On The Go

Thursday's weather turned sort of nice, so we turned to a busy day of outings. I think it was supposed to have been in the 80s, so I decided to take advantage of the nice day and took the children to the park. But not before library story time, which we pretty much headed straight to after I gave the kiddies a bit of a breakfast on the go. We stayed at the park for about 45 minutes or so, and the children had a blast. They're both pretty fearless. I didn't get photos of them going on this one really tall slide that twists as it descends. That was because I was too scared to let Alexander go up there by himself and felt compelled to follow him up (and down) the slide. Thankfully, they never went back to that big slide after several times going down it. As you can see, they discovered a new way to slide down -- head first. A little boy in front of them did that, so I knew they were each about to do the same thing. Sure enough they did and got a big kick out of it.

After the park we came home for lunch, then a nap. After nap, we loaded ourselves back into the car — this time with the dog — and headed to the dog park, a designated park where dogs can run around leash-free! Shreve loves going for rides in the car I think more than he loves going to the park. All you have to say is: "Wanna go for a ride?" and he starts barking his head off! Anna always tells him he's too loud when he barks, which is the truth. I'll post the dog park photos another time.

By the time we got back home, Mikel was just minutes behind us and I put together a quick dinner while the children enjoyed helping him remove rocks in front of our house (part of his landscaping project ... and the removal/rearranging of rocks will probably take some time). Whew!

Anna has not been sleeping during nap time the past few days. She stays in her bed "resting," I guess you might say, as she sings or talks to her baby or whatever and isn't running around getting into trouble. Maybe she's starting to outgrow the need for an afternoon nap. I felt sure she would nap good today after burning off energy at the park. But I could hear that she didn't sleep at all. Yesterday, she finally fell asleep about 20 minutes before I woke them up. The day before, I don't think she slept a wink. I know I talked in my last post about not needing a lot of time to myself with regard to taking Alexander to daycare for such a purpose. I probably should have clarified that I do need some me time — to just relax or get things done. And their nap time is it for me. So, if she wants to stay awake and be a happy singer, that's perfectly fine with me, as long as she's nice about being awake. I used to get quite stressed about them not napping, and it was pretty bad sometimes when they shared a room in the apartment and would have loud parties during the time they should have been taking a nap. Mikel has done his best to help me get over this and not be bothered by the fact that, hey, if they don't want to sleep, don't sweat it, as long as this remains sort of the down time for everyone and they're not getting into trouble and you can still have your time. I can be tough, maybe because in the back of my mind I keep wondering when she's going to do something that would require me to go into her room.