If you are reading this entry, it's a minor miracle. I've had almost no time to blog recently, and this weekend is no exception. I've got a packed day tomorrow (a birthday party and then a visit from a friend), so I'm going to try to squeeze this in now. I'm home alone with both kids, one of whom is sleeping and one of whom is throwing his cars off the stairs. Can you guess which one is which? S is out getting her nails done. We had an agreement worked out whereby she would take the kids to Lil' S1's soccer practice in the morning, thus giving me an opportunity to sleep in (which I haven't had in months), and I in return would watch the kids in the afternoon so that she could do her thing. It was a fine plan, except, of course, that it has been pissing down rain all day today, so soccer was canceled, and so everybody was home this morning, and so me sleeping in was (ironically) nothing more than a dream. I definitely got the short end of the child-rearing stick with this one -- but what can you do? It was nobody's fault and S has gotten the short end of the child-rearing stick more times than I have, so ... whatever.
Hold on ... baby is crying. I have to take a break.
Okay, I'm back, and now my kids have switched roles. The big one is finally down for a nap and the little one is fussing in his bassinet. Heaven forbid they both go down at the same time. I have trouble getting Lil' S2 calmed down when he gets riled up. Part of the problem is that I have a trick back and if I hold him while standing for more than a few minutes, it just starts to ache unbearably, so I have to sit down, which of course he hates, as somehow babies know the position that is most uncomfortable for you, and it's the only position they want to be in. Another part of the problem is that he doesn't take to the bottle very well. I think he likes breastfeeding so much that he doesn't like eating in any other form. Even when I know he's really hungry I have to coax him into drinking from the bottle, and sometimes he still doesn't take it. There have been a few times when I've been watching him at night and I just can't get him to take the bottle, and he starts crying so loudly that S wakes up (even though I have him in the basement) and has to breastfeed him. That's what I mean when I say she gets the short end of the child-rearing stick more times than I do. But, you know the old saying: Heavy is the chest, who wears the milk dispensers.
Anyway...
As I mentioned in my last post, my parents were in town recently for about a week and half. It was really nice to see them, but I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked. I literally have zero vacation days remaining for the rest of the year, so I had to work all day, and then by the time I got back and we got the kids fed, bathed, and to bed, I was worn down to a nub and just wanted to sit on the couch and drift into my own world, which doesn't cohere well with having company. But the good thing about family is that they are family. My parents completely understood, and they got to see the baby, which was the main point of the trip. Also, my dad did a bunch of handyman work, which was awesome. He fixed a light fixture, replaced a damaged (and dangerous) electrical socket, cleaned out the trap in our dishwasher, helped me put up a door, and replaced a broken plug on a lamp. Those are things about being a homeowner that I'm just not good at.
We also had a good weekend in Pennsylvania. We went to Sesame Place on Halloween. Sesame Place, as you can probably surmise, is a Sesame Street themed amusement park outside of Philadelphia. It's pretty cool. Lil' S1 was a bit too small to go on most the rides, but there was still plenty of stuff for him to do. He went down a giant slide, like, ten times, and he played for a long time on this big net stuffed full of yoga balls that also has a slide at the top. That thing was kid anarchy -- "Lord of the Flies," as my dad called it.
I was curious to see how Lil' S1 would behave. He's a good climber, but he's small, so he gets pushed around (usually inadvertently) by bigger kids. Sometimes at the playground if there are too many older kids with him on a big toy, he gets irritated and finds something else to do. But he stuck with it and held his own pretty well. He did two things that cracked me up: 1) He put his hand up in a stop gesture at a kid who was encroaching on his space (the kid stopped, despite being about twice Lil' S's size); 2) He asked a bigger kid to give him a boost at a particularly precipitous spot (which she did).
After visiting the amusement park, we went to a nearby hotel where we stayed the night. I had an event in Philly that I needed to attend, so my parents fed the little man and put him to bed. The next morning we went to the city and saw the Liberty Bell and bummed around the neighboring environs. It was fun. The bell itself is pretty underwhelming -- or rather it looks just like you'd think it looks because you've seen a million photos of it (it's cracked!) -- but there are a lot of parks nearby, and it was a beautiful fall day, so it was nice to walk around and let Lil' S1 play in the leaves.
We looked for a place to eat lunch, but everything was closed (an off-season Sunday), so we just got in the car and left. We planned on stopping on the way and getting something to eat when we gassed up, but after driving a few miles out of the city I realized we were on empty -- like empty empty, like reserve-tank-light-flashing empty. So I had to pull off the road ASAP and fill up, and the whole stop ended up taking like 20 minutes (my mom wanted to get water and then as soon as I put the keys in to finally leave Lil' S1 announced he had to use the bathroom), and nobody was starving, so we just drove all the way home straight through and skipped lunch.
Okay, Lil' S2 has gone from "kinda fussy" to "on the verge of a meltdown." I had better try to feed him or something. I kinda got an entry in.
Until next time ...
No comments:
Post a Comment