Back to the Grind

I’ve been MIA for the past few days because we were camping. This past weekend was David’s family reunion, which was held at a campground, so it was a great opportunity to use our camper. 

I also used it as an opportunity to take a little break from my shredding. Not before my brother wanted to prove to me that I was a big wimp, so he did the video with me too. I have to admit that he is in pretty good shape, but I did hear some huffing and puffing from him and there was a decent amount of complaining about the 8 pound weights that he had to use (he didn’t buy my whole “you’re a guy, so you’re weights should be heavier than mine” argument). I also determined that while he may have inherited the skinny, athletic genes in our family I was most certainly the one blessed with coordination and flexibility. It was pretty comical watching my brother trying to do the hip spins, squats, and lunges. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty comical to watch any man do the hip spins.

Anyway, back to camping…

Anthony enjoyed crawling around the camper exploring things

Until he cracked his head on the door

This is Madeline’s new “smile for the camera” face. Nice!

Playing on some of the “animals” at the campground (there’s that smile)

Our camper has 3 bunk beds. Madeline sleeps on the bottom bunk (basically the floor with a mattress on it), and Anthony sleeps on the middle bunk. Michele rigged up a fancy system in our camper so that our kids could sleep there without having to worry about them falling out of bed. It worked beautifully and it was so much better than having to bring along a Pack N Play for him.

Here is Anthony meeting one of his cousins (in David’s family, if you don’t want to bother figuring out exactly how a person is related, you just call them a cousin). This is Mackynzie, David’s cousin Lyndsay’s little girl.

Anthony spent some time on the swings. I think it was his first time on a park swing (although he has a swing at Mimi and Papa’s house that he is very fond of, and spends quite a bit of time in!).

Here is Madeline sitting at the bar having a drink. This is how we do it up here in the Midwest, folks.

And this is what we did with the kids while we were camping to keep them out of trouble

Anthony was trying to gnaw his way to freedom with his 3 little teeth!

Overall the camping trip was lots of fun. The weather was beautiful, it was relaxing, and having lots of family around was great (i.e. there were plenty of breaks for David and I from kid duty).

Today I am back to the grind. I picked back up with my 30 day shred…today was day 6. I’ve never really been a big fan of working out, but I keep trying to remind myself that I need to get into shape, and do some toning and I figure for 20 minutes I can suffer through it.

Day 3

Today my mom and I drove back to Waukesha with the kids to visit my grandparents. Madeline was very excited. She talked about visiting Grandpa Jack and Grandma Mary, and Grandma Jayne all day yesterday. We had a nice visit with them. Madeline got to play with Grandma and Grandpa’s dog, Darla. She even got to take her for a walk. She also helped Grandma set the table so we could all eat doughnuts, and Anthony showed off his latest skills. 

Then we visited Grandma Jayne who hadn’t had a chance to see Anthony in person yet. Anthony was quite the charmer and sat in her lap and cuddled for a while. Then we all took a little walk through Grandma’s building. Mom pushed Grandma in her wheelchair, and I wore Anthony in a sling while I pushed Madeline on Grandma’s walker. She sits on the little bench and I get the pleasure of pushing her. She thinks it’s great fun, and we made a nice little parade walking through the building. 

That took up most of the day, and this evening I went out to dinner for a book club meeting. So, I haven’t really been home at all today. I was in pain all day long from my 2 days of shredding. Walking is a painful undertaking, and getting up and down off the floor to play with Anthony is torture. I would rather drag my body along the floor like Anthony does when he is feeling lazy and doesn’t want to crawl.

With my pain level so high, and my lack of free time today I pondered the notion of just skipping my workout today and picking up tomorrow. However, I want to do this the right way, and Jillian says I can’t “phone in my workouts” so I decided to workout tonight at 9:00. I asked David if he wanted to join me, and being the supportive husband that he is, he agreed.

So, I told him to go grab the other set of hand weights. He came downstairs ready to go, and was slightly bitter that I had laid claim to the 5 pound weights while he got stuck with the 8 pounders. I informed him that he was a boy, and that was tough luck.

I told him that he might want to put some shorts on, since doing this workout in pants might get a little hot. He opted to just work out in his boxers. He takes this very seriously! 

Then we started the video. I was amused during the warm-up to hear that his joints popped and cracked just as bad as mine did. Apparently we are both 2 out of shape, old people. 

David was a good sport and did the entire workout with me. He was huffing and puffing, and sweating quite a bit, and I was pleased to notice that I wasn’t huffing and puffing quite as much as before and I wasn’t even sweating quite as much! 

I’m not sure if he will be doing this again with me, but I at least was happy that he can now relate to me when I talk about my shred video.

What We’ve Been up To

Just a little glimpse into what we’ve been doing lately…

Anthony’s favorite thing to play with right now is this toy that I got a garage sale a while back. It turned out to be a good purchase, because he plays with it nonstop. 

Hmmm, I guess you can’t really see the toy in the picture. Well, it is really cool. Do you see that cord dangling off the table in the background? Yeah, that’s one of his favorite toys too. Not that I let him play with it, but he does his best to find whatever electrical cords he can get his sticky little hands on, and tries to play with them. I’ve since done a better job of tucking that cord away, so it’s not such a temptation…and strangulation hazard!

Madeline put together her first “big girl” puzzle the other day. She was quite proud of her accomplishment. I left her alone in the room when we first pulled it out of the box, to go get some lunch started, and when I walked back into the room a minute later she was standing above the puzzle stomping on 2 of the pieces trying to make them fit together. We had a little crash course on the “proper puzzle putting together” procedure, and she caught on pretty quickly after that. 

Notice all of those spots on our carpet. They’re spit-up stains. I plan on getting our carpet professionally cleaned after we deem Anthony is officially out of his spitting-up phase. He is doing much better lately, but every now and then surprises us with some nice spewage. The worst is when he spits up his baby food and we have to clean up orange or green stains.

Anthony mastered crawling a week or two ago, and then immediately moved onto pulling up on things and cruising. The other day he had a really bad diaper rash going, so I gave him some naked time to air out his bottom. He stood at the couch and ate Cheerios.

Yep, Anthony eats Cheerios now, as well as whatever else he can get his hands on. When we are eating dinner and Anthony is in his high chair he whines to get us to give him whatever it is that we are eating. He prefers our food over the jars of baby food.

This is what it looks like from my perspective when Anthony begs me for food at the couch. Hey you can see a little more of Anthony’s cool toy in the background of this picture!

We spent time at David’s parents’ pool for the 4th of July. Madeline finally worked up a little more courage and “swam” laps around the pool while wearing this. She did it all by herself, which is a big deal for her, because she is not overly fond of the water.

Anthony, on the other hand, loves the water. This is the contraption that he floats around the pool in.

I’ve mentioned that David has a garden in our backyard. Here is a sampling of what he is growing.

Madeline enjoys eating the green beans raw.

This is what I found the other day when I went into Anthony’s room to check on him while he was napping.

Madeline likes to sneak my camera and take pictures. Whenever I download my pictures onto my computer I look at the number downloading and think to myself, “I don’t remember taking 88 pictures” but then I realize that 60 of them were taken by Madeline. Here is a surprise picture she took. Apparently she caught Anthony getting into something he shouldn’t have and decided to take photographic evidence of the infraction. The look on his face cracks me up…like he was caught in the act.

Alright, that’s all folks. I just got done updating both kids baby books, and that did me in!

My Shredding Update

Today is day 2 of the 30 day shred (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see the post right before this one). I put Anthony down for his afternoon nap, and when I came downstairs Madeline asked me if she could play outside. I told her, no, I was going to exercise. She jumped up and down excitedly and said she wanted to “essercise” too!

I went upstairs to my bedroom and changed into my workout clothes, and Madeline felt inspired to change into new clothes too. We got downstairs and got the DVD ready to go.

The workout began and Madeline very excitedly did the warm-up with me, doing the hip rolls, jumping jacks, and knee rolls like an old pro. Then we got into the pushups, which I hate! After that it was time for squats, with a shoulder press combined. 

After about 1 minute of the strength training Madeline looked at me and said, “mommy, this is hard work. I don’t like this movie. Let’s watch Ruby and Max.” 

Ahhh, yes, baby girl. Mommy doesn’t like the movie either, but it is supposed to give her a new, improved body so we must suffer through it…for the next 30 days.

Shredding

After I had Madeline I had a decent amount of weight to lose, and to be honest it didn’t want to come off very easily. It literally took me a solid 20 months before I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight with her. It was very frustrating, and I attribute the weight gain, and subsequent battle to take it off, to my nightly ice cream addiction in my 3rd trimester. David and I would go get Blizzards almost every night, and on the nights I wasn’t eating a Blizzard I was over at the custard stand having a raspberry sundae. We even got trapped in a horrible hail storm in which my car was severely damaged all in my quest for ice cream. 

When I was pregnant with Anthony I determined not to do the same thing, and I controlled my weight gain much better the second time around. It also helped that he arrived almost a whole month earlier, which probably saved me a good 5-10 pounds. I ended that pregnancy about 20 pounds less than I did Madeline’s, so I was ahead of the game that time around. Then, when Anthony was about 4 weeks old, I gave up dairy because of his sensitivity to it in my breastmilk. 

At that point the weight started coming off quite nicely. Then about 3 months after that I gave up dairy and gluten and a whole bunch of other stuff in my quest for health. At that point the weight started pouring off of me and I couldn’t keep it on. Not too bad of a problem when you are trying to drop your baby weight! 

Well, now I’m completely off all of those diet modifications and eating anything and everything my little heart desires. Needless to say when you are eating like that weight has a tendency to creep back in. So, now I find myself about 8 pounds up from my lowest point, which is still well below my pre-pregnancy weight, so I’m not complaining.

I’m actually pretty happy with my body, and my weight. At my lowest weight I lost all of my curves and was looking rather gaunt. Random people who barely knew me asked me repeatedly if I was sick, tired, etc. So, I’m happy that the weight gain has given me a little bit of a shape again, and since my clothes still fit me, albeit a little more snug than before, I am happy with it. 

However, I have decided that I need to tone up a bit. The excess flab and jiggle isn’t doing much for me. So, I am on a quest to get in shape and regain some tone. After thinking about it for quite some time, I decided to actually do something about it. 

So, there is this workout video that I have read about on a number of blogs and everyone is raving about it, so I thought I’d give it a try. It is a DVD by Jillian Michaels, one of the trainers from the Biggest Loser, called The 30 Day Shred. It’s basically a 20 minute workout that you are supposed to do for 30 days and at the end I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to have a new body…or something along those lines. 

There are 3 levels, the 1st level is the lowest intensity, and once you master that you move up to the next levels. Each workout starts with a 1 minute warm-up, followed by a 3 minute strength training session, a 2 minute cardio session, and a 1 minute ab session. You repeat that 3 times, and then end with a 1 minute cool down. Anyone can handle 20 minutes right?

So after owning the DVD for a week I finally decided today that I should probably get to work on my new body. So, after I put Anthony down for a nap I went into the basement ready to work out. I told Madeline to find something to play with, and popped the DVD in for my first workout. 

Let me tell you that I can not remember the last time I worked out. I am pretty sure it was sometime while I was trying to take off my Madeline weight, which at this point I’m thinking was at least 2 years ago. So, I figured this workout was not going to be pretty.

It started off easy enough with some stretching, but after a minute we got into the workout. The first strength-training exercise we did was push ups. Oh my word, they were difficult! Jillian does not let you take breaks because the whole point of the workout is to work out like crazy for 20 minutes to get the maximum effect. So, you immediately jump from one thing to the next. During the first 2 minutes of the workout I found myself repeatedly muttering “You’ve got to be kidding me”, and “Are you serious?” I honestly thought about turning off the DVD repeatedly, but decided that a toned body was worth the effort. 

I also started to regret the 2 large chocolate chip cookies I had downed only half an hour prior to starting my workout. They were bouncing around in my stomach making me feel queasy as I did my jumping jacks. In all fairness I had no intention of doing that workout video when I ate the cookies. In fact, it was probably the sheer guilt of eating those 2 cookies that gave me the motivation to do the video in the first place.

After doing the video for one 6 minute interval I was feeling better and getting into it. I could barely feel the cookies jiggling around in my stomach anymore. Madeline had decided not to play and instead stood next to me trying to mimic the moves on the DVD. Needless to say she has boundless energy, and was not huffing and puffing in quite the same way that I was. 

After 20 minutes it was done. It was not easy, but I felt good about my workout. My legs were shaking quite badly and I was sweating (thankfully our basement is freezing cold, so it’s the perfect place to work out). Unfortunately Anthony had not fallen asleep for his nap and at this point was crying, so I decided to go rock him to sleep.

As I climbed the steps my legs were shaking, and burning and I was still sweating and hot from my workout. I was dreading having to hold Anthony as his little body is like a furnace and the last thing I needed was any more heat. I grabbed him and sat down in the rocking chair and was confident that my warm body, combined with my rapidly beating heart, and my heavy breathing would lull him to sleep. Sitting on that rocking chair was just what I needed after my long workout. It was great to rest, and cuddling my sleeping baby boy was pretty sweet too. 

As I stood up to put Anthony back in his crib, my legs once again started to shake and now my arms were shaking as well. So, I’m pretty sure that the workout did a good job of kicking my butt. I have high hopes for some serious toning in the next 30 days, if I can just motivate myself to keep doing the video…and maybe stop eating 2 chocolate cookies at a crack. 

I should probably not admit that as I type this I’m eating a bowl full of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. I couldn’t help myself, because I had bought it for a date night that David and I had a few nights ago. It was almost gone and as I was scooping it into my bowl I was faced with a dilemma. There was enough in there for my bowl, but then there was just a little left in the container, but not enough for another bowl tomorrow night. So, I decided to just finish it up. So, now I’m eating an extremely large bowl of ice cream. Not necessarily the best idea on my first day of working out, but it sure tasted good!

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And since no post is complete without pictures, here are some…along with a little story. 

Today I was outside on the deck eating my lunch, reading a book, while Madeline played in her sandbox and ate her lunch (Anthony was napping inside). I was lost in my book, and heard Madeline crying/whining which I must admit I have done a pretty good job of learning to tune out. She whines quite a bit these days, and it drives me crazy so I don’t respond to it. I happened to look up for a minute and noticed that Madeline was trying to climb around the outside of our deck, something which she had started doing a couple of weeks ago. She’s an adventurous little girl, and is always looking for things to climb on and jump off of.

I happened to notice that her head was through 2 of the posts of the deck…and it was stuck, which was why she was crying, and she had once again stripped down and was stuck on our deck, naked. 

So, I quickly dropped my book, and ran around to the outside of the deck. Thankfully she got stuck in a place not too far off the ground so I could easily reach her. I did my best to get her head out, I tried pushing her ears flat to try to make her head fit, I tried squeezing her body sideways through the posts, I tried raising her head up high, and then low but nothing worked. She was crying the whole time, and since she was on the outside of the deck she didn’t really have anything to stand on. 

So, I propped my leg up and told her to sit on it while I thought. I couldn’t think of anything so I called David, who was at work. He told me to try to pry the pieces apart, but they wouldn’t budge. He told me to break one of them, but I am not strong enough for that either. Finally, I ran into the house to grab a hammer. I used it to pry the piece off of the deck and her head came free. I was even able to nail it back into place, so no damage was done to the deck. 

Madeline was relieved to be free and then wanted to play with the hammer, and “fix” the deck for us. She also informed me that she wouldn’t be sticking her head through any of the posts again. I was thankful to have gotten her out of there on my own, because David suggested I get one of our neighbors to help, but I didn’t really need them questioning my parenting skills when they discovered Madeline was stuck on our deck, naked. 

Of course I couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass without first taking pictures before freeing my daughter.

As you can see, I even went to the trouble of putting underwear on her so I could have some blog-friendly photos (although I did take pictures of her before the underwear so that one day I can show her just what kind of trouble she got into as a child!)

And there you have it. It was definitely not a day for the faint of heart!

There Goes the Neighborhood…Again

I really like where we live. We are within minutes of the mall, lots of restaurants, Target, Wal-Mart, grocery stores, gas stations, and most importantly Starbucks. We live in a nice little neighborhood, that is relatively new. There are lots of young families like us, and after 5 years our landscaping is finally starting to mature…slightly! 

We especially love the neighbors who live on both sides of us. On one side is an older gentleman who lives by himself. He swears to love the cold weather and shows his affection for it by snowblowing our sidewalk and driveway for us almost every time it snows. He also does this for a large number of the people who live on our street. Even when we get huge snowstorms he is out there for hours with his snowblower helping us all out. He has even been known to mow our lawn if he notices we are out of town for a while. He has also given Madeline a few hand-me-down toys that his grandchildren no longer play with. He’s a great guy!

On the other side is another young couple that just had their first child, a little boy who is 4 months younger than Anthony. We spend a lot of evenings outside talking to them, watching our dogs play, and discussing how we can’t wait until next summer when our boys can play together! 

That’s the good. Now the bad…

The people who live behind us are nice people, but they don’t seem to possess a desire to mow their lawn, or to perform much upkeep on their yard in general. It’s a Russian mother and her son who live there, and once a month or so he goes outside and undertakes the huge task of trying to tame his lawn. We don’t really care, because there is a rock wall behind our house, so their yard does not really meet up with ours. We’ve just always assumed they don’t really care about their yard, and we just ignore it.

Until today.

 We came home from church and we could tell that there was a big project underway. I suppose I should have been tipped off when the son was outside mowing the lawn yesterday. It was a little shocking, since it happens so rarely. Today, there was a man outside building a brick wall all the way around the house from the front of the yard to the back. All day long we watched the man build the little retaining wall around the house.

I kept telling David that I couldn’t understand why they were trying to spruce up their yard with a fancy brick wall, since they can’t even be bothered to mow the lawn. I am pretty sure that they don’t realize that their little brick wall just created a huge weed wacking situation for the son that is going to completely up the ante in his yard work regimen. 

The man worked all day long and by late afternoon the wall was done. As the wall-builder was sitting on a chair admiring his handiwork, my eyes were drawn to where his feet were resting. A place where the wall got a little higher and some strange steam-type of substance was rising from it.

After talking to our next door neighbor he informed us that they had build a little pond behind the house, complete with a fogger. So, the people who don’t give a rip about their yard and its upkeep have now built a nice retaining wall that wraps around the house, complete with a water effect, that shoots a vapor into their yard.

Tonight I went upstairs to take a look at the new pond and it was like a scene straight out of Sleepy Hollow. The backyard had an eery effect as steam was shooting out of the fogger, enhanced by some bright blue lights, lighting up the pond that has some type of fountain effect as well. 

And to top it all off they are now shooting fireworks off their deck creating loud booms in our house. These neighbors are usually very quiet, and keep to themselves but apparently the pond has brought out their wild sides.

Fishing and Shopping

David and I went fishing together again this past Sunday. It was the perfect day to be out on the water. The weather was in the mid-70’s, the sky was blue, and there was a nice breeze. I figured even if I didn’t catch any fish I would at least be able to enjoy the nice weather and work on my tan.

Once we got out on the water I told David we should see who could catch more fish. We took the boat back to the same spot as last time, and almost immediately David caught this largemouth bass.

It was at this point that I began to worry since I hadn’t even had a bite. Eventually I started to catch some fish. Here’s a picture of me with a Northern that I caught.

As you can tell from the expression on my face, and the fact that David had to hold the fish and take the picture for me, I’m still not into the whole idea of handling the fish.

We only had about 15 minutes left and we were both tied at 8 fish a piece. I was determined to beat David. With only a few minutes to spare I got a bite and reeled my fish in while bragging to David that I was about to win the bet. Just as I was pulling my fish out of the water it got off the hook and got back into the water. 

David never caught another fish so we ended the day tied, although I still believe I won since I had 8.5 fish. David told me I sounded like a true fisherman trying to claim a fish that got away as part of my count. 

Shifting gears…

David went to a Brewers game last night so I was home by myself with the kids. I decided to take them to the mall so that I could do a little retail therapy, Madeline could play, and we could eat a pretzel! 

The last time David was out of town we went to the mall and I let Madeline bring her doll stroller with her and push one of her babies through the mall while I pushed Anthony. She insisted upon doing it again this time. It’s really pretty cute. She walks alongside me pushing her stroller just like a little mommy. She seems to enjoy it, and it keeps her occupied.

On the way out of the mall we were walking through the shoe department at Boston Store and Madeline insisted upon trying on some shoes. Here are a few pictures

Then she made me try on the last pair of shoes. They didn’t fit me so I had to balance in them. As you can see from the picture Madeline is still perfecting her picture-taking skills. At least she got my feet, which was the important part of the picture!

I’ve always wished that I had the size feet that all of the sample shoes were so that I could just try shoes on at the mall and not have to ask for my size, but alas I was born with big feet so I have to ask the sales people to go get my size. Oh well, a girl can dream, right?

Shopping in Bed

A few weeks ago, when David was busy working into the wee hours of the morning, and I was going to bed before him I made a little discovery. While doing some channel surfing I stumbled upon QVC and was almost instantly hooked. I began watching it every night in bed marveling at the vast array of products available for purchase by simply dialing an 800 number! 

I believe the first night I tuned in they were selling makeup. I was thankful that it was 11:00 PM and I was in bed with no access to my credit cards because I would have probably been stocking up on lipgloss, eyeliner, makeup bags, and all other kinds of crazy makeup that I had now realized I could no longer live without.

You see, this is the beauty of home shopping television. They are so good at convincing people that they can not live without the lipgloss that they only mere minutes earlier did not even know existed! They just get so excited about it, and point out all of the exciting features that make it a can’t-live-without purchase! Plus the models. They are a key selling point. They prance around modeling clothes, jewelry, iPods, garden hoses, kitchen knives, etc. Occasionally they will come up with a witty remark that the hostess will giggle at, just making you feel that you’re one, big, happy family all having a late night conversation that involves credit cards.

I have to admit that I became slightly disenchanted with QVC a week or two ago and took a self-imposed hiatus for a while. You see, they were selling figure-correcting swimwear. The swimsuits claimed to help flatten your tummy, wrangle your large chest into the proper position, elongate your torso and probably some other stuff that I am failing to remember. At one point the camera panned to one of the models prancing around in her figure-correcting swimwear and I noticed that her thighs didn’t even touch! I’m sorry, QVC, but if you are trying to sell figure-correcting swimwear maybe you could use a model who looked like she needed some figure correcting? If your thighs don’t touch you have no business even pretending that you are in need of figure correcting swimwear. Apparently the other QVC viewers missed the whole thighs not touching drama because the swimsuits were just flying off the shelves that evening.

And seriously, what is up with the 30 year old women modeling clothing for a target audience of women in their late 60’s and early 70’s? Seriously, folks, if you are looking for good late night entertainment just flip on over to QVC and watch the young models try to pretend that they are excited about the pants with the elastic waistband that they are wearing. Priceless!

Last night I tuned in after my little hiatus and I saw the deal of the day and all of those thigh-not-touching feelings quickly dissipated. The were selling this floor steamer thing that looked like it would revolutionize my life! You could use it on basically every floor surface imaginable…carpet, wood, linoleum, tile, etc and the little pads on it were machine washable! The idea of being able to steam-clean and sterilize my floors was very appealing to me, and I swear if someone would have placed a credit card within arms reach of my bed I would probably have one on the way for the mere price of $85. Yes people, $85! I mean, what price can I put on the cleanliness of my house, right?

I was watching at 11:00, so immediately after that they flipped over to today’s deal of the day (it was midnight on the east coast, so that’s why they were moving on). This deal was for a purse. Not a fancy, trendy handbag, a vinyl bag with an across the body strap. Totally not trendy…totally a “mom” purse, and I wanted one! After explaining all of the zippers and pockets I decided that I needed one of those purses, but once again it was 11:00 PM and I was in bed. So, I went to sleep without ordering.

However, this morning when I woke up I went online and ordered one…my first official home shopping purchase (meaning from television. I buy stuff online all the time, but never off of the TV. It made me feel like I was 75 years old!). I’m not even going to tell you what it looks like or give you a link for fear of being mocked by my much trendier friends with no kids who will believe I have gone off the deep end. I will just tell you that I will be ever so happy at the grocery store, the farmers, market, the mall, garage sales, etc without having to haul around my over-the-shoulder purse that I’m currently using, and I’m just going to pretend it was not purchased on QVC and that there aren’t 5,000 75 year old women with the same purse as me!

Catching Up is Hard to Do

I’ve been noticing a trend with my blogging lately. I have very good intentions for supremely interesting, and entertaining blog posts and then I get distracted by life and fail to follow through on them. Then, I feel compelled to catch up. So, here I go. Once again there will be no rhyme or reason to this post, other than to show you some cute pictures of the kids and to catch up on what we’ve been up to. 

We went to a parade a couple of weeks ago. It was Madeline’s first parade and I think it was the first parade I had been to in probably 20 years, so I had a lot of fun reliving some childhood memories. I also believe we turned Madeline into quite the fan of parades. You see, we decided to sit at the beginning of the parade route, and we soon discovered that at the beginning of the parade all of the parade participants are eager to throw out their candy and other loot and haven’t grown tired of the whole process yet. Also, having only 1 child who can collect candy sitting with us allowed Madeline to really haul in quite the load. 

Here is Anthony with Papa waiting for the parade to start

Madeline collecting her loot

She even got a snow cone!

and Anthony got beads!

Madeline got more candy at the parade than she did for Halloween! Anyone want to send your kids over to our house for a playdate?

Moving on…

Anthony has started to make this face quite a bit. Madeline used to do it too (I think it’s one of those things that all babies do at some point). 

He also likes to blow raspberries while eating which makes a horrible mess. I end up with splatters of baby food all over me, and all over everything within a foot of his high chair. (Notice the splatters all over his high chair).

Here is David with the kids on Father’s Day. Anthony is wearing rainbow-colored leg warmers. He is very secure in his manhood in case you were wondering!

Madeline is perfecting her picture-taking skills. The focus was a little off, but she is getting better…

Here are some great pictures she took of David and I in his truck

As you can see we were all hopped up on Starbucks. I believe Madeline was hopped up on chocolate milk.

The other day I was outside with Michele, my mother-in-law, looking at a tree in our backyard when I looked down at our little garden (yes David is growing his own vegetable garden this year). I noticed a bird stuck in the chicken wire. After a minor freak-out I realized it was still alive. Thankfully Michele was already at our house, because I would have needed to call her to tell her to come over and help me take care of things.

Poor little birdy

Michele to the rescue

She rescued the bird out of the fence and set him in a pine tree to recover. He seemed fine, although he was a little tired from struggling in that fence. Hopefully he recovered and is all better now, and hopefully this didn’t get him.

That’s a fox, since the picture is really junky. A few days ago I watched him hunt and kill a baby bunny in our backyard. After talking to some neighbors we found out that he has been seen on people’s decks, and our next door neighbor is fairly certain that he is living in the rock wall that we share with him behind our houses. So now we’re trying to figure out what to do about the fox. Apparently it is hard to catch a fox in a live trap, because I guess they’re pretty smart. So for now I’m having to keep an eye out in the backyard. I’ve explained to Madeline not to go near the fox (she saw it with me the other day), and I think she understands it pretty well. Lucy is another story. I know she would run up to the fox and get her butt kicked, so no more letting her lay outside on the deck unsupervised. 

Finally, Anthony has started to pull up on stuff. He isn’t pulling up to a standing position, just up to his knees. He does this quite often, to play with his toys. 

He has also officially mastered crawling. He had been dragging himself around the floor with his arms in the whole army crawling position, but he has figured out how to get up on his hands and knees now. He is content to just crawl around the house exploring things, and playing with his toys. I’ve also had to start the process of trying to teach him that electric cords are not toys, that dog food is not a snack, and trash cans are not toy chests. He is just so darn cute, though!

The Ancient Roman Espresso Bar – A.K.A. Vacation Bible School

Madeline is in Vacation Bible School this week. It started on Monday and goes through Friday. She’s a little on the young side for VBS, since she just turned 3, but it is open to all kids age 3 and up so I figured I’d give it a try. Madeline usually does really well in situations like that since she really doesn’t have a lick of separation anxiety in her.

On Monday I talked to her all day long about the fact that she was going to be starting Vacation Bible School that evening (it is every night from 6:30-8:30). She was very excited, and slightly confused. She kept calling it preschool, so I had to explain to her that it was different from preschool.

We got to the church on the first night and got her registered and then went and took a seat in the sanctuary. They wanted all of the parents to stick around for a few minutes after the kids were dismissed so they could go over a few things with us. Madeline sat in my lap in the pew, and took it all in.

There were 170-some kids of all ages, lots of adults, and volunteers all dressed up in robes and sandals (the theme was ancient Rome, thus the wardrobe). It was quite loud in the room as all of the kids were talking in excited voices. I explained to Madeline that she would be dismissed soon, and then Mommy and Daddy were going to leave and pick her up later.

It was at that point I could sense that my child with no separation anxiety was quickly developing a severe case of it. Her lower lip began to tremble and her eyes welled up as she whispered to me that she didn’t want me to go. I had a hard time not agreeing with her when I saw that the group she was assigned to was mostly older kids, with no other girls (they arrange the groups as “families” so they have a mix of all ages in them). Thankfully at the last minute 2 little girls about 7 years old showed up and sat down next to us.

I introduced them to Madeline and explained to them that she was a little scared and asked if they would mind holding her hand and helping her out. They were eager to help out, but Madeline was still not convinced. I held her hand and walked a ways with her trying to convince her to go on without me. She was holding on to me so tightly I finally called David over and asked him to try to get her to go.

He succeeded in getting her to go on with the girls. Each of them took one of her hands, and she shuffled along with them staring at the ground. David wondered if we should stick around for a few minutes, because he was not confident she was going to last. We decided to just leave since they had our cell phone number.

2 hours later I came back to pick her up. She was standing in a circle singing songs and doing all sorts of cute hand motions and clapping with them. She looked like such a big girl participating with all of the other kids, and I was so proud. I talked to her teacher at the end and she said she did great and didn’t seem sad at all.

We got home and Madeline was literally bouncing off the walls. She was clapping her hands, jumping up and down, and acting like a crazy child. I began to wonder if there were espresso bars in Ancient Rome because this kid acted like she was hopped up on something! 

She slept in the next morning until 8:30, which is at least an hour and a half later than usual! All day long she talked about going back to Bible School, and couldn’t wait to see the 2 little girls again. When we got to church she ran down the hallway to her room, and crawled through the “time travel tunnel” like an old pro. I left her in the room, and she barely noticed when I walked away.

Last night when I picked her up the songs had already finished and she was just waiting for me, and by waiting I mean running circles in the middle of the room doing flips and somersaults with another little boy. One of the little girls came up to me and gave me a full report, informing me that Madeline participated even more that night and did a great job.

Once again I got Madeline home and she acted possessed. David and I let her run laps around the outside of the house while screaming in a feeble attempt to get her to blow off some steam. This morning she slept in until 8:00.

So that brings us to tonight. This time Steven and Jessica came with me to pick her up and we got there a little early so we could watch her sing songs. Tonight as all of the children stood in a circle singing songs and doing the cute little motions, Madeline was running laps in the middle of the circle looking like she was doing some type of breakdance. Eventually a little boy joined her (probably the same one from the night before…troublemakers all gravitate towards one another, you know). At first I laughed, because it was pretty funny, then I began to realize that she was quickly going to be labeled “that” child, and would probably be blacklisted from every VBS within a 30 mile radius! 

I have noticed a pattern here, folks, and frankly I’m a little frightened at what I will find tomorrow night. If she continues at this pace I’m fairly certain she will be swinging from the rafters by Friday. 

So, as I was lying in bed with her tonight we had a little conversation about what went on at song time. It went something like this:

Me: So Madeline, tell me what you did tonight during song time

Madeline: RUN!

Me: Do you think you were supposed to be running?

Madeline: No

Me: Do you think maybe tomorrow you can just stand next to Zoe and sing the songs and do the motions without running?

Madeline: Okay

We shall see. I plan on having that conversation a few more times with her tomorrow, but hopefully it sinks in. She seemed to understand it without me having to explain it, and thankfully she did stop running like a maniac to pray so there is hope!

Overall I think it is a really positive experience for her. She seems to be having a blast, and I always think it’s great for her to be in those social situations without me since she doesn’t go to daycare or anything regularly, except for church on Sundays. I do have to admit, though, that I am kind of dreading preschool in the fall. Apparently spending extended periods of time, without me around, in the presence of other children causes her to transform into a tiny, little lunatic and frankly I don’t know if I have it in me to deal with that twice a week for an entire school year. It will get better right