St. Pat's

We had a crazy weekend, and I am barely recovering today.  I am happy the kids are in preschool on Mondays now, I need it to recover from the weekends!  Today, being St. Patrick's Day, went easier for drop-off, which is making me wonder if I can incorporate some of these lessons every morning.  When I told them it was a day to wear all green, they were very excited to pick out their clothes and get dressed, and then they were excited when the other kids at school were all wearing green, too.  So, that was nice to not start the day with crying about preschool.

So this weekend we had something like 15 people for dinner on Saturday, which we cooked a fancy 3-course-meal for, and then about the same number of people plus 7 or 8 kids on Sunday for a pool party, which the pool didn't get quite warm enough for.  Not that that stopped most of the kids from going in anyway.  It was 80 degrees out, so it was nice.  At least Sunday was a semi-potluck, and everyone had a great time. And since we started in the afternoon, people left early after dinner and that gave us a chance to get the kids to bed at a reasonable time, too.  I was exhausted, and still feel that way today.

I'm beat, and the house is a mess.  And I have a ton of work in the next couple weeks, plus a bunch of crafty things that need to start getting done for my sister's wedding in June, my friend's baby (also in June), a birthday party (this weekend!), and just my own stuff.  I'm feeling overwhelmed, which is the usual anyway.

In other news, exercise is going well.  I'm swimming twice a week, running twice a week, and biking when I can.  It's been really windy here lately, which makes biking sort of miserable.  I've been working on bringing up my speed at running, to at least get back to where I was pre-kids (which is still jogging, not really running, but feels like sprinting to me).  I picked a half-marathon to train for in June, and possibly a triathlon at the end of May.  And then we'll probably be in Italy, so I'm hoping I'll be able to keep running at least while I'm there, plus some hiking, too.

Speaking of which - I'm off to the gym now for a 2-mile run and then master's swimming.  And spring is right around the corner!

Turtle v. Tadpole

Oof.  Raising 3-year-olds is making me rather schizophrenic.*  I LOVE it one moment and HATE it the next.  When it's awesome, it is SO awesome, and I am dying to have another one to make it all the better and keep the awesomeness coming.  When it sucks, I want to cry and tear out my hair and walk out of the house without looking back.  The cycles can last for hours, minutes, or really even seconds.  I am definitely starting to feel the strain, though.  I need a break.

One thing that's really awesome about this age is that their personalities are really starting to shine, and they are SOOOOOO different.  Here are a few examples.

This morning, the kids found a bag of colored star-shaped beads, so I got out the muffin tins and explained that they could group the beads by color, with each color getting its own spot.  Turtle loved that game.  He sat there and worked diligently and was so proud of himself when he was done.  Tadpole ... well, sigh.  I started them working together on the same muffin tin, but that didn't last longer than 5 seconds. I think she was purposely putting the wrong colors together just to make Turtle mad.  So I got her a tin of her own, where she gleefully combined all the colors together in each spot and then, after two minutes, called it a day.

My husband made up a bedtime game whereby the adult gives clues and the kid has to guess which animal we are thinking of, then we switch roles.  I have actually never played with Turtle, but my husband says it goes something like this:

Husband: The animal I'm thinking of swims in the ocean and is really huge!

Turtle: A whale!  My turn.  The animal I'm thinking of does NOT swim in the ocean, and is NOT really huge!

Here's how my games with Tadpole go:

Tadpole: This animal talks and has wings!

Me: A parrot!

Tadpole: No!

Me: Ummmmm ... really?  Are you sure it's not a parrot?

Tadpole: I'm sure, it's NOT a parrot.  It talks and has wings!

Me: (After trying a few other random guesses) Tadpole, I really don't know, can you tell me what it is?

Tadpole: A giraffe that talks and has wings!

OK, I guess you got me there.  More stories to come.