On my own for a the weekend

Shawn left yesterday around noon for some much needed R&R in Portland. He'll be back late tonight.

Today was a good day, but boy was it long. Max woke at 6:40AM. Our morning started out quiet enough, with him watching a little cartoon and snuggling with me. Alice was up by 7, and by 8AM they were zooming about and it was clear we needed to get out sooner than later. We were out the door heading for the zoo before 9AM. I just took the single stroller and had Max walk, all 13 blocks up to the west entrance. We got in and saw the new dinosaur exhibit before it was too crowded and only had a few minutes of begging for a toy as you have to exit the dino exhibit through the gift store (lame!). I was not about to buy something as I had just spent $6 for us to get in. We were thrilled to learn the carousel was giving free rides for the whole day, we took four rides! Max and Alice really, really enjoyed it. I loved seeing the big grins on their faces when the mirrors caught there reflection as we went around. After the merry-go-round Max picked out a lovely spot on the green for a picnic and the kids gobbled up their snacks. So quickly all the food disappeared that I ended up buying them lunch at the zoo two hours later, something I never do. We shared a table with a nice family from the eastside who's kids were exactly one year older than Max and Alice (also a boy and girl, the girl even shares Alice's birthday!). The kids gobbled up chicken strips and fries, and there weren't too many tears from Max about having to share his white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. After lunch we headed straight home. Max was so tired he barely made the walk, many times sitting down while we waited for a stoplight to turn, and telling me he was as tired as a turtle.

When we got home, after 1pm, I heated up a bottle for Alice. She drank it, but had no interest in a nap. Max was bummed! He wanted his quiet time to play a computer game with me and hang out. I did manage to get them into cutting paper and drawing for about 10 minutes while I started some soup for dinner. Then they started bouncing off the walls and I realized we should just head back out. So, at 2:30 we left for the BF Day School playground to meet up with our friends Jennifer and Henry. The kids were both tired and moved around pretty slowly. We came home at 4pm, and Max was so tired that he crawled on his hands and knees up the driveway! No joke. I had taken the double stroller for this outing but wouldn't let him ride the whole way because he is SO heavy. Seriously, he must be over 50 pounds now.

We were eating dinner by 5pm, then I caved and let Max and Alice watch this cute little English cartoon "Kipper" while I cleaned up the kitchen. By 5:45 they were in the tub, and both were fast asleep by 6:50pm.
It's only 8 now, but I'm ready to conk out. I don't know how single parents do it!! And I didn't even really delve into yesterday, but for memories sake, I left for work just before 8AM, and Shawn spent the morning with the kids and took them to Max's gymnastics class and then picked me up from work at 11:30. We came home, made a quick lunch and then Shawn hit the road. Luckily, Alice took a 2 hour nap and then we headed out for some informal soccer fun with friends, we ended up spending 2 1/2 hours out for that. I'm pretty tired out from all of our outside time this weekend!

Our babysitter is going to be out of town for a few days this week and I haven't been able to find someone for Wednesday morning. I am hoping I can work super early for a few hours and then Shawn can bring the kids to my office and then I'll take them out, I'm not sure what else to do as I can't really take the entire day off.

Ok, now I'm just rambling about boring stuff. I need to try to sleep. Last night I stayed up until 11pm watching two Mad Men episodes, and then I was up with Alice around 1AM giving her a binky. I got some sleep but not as much as I should have. Max has been stirring with this reoccuring bad dream. He says all the doors in our apartment pop off the hinges and a bad guy comes in. (Too much Jackie Chan Adventures cartoons?). Tonight he even got out of the bathtub to check on Alice in the kitchen, wanting to make sure she was ok. I told him that we keep our house locked and we have sticks in the windows, hopefully this will calm his thoughts. He's been talking to me about this same dream for three or four days. He's got such an active mind!

Growing Max

Max has been eating us out of house and home lately. For memories sake, here's what he ate today:
(and I might even be missing a few things since I worked this morning)

1/2 blueberry muffin
1/2 kiwi
glass of vanilla almond milk
piece of toast with peanut butter
apple
pomegranate limeade
several slices of salami
bread and butter
yogurt with boysenberry jam
large amount of grapes
2 pretzel sticks
...and all of THIS for dinner:
1 meatball
1 chicken apple sausage
1 small raw carrot
sweet potato fries
small chocolate bar
2 pieces of raisin apricot bread with butter
bowl of cheerios with milk
water

and in comparison, little Alice:
1/4 blueberry muffin
1/2 kiwi
water
applesauce
cottage cheese
multigrain crackers
pretzel sticks
grapes
sweet potato fries
cooked golden beets
1/4 of gardenburger patty
1/4 of small chocolate bar
2 8oz. bottles of whole milk

It's no wonder I'm at Trader Joe's every week!

April Happenings

For the past few weeks Max has consistently asked for a real coconut. He wanted to crack it open and drink the milk out with a straw. That's exactly what we did this morning. Hopefully I'll get photos up. We had such fun picking one out at the store and then coming home from a fun gymnastics class to open the coconut. Max stood eagerly on a chair next to Shawn while they worked on carving a hole in the top, Max got a pink (his favorite color) straw, and we all had a few delicious sips. Then our friends Vinnie and Hillary, who we don't see nearly often enough, came over for a lovely brunch. They brought fruit from the farmers market, and we had scrumptious bagels that Alice and Shawn went out and got this morning. We had a fun two hours of food and good conversation with the kids running all around.

We've had a really busy month with me working. Things have mostly been going well, but this week Max had a really hard time in the morning, really crying a lot and wanting me to come home. It's so hard to be at work and hear him crying on the phone, begging me to come home to him. Our sitter is really good and working through it with him kindly and patiently. I think in a week or two he'll be more settled down. The little guy has had me all to himself for almost 4 years and this is a big change for him that I'm gone four mornings a week.

I thought I'd jot down a few things from the month of April before it's completely whizzed by.

Max swam 2 strokes by himself in swim class last week!

Alice now says her name, "Als"

Shawn and I got out for a lovely dinner date at Oaxaca and a tasty dessert at a new place called Pie just down the hill last Saturday.

I had a whirlwind trip to portland and back on sunday for my friends baby shower and I was able to squeeze in coffee with my good longtime friend Jenni, and a bit of tea and chatting with friends Nick and Vicki before heading back to I-5.

Alice loves hummus so much she eats it out of a cup with a spoon almost every day for lunch.

Max REALLY wants this toy story 3 toy: buzz lightyear in a rocket that you shake and it scoots around. I bought it for him last week and I'm going to have such a hard time keeping it hidden until his birthday! Just this morning, as he knew we were going to Fred Meyer to get a coconut and new boots for him, he asked for this toy. Fred Meyer is where he first saw it and he is beside himself about how much wants this toy.

We've been enjoying neighborhood walks looking at tulips and daffodils. On Monday we spent almost 5 hours a the park and zoo. As Alice watched the gorillas she beat her chest and said "aaaahhaaaahh --gagillas!". They looked at each other and then back at her :).