So what does an 8 month pregnant Mom do with two very active little boys all day long in the summer with no Mother's Day Out? Keep them as busy as possible and hope that all the activity works off the extra ice cream, hamburgers, and popsicles Mom has been eating. The problem is that everything is an adventure with little boys. Mommy and her giant middle is very tired.
The pool opened and we were there the first day. It is the one activity that defies gravity for me which is sort of a positive right now. Puddle jumpers are amazing and they just sort of float themselves around the pool with the Mater and Spiderman pool toys. It is worth the tremendous effort of putting on swim diapers, sunscreen, bathing suits, and puddle jumpers on squirming little people...collect the dropped toys from the pool and catch little jumping children for an hour or two..then repeat all of the above wet and in the locker room where Alden taught Spencer how to lock himself it the locker. I do have to give myself a little pep talk to get up the energy but it is a guaranteed boy nap for a couple of hours afterwards. Plus, it is there absolute favorite thing, so of course I would do anything to make it happen.
Seriously, though, wouldn't you take them? This is the backyard alternative. Now that is just sad.
If they are really lucky, they can just put their feet in our fish pond. I turned around for a minute and found them in this Huckleberry Finn moment. I put a lot of effort into outside plans as well. I have a collection of bubble toys, riding toys, and balls, a sandbox, a teeter totter, sidewalk chalk, and a mini playset.
I try desperately to practice soccer and Tball with Alden. But nothing, and I mean nothing, is better than messing with the poor fish. Spencer will throw anything at them. Alden (the clumsiest kid on earth) just endlessly tries to balance himself on unsteady rocks and lean over as far as possible. They also find it really fun to pick up the dog poo. Alden uses the pooper scooper, but it is still gross. Spencer doesn't. That is all I will say about that. B-O-Y-S = gifts of dead bugs, dirt, and poop for Mom. Who wouldn't love that!
With boys, you never know what you will find. Humm, why is Alden's cup on the counter?
Silly Mommy, it is a shark tank! I wish I had a picture of when they picked up the roach and fed it to Lucy or when I had to duct tape three chop sticks together to fish the board game piece from the air vents.
Since we are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed between 5:00 and 5:30 AM, we have plenty of time for fun.
Spiderman says, "With great power comes great responsibility." Well, so does turning 4! Alden has started his daily chores an allowance. He is so excited and doing a great job! He picks up clothes for the hamper, cleans up his playroom before bed, gets dressed by himself, and takes his plate to the kitchen. He is very excited about his "dollars" and has already pre-spent his money for the next 10 years. He gets $4: keep $2, save $1, and donate $1.
He even adds a few chores himself to help out. It always helps to pretend to be Superman saving Metropolis!
Fireman Spencer.
The boys are always willing to help cook. In fact, they always want to help cook.
I thought that maybe if I let them pull up their little stools and chairs and help with dinner the ownership in the process would peek their interest in actually eating the meal (so a parent help book would say). Turns out, they just like to make a mess. On a side note, my favorite blog ever talked about putting her child on her "learning tower" to teach her the colors of all the beautiful vegetables she was cooking. Saw the photo and it was a stool. Chances are her kitchen looked like mine. So, here are my boys on their learning towers learning fractional measurements (sounds better, huh?).
Spencer just really likes to try to eat things with raw eggs. Alden will scream, "No, Spencer! It has eggs in it!" They did sort of get a meal out of sampling the ingredients the whole time.
Joey once told me that he would never have the patience to let them do this.
So, we make sure it looks like this when Daddy gets home.
Alden had his "REAL" birthday. We made birthday cake pancakes to celebrate. He was convinced that he was going to get to have another superhero birthday party with all of his friends, so we had to make a special day out of it. It was tough to understand that you have a birthday without a party even if you just had a party.
We decided to do something new and go to the Museum of Flight. Their favorite part was the playroom. Halfway through playing, Spencer shouted, "Gummie!" I shivered that he had found a fruit snack on this nasty, nasty floor and eaten it. It haunted me all day until he was in the car later and shouted, "Gummie!" I am choosing to believe that this was a temporary case of turrets and not the alternative.
Spencer got to ride around in a push car. Alden got to jump in a bouncy house and play legos. They had a blast. The history went right over their heads, but Alden did love the Vietnam planes because they were painted like sharks and the mannequin that talked when you touched him. He must have jumped ten feet when that man started talking! I am glad they enjoyed it because after risking our lives to drive through the worst part of town to get there, it might be a while before they go back!
After the museum, we had a special lunch to watch the trains. Alden's idea and it was great! He got to pick out his dessert and meal. Of course, Spencer was thrilled with the choice!
When all else fails for activity ideas, you just put in a DVD, set the headphones and get the heck out of town. (Plus, for some reason Alden was convinced his birthday present was a trip) We decided to take an impromptu trip to Chattanooga. We just thought the boys would love it, it was an easy drive, and we had to go to Gadsden to get some work done on our car. Mainly, we had to get the sun shade repaired that Spencer had torn off the window on day two of ownership. Joey also wanted a roof rack and some splash guards because he swears it now make the minivan more "sporty" and "beefy." I thought I was prepared for everything. I took along all my homemade learning games and a huge box of healthy fruit, veggie, and nut snacks. I went to the library and got a slew of DVD's for the ride that we had never seen. So prepared! Or so I thought. First obstacle, shoes. Packed up and ready to go and can't find Alden's shoes. His one pair of summer shoes. When I found them, they are covered in sand and dirt and soaking wet outside where he and Daddy had played the night before. So this meant, a no choice detour trip to the neighborhood shoe store where I walked in and asked for the cheapest pair they had. Alden now owns flip flops.
We get to Gadsden. We think we are so lucky because the Art Museum has this great cafeteria and Children's Museum and is in walking distance from the dealership. Great, right? Wrong. This is how many crackers we went through trying to keep Spencer sitting down and stopping screaming because the people told us we couldn't have a high chair and Alden from whining and complaining. Where were the healthy snacks? In the car at the dealership. Where were the games? You guessed it. When they brought dinner, they continued to complain/scream and eat nothing because they had eaten a hundred crackers. That is when Alden started complaining his stomach hurt.
After about three trips to the bathroom with Alden and multiple stares and glares from patrons and Mommy and Daddy finishing off the boy's food, we go get tickets to the museum thinking it can only go uphill from here. Then I notice that Spencer has wet his entire outfit. Where are spare clothes? So I take him to the bathroom to change his pull up and dry his pants and shirt under the hand dryer. While I am drying, Spencer has his hands over his ears screaming, " Too loud! Too loud!" Kind of an ordeal. Finally, we are out of there and looking for entertainment. They even had a HUGE train exhibit of model trains. Spencer was in heaven and just stood and watched and watched and watched. Alden kept complaining. He wanted a Sprite. He wanted to sit in the stroller. He wanted to go home and see Dr. Stone. Dr. Mom massages his stomach in every place I can find, checking for fever, trying to rule out emergency situations like appendicitis. The whole time we are looking at each other saying, Really? He is going to have a medical emergency out of town when we live two miles from one of the best Children's Hospitals in the country? We decide he will survive and move on to the Children's Museum after only a few screams from Spencer for having to leave the train. Oh, and then, Spencer goes potty. Everywhere. Again! We stop by the bathroom to clean him up without a changing table which ends up requiring Mommy's arms and clothing to be cleaned up as well when I was thrilled to have him unexpectedly sit on me while scrambling through the bag for wipes.
We are still trying to decide if Alden is truly sick or just being melodramatic. We play for about 4 minutes in the museum when he starts clutching his stomach. I ask him about it and he screams, "It is coming up! I am going to throw up!" Daddy takes him to this flower bed, and here he is. Looking for bugs. Since you really can't take a child back to a children's area after all the parents have heard him yell that he was going to throw up, we went back to the car. On the walk to the car, Alden really starts crying, yelling, clutching, telling us he is scared because he stomach hurts. Maybe this is for real. Decision made: Go back home and straight to the pediatrician.
By the time we make the drive back, he is fine and asking if we are in Chattanooga yet. We take him to the doctor anyway.
To make it up to Spencer, I occupy him during the doctor visit with a trip to the mall to eat a cookie and have some milk. I felt sorry for him because we had promised him a choo-choo ride that afternoon and it was all we had heard about all day. He even had on his choo-choo shirt. He drank two milks and ate the eyes off the cookie smiley face.
The highlight, as always, was getting to throw away the trash. He loves that! Begs to do it everywhere. After that thrill, we went to check on brother. What do we find out? He is constipated. Great. Stop at the pharmacy. Get back on road. Arrive in Chattagnooga at 10 pm. A 2 hour drive turned into a 12 hour drive and three bathroom traumas. Nice.
Day Two of trip was a morning of success. We made it! A trip to the Tennessee Railroad and a choo-choo ride. Spencer is on cloud nine and Alden is right there with him.
He held onto his ticket the entire trip. I think he thought they might kick him off without it. He told everyone it was "Time to All Aboard!"
We live and breathe choo-choos. Every night he reads a book about choo-choos before bed and his favorite part is when they go through tunnels and over bridges. We have to go back and read those pages over and over before we can move on in the story. Today, Spencer actually got to go over bridges and through tunnels. The whole trip was worth him getting to do that. He was glued to the window ticket in hand.
I just can't even talk about the trip to the hotel room for a "nap." It is too painful of a memory. If Spencer had not been there, we would have turned around and come home again. But, for the sake of our second child who had done nothing wrong, we continued with a promise of no gift shop toys for his brother as a punishment. This is a huge punishment for him. At lunch, with no naps, it was just damage control until the food came. I drew trains. I drew trains with animals. I drew trains on red tracks and green tracks. Again, did I have all the games and healthy snacks? Nope, at the hotel.
We relented from exhaustion. Gave Alden a strawberry lemonade and an iPhone. Score: Parents = 0; Alden = 1.
On to the Children's Museum. Joey dropped us off at the door, and we started to play. We played and played with no Daddy. By the time he got there, about 45 minutes later, I was in tears. I had left my purse and bag in the car because my body was too tired to carry anything else but children. I had no money and no phone and the post-train day had been so bad, I was convinced Joey had lost in and just left us all there. Of course, he hadn't. He blamed it on parking, but I wouldn't have blamed him for driving around in silence as long as possible, or leaving us there for that matter. Nonetheless, super cool museum and kids are super happy people. We love them again:)
Paleontologist. Since there was sand, Joey joked that we could just tell them this was the beach and kill two trips in one.
Bee keeper exhibit.
Our little drone.
Huge success! Absolutely a fun place to be. We all played until closing time. Spencer had one altercation in the baby area because he was convinced that the car and train table were "mine!" and not to be shared. Good news is that once he is removed from said car and train table he is over it. He ended up helping out in the play kitchen cooking and doing laundry with Alden. We got out of there with a fun time, sticking to our guns about no souvenirs, and no tears.
That called for ice cream. Although, these days, a very pregnant Mommy can find any excuse for ice cream. This was our $40 trip to Ben and Jerry's for five ice cream cones. One for each of us and one to replace the one that Alden dropped on the floor after one bite. That better be some quality ice cream!
Spencer's thrill is throwing away trash. Alden's thrill is pushing elevator buttons. We let him push the one to take us to the hotel pool to wear them out! They slept great that night, but both of them in the double bed with me. Daddy made a sad face that no one loved him, but he did get a night's sleep with in a bed by himself with no wife and no kids. I slept in bed with a 2yr old, 4yr old, giant belly, and a pregnancy pillow. I think he was probably happier with that situation that he wanted to admit. Although I do admit that it is worth a sore back and little sleep to be the favorite:)
Last day: The Tennessee Aquarium. Perfect day with sweet, very fun boys! All's well that ends well.
The boys have not stopped talking about it. Smiles worth every single bit of bathrooming, turning around, fighting, and exhaustion. We tend to laugh the kid bad when the kid good is so good and even spent the trip back talking about locations for our next trip and laughing about the mass chaos of this one. Oh, and eating all of the healthy snacks. I was finally in the same location as the lunchbox.
And without a doubt, they came home with a souvenir. Score: Parents = 0 Kids = 2. Did anyone doubt it?
No comments:
Post a Comment