still beat her, but then again he did have my help.  I had a few doubles through the course of the two games, so that made me happy.

Next, we ate at Chick-Fil-A, which as anyone knows is practically like tithing.  The kids were a little disappointed that they couldn't play in the playground, but we were just getting started.  We next went to Marmalade Skies for yogurt.  Then the fun really began because we went to the library for me to do some research for my thesis.  Overall, that went well though Lily got into some trouble when she punched Noah over a game of tic-tac-toe.  It seems that he was not playing well and was messing up her stats against the computer on my iPod Touch.

We got home around 8:30 and everyone went to bed.  Today I plan a trip up to Wake Forest to use the big library.  Lily may or may not join me.

Forced Withdrawl

Sadly, our Wii is out for repairs.  Apparently it's fairly common for them to have problems reading discs after a while.  That's what we're seeing with ours, so I sent in to Nintendo for repair.  Others who have had the same problem say that it will be back in a week or so and good as new.  It's a little frustrating, but these are the risks you take with buying something off of craigslist.  Even with the cost of the repair we're still way ahead on the deal with all that came with the Wii.

Noah doesn't necessarily see things the same way.  This morning he asked me if I fixed the batteries in the Wii remote controls last night.  He remembers when we couldn't play the Wii because I had to recharge the batteries.  I explained that the Wii is gone for now.  I think it's slowly sinking in.

It is becoming clear that we are going to have to ration exposure to the Wii like we do with videos.  I can't imagine where my son got such an addictive personality for video games.

Snoopy's Book

It was a dark and stormy night.  A little after 1:00 AM everyone awoke to a very loud clap of thunder.  I heard a little cry and immediately got out of bed.  I met Lily in the hall and told her that she could join us.  Then I heard Noah cry, so I went to see how he was doing.  I took him to the potty and then put him back to bed.  What I find amazing about him is that I could just give him some reassurances and he went back to sleep.

Fortunately, I had my iPod Touch on my nightstand and was able to look at the radar.  The storm was on its way through, so I sent Lily to bed after she snuggled with Amanda for a few minutes.  She was still a little nervous, but she apparently got back to sleep.

I paid for this in the morning.  I didn't get out of bed in time to take my normal Thursday run, but I did manage a walk around the neighborhood.  I would not have been the least surprised to find a tree split in two by lightning based on the noise that we heard last night.  I didn't see any of that, but we certainly had some fairly close lightning strikes.

We enjoy a good thunderstorm from time to time.  In fact, that was one of the things we missed when we lived in California.  However, we don't particularly care for them in the middle of the night.  It's a small price to pay for the mild winters we enjoy here in the South though.

Trouble

Bedtime has been shifting here over the last few months.  I typically put Noah to bed and we play a game on the iPod Touch (or iTod Poch as he says it).  Meanwhile, Lily and Amanda play "sissies" where Lily pretends to be Amanda's older sister.  They snuggle in bed.  Sometimes Lily plays the thunderstorm sound on our alarm clock and "comforts" Amanda.  Amanda reads Lily a chapter from a book (lately it's been Heidi) and then Amanda reads Lily her Bible story and puts her to bed.  Meanwhile, I go downstairs and start working on homework or whatever else it is I have to do.

This is not bad, but I have come to realize that we are starting to hit that spot where Lily would much rather spend time with Amanda than me.  This is good and natural, but it's something I need to fight a little bit.  When Noah was younger it was just Lily and me in the evenings.  Now Noah stays up later and I feel like I'm losing that connection to her.  Given what tends to happen to girls who don't have a good relationship with their dads, I don't want to have that happen.

Amanda and I talked about this and instead of them playing sissies we played a game of Trouble last night.  It was a good game and Lily won, which is always good for her.  She and Amanda kind of teamed up on me, but that was OK.  The important thing is that we got to do something together.  My next step is to talk to her about going out on a date of some kind.  I need to date both of my girls.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes.