A Day in the Life, and Photos!

Did pushups this morning with Tim. I'm so tired of the numbers on the scale, and knowing that my whole body will be healthier if that number is lower. The kids had fun watching us, and Jack climbed and pounced and jumped on me after we were done :D

Played this morning with Lily. Realized that I've been planning activities with Jack and just letting Lily tag along, but a lot of the things I do with Jack, I do out of her reach b/c she messes things up. So I got puzzles out and played with her while Tim and Jack were still asleep. Just like her brother (and parents), she loves puzzles! It was nice to have the quiet, one-on-one time with my daughter :D

Tidied some today. My bedroom is the cleanest room in the house, b/c it's where I retreat. The rest of my house is still a tornado, but my room is clean and tidy. And the kids happily played on the floor at my feet while I tried not to step on them.

Lily's naps are so out of whack. She needs to hurry up and figure out if she's a one-napper or a two-napper! For about a week or so, she napped just once in the day, but it lasted 3-4 hours. It was great! But then she started waking up after just 2 hours, but taking her nap at the same time in the day so there's not time for another nap between her morning nap and bedtime. She's cranky from 4pm on. I was supposed to go to a knitting group tonight sans children, but Lily needed to go to bed early so I stayed home and nursed her to sleep.

But while she did nap today, Jack and I put his play-doh in water. It was a little on the dry side, but really I wanted to show Jack how a ball of PD (play-doh) sinks, but if you make it into a bowl shape, it floats. He thought that was pretty neat! I let him try to make a boat shape, but my perfectionism took over and I did it for him. (And I didn't realize I'd done that until we were all done and I was writing it down. Doh!) I did let him drip water from a medicine dropper onto the boat to sink it. He was surprised when it did, he didn't think it would! Then I worked the PD until the water was distributed, and Jack played with the dropper and the water. And I ate lunch, and he played. And I did some emailing, and he played. Can you tell he loves playing with a sinkful of water?

After Lily woke, we went to the Children's Library. We got Clifford books, Dr. Seuss books, a Berenstain Bears book, and some books about the human body. I was surprised how many books there were about reproduction; I don't think Jack and I are ready for that yet. He knows everything except the process by which babies are made, and I think that's fine for now. We got a book about the civil rights movement (for African Americans, blacks, colored people, Negroes, or any other name that they like), which I'm excited about :D Reading about how people who were discriminated against, rise and demand and eventually receive their rights from the government, makes me happy :D

After the library, we went to the Junior Museum. It's right across the parking lot from the library; between the two is a nice park. So many great places in one spot, the parking lot is always packed! It's a mile and a half from my house, so I sometimes walk, but there just wasn't time for that today.

The Junior Museum has big mechanical tennis ball tracks that Jack and Lily love. But Lily got cranky, so I assumed she was tired and dragged them home. Got home and realized she was hungry! Poor kid! I often eat lunch while she's napping, then I just don't even think to feed her when she's awake. I think of it right after she wakes, but she still nurses to sleep, so she generally wakes with a full tummy. So many days, I forget to feed her except at breakfast and supper. I need to work on that! She's not wasting away, let me reassure my audience. She IS still breastfed, and she's still got enough baby chub.

I went ahead and let Jack watch one of his new movies from the library when we got home. I was hoping to nurse Lily down, and he usually watches a movie while I do that, but she didn't want to take a nap once she had eaten, but she was still cranky, and I just didn't want to deal with two cranky kids. I regret that now... I worked on a photo book while they watched Peter Pan. (And I realized just how many things are in that movie that I'm not too happy about.... and I remember not watching it much when I was a kid, and I wonder if that was my preference or my mother screening it?) Once Tim got home, Jack was rowdy and disobedient, and Lily was still cranky! No fun! But once I put Lily down for the night, Jack calmed down.

Jack is often rowdy and disobedient when Tim gets home. How much of it is too much TV time? How much of it is an inability to safely act out his happiness that Daddy is home? Is there some anger there that Daddy was gone at all? Would better nutrition improve his behavior? Or is this completely normal? We try to defuse him by playing with him as much as we can, but there's dinner to finish and eat, chores to finish, bedtime to work on. I'll bet having everything done with before Tim got home would be helpful, but that's hard. Whah whah whah.

I'm sick. But not too bad. I still stayed up doing laundry and some dishes. Tim did most of the dishes last night and tonight! yay!

So, to bed with me! I'm supposed to run tomorrow morning, but being sick is probably going to put that on hold. Blech.

Oh! I should give yall some pictures of my fabulous kids!

Lily at Johnson Park near our house. She wanted me to eat the leaf like she was :P

The face she makes when she's concentrating on something (in this case, a piece of bark) is so cute. It's the exact same face Jack made at her age, but I never got a satisfactory pic of his.

Playing a simplified version of the game of Life for Family Home Evening. We just spin the wheel and move our cars, and laugh when Lily upsets the board. "Earthquake!" or "Tornado!" we shout :D

Tim putting up our shelf. He made it from scrap lumber, then he and Jack painted it together.

Hiking in Oakland after going to the temple. Yes, we hiked in our church clothes. We're just awesome like that :)

The gingerbread house we made! Jack and I had great fun decorating it :)