Monthly Archives: June 2016

A spring in my step

I think it must be the weather, but lately even when I don’t feel all that energized, I still feel like I need to move and it’s a good feeling. The sun comes up early and even if I still want to sleep, I enjoy seeing those first rays of sunshine that peek up over the horizon and listening to the birds singing outside. The kids enjoy it too and often want to go outside right away once they see the sun is up. Admittedly I don’t always mind drinking my cup of coffee outside, unless it’s wet out, which it has been most mornings. Thankfully the deck gets the majority of our sun and nobody has to wait for long to get outside.

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Since it always gets so hot in the afternoons during the summer, I’m thinking of going on morning walks with the kids on the weekend. It’s a good way to start the day and I love how quiet everything tends to be in the early hours. Even thinking about it and looking outside gives me a bounce in my step. I’m not a runner (AT ALL), but lately I’ve had the urge to run and when we were camping and Enzo and I started to get rained on we both ran/jogged and it felt surprisingly good. My knees always ache after running, but it was kind of freeing to run in the rain with him.  I’ve noticed on days where I get in my lunchtime walk I just tend to feel a bit more energized the rest of the afternoon and less irritable. Amazing what a little movement, fresh air and sunshine (or apparently even rain) will do for the soul.

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Week In Review – Cats do land on their feet!

Happy Monday!

Linking up with Meghan from Clean Eats, Fast Feets for another Week in Review!

WEEK IN REVIEW (in no particular order)

I feel like this past week wasn’t really all that productive, but it went by quickly and I don’t remember much in particular.

  • Managed to lose my Fitbit for a few days, but thankfully found it again. I think I’d prefer one of the wrist ones… it seems like I’d be less likely to misplace it.
  • Did a lot of reading this week, and it’s apparently rubbing off on Phoebe as I can no longer leave my books out where she can reach them. I love that she loves books, though – both of them really!

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  • We cleaned the garage.
  • I organized our downstairs pantry/misc. closet
  • Went shopping with Phoebe in matching leggings, and yes, pre-kids I was one of those people who always said that was something she’d never do to her kids.

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  • One of my ideas for under our deck was to add rocks and whatnot since it’s so soggy, but after Vega managed to fall off the deck yesterday I’m not sure I want to. I think the constantly squishy ground was probably what helped her walk away uninjured. Granted, I know cats have survived much worse falls, but still.

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Happy Monday!

Zzzzzz…

Going into being parents I had a vague idea of some of the things that could prove to be challenging. I knew to expect sleepless nights with newborns, that the twos could be terrible, that potty training could go smoothly or not, but I didn’t realize that so many things could drag out for as long as they do. In 4 years I think we can probably count on our hands the number of nights where we have slept undisturbed and have felt truly well rested. There always seems to be at least one child who wakes up in the night and if one child goes to bed without a fuss, then it’s highly likely the other one will not go down easily.  Quite frankly, it’s exhausting.

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I can only hope that this stage won’t last another 4 years, but who can say?  Phoebe has suddenly decided she doesn’t want to stay in her bed at bedtime, unless I lay down with her and for some reason it is taking her forever to fall asleep lately. I’ll leave 20-30 minutes later only to hear her calling out for me, but even more aggravatingly she has started to lie down in front of her door making it impossible to get in her room!  She thinks it’s quite hilarious and then Enzo ends up wanting to know what’s going on as I try to convince Phoebe to back away from the door. We’re working on leaving her door cracked and so far threatening to not let her watch TV the next day if she doesn’t stay in bed has been somewhat working.

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Then you have Enzo who has to get up and pee at least once a night, but sometimes more than that and insists on a parent (usually Josh) to come and get him, which is probably for the best since I don’t want him getting hurt climbing out of his bed when he’s mostly still asleep. Sometimes Josh and I will surprise each other in the hallway late at night – him taking Enzo to or from the bathroom and me heading to Phoebe’s room or back to our bed, though generally if she calls for me in the middle of the night I end up just sleeping with her because I fall asleep while trying to get her back to sleep.

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It’s a darn good thing they’re both fairly cute and have redeeming qualities or this whole lack of sleep thing would be a lot harder to bear.

Let’s not do that again…

Oh, weather and it’s unpredictability. We had been watching the weather app (which is usually pretty accurate) leading up to the weekend and decided to still go camping when the forecast said there might be a shower at around 4pm and then at 8pm.  After that, Sunday was supposed to be a bit overcast, but there wasn’t supposed to be any rain, and we figured the kids would be fine with a little damp.

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True to the prediction it started raining around 4:00 and about half an hour later we arrived at the campground.  It wasn’t coming down really hard, so Josh and I set up the tent and everything in the rain and then got the kids inside the tent.  It decided to keep on coming down, though, on and off with only a brief respite here and there where Enzo and I would run to the bathroom and Josh grilled up some hot dogs. Still, the rain continued, though, and the kids were kind of whiny. They didn’t want to get wet, but they were bored in the tent, which was also starting to drip here and there. We decided to distract them by singing Happy Birthday to Josh a day early and eating his “cake.” (I am not a professional cake decorator).

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Thankfully with the clouds, it was getting a bit darker and we were all a little chilly so we decided to crawl into bed and watch a movie. .. until we started getting dripped on… A LOT.  Josh and I ran outside and grabbed a tarp and managed to slide it between the roof of the tent and the useless little tent “tarp” that came with it so we could stop getting dripped on.  We crossed our fingers that it would stop raining soon and then tomorrow we could dry out a bit. Except, it didn’t stop raining; it rained pretty much all night and the next morning continued to rain on and off. Phoebe was especially whiny and the other half of the tent was wet, which made both kids whiny.  We got some breakfast ready for them, but every time I left the tent or stood up or did anything Phoebe would start crying because she wanted to sit in my lap.  I tried to bundle her up, but she was over it. I had to listen to her wail when I went outside to go to the bathroom, and get coffee, and when it started to rain harder Josh and I shook our heads and decided to pack it up.  We had no way of knowing if the rain was ever going to stop and we doubted our camp neighbors wanted to hear the weeping and wailing and whining coming from our campsite for another day and night.  So, as quickly as possible we packed everything up and back into the car we went.

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Lessons learned:

Never trust a weather app.

Unless we get a camper it might be easier to hold off on anymore camping for a couple of years with our kids. Enzo might have been okay, but Phoebe was a hot mess. “I wanna go home!!!!”