Memorial Day

Memorial Day was forecast to be beautiful, and hot, if a bit overcast. Ray was in NY for a long overdue visit, so the kids and I joined my folks, Kath, Andrew, Emily (and a friend), Ade and Lydia at the beach.  We opted to forgo the State Park after last year's disaster. We'd heard the place was packed the day before.

Ah, warm sand. Perfect for making Sand Angels!

Heading down to the water with Papa and sand toys.

The water was again in the 50s, but Lydia was undeterred.  Parker did NOT like the cold water!

Parker DID love hanging out and playing in the sand with Adrian.

It was even fun to roll in!

Parker stood at the bottom of this dune and watched a 10 or 12 year old boy climb it and jump. He was fascinated, and started climbing it himself. It took him a while, but he did it completely without help. 

Maia saw him and followed him on up.

What a beautiful day!

With a little help from Aunt Kathleen, Parker hopped and ran himself back down the hill.

Maia didn't need help.  She even got fancy with her jumps, twisting in the air. High degree of difficulty, I'd give it a 9!

Climb back up, and run back down!

Lydia and Adrian joined in too.

Landing!

Sometimes it's just nice to lay in the sand and look at the water.

We had a little lunch.

Maia is getting to the age where she can skip an occasional nap and still function, but Parker, not so much.

Papa brought him inside the motor home and it wasn't long before he was O.U.T.

After Parker was awake again, we wandered over to the playground. 

The baby/toddler swings were all taken, so Parker thought he'd try out the big kid swings.  

He did great!

Lots to explore!

Eventually we cleaned ourselves up and headed back home.  Parker, having had a nap, was happy and ready to go, but Maia, who hadn't napped, was getting close to her limit. While Parker sang and talked loudly, she yelled at him "Parker! Could you stop talking? I'm trying to sleep!"

Pot, meet Kettle.

What a great day!

Stomping

May is time for the annual Stomp Out Stigma event through a local charity.  I chair this event for my employer (as I have for the last 6? years) and it's a pretty big deal. We strive to have 100 participants from my place of work alone, and the event itself was over 1200 people this year. Walking to raise awareness for Mental Health issues. 

What was tricky for me, though, is wrangling two busy kids, while trying to be able to provide for those 100 walkers who had questions for me.  Unfortunately, Ray got called in to work, and Kath and kids got caught by construction. Fortunately, I did have another co-worker who was happy to keep an eye on my two busy bodies sweet kids while I dealt with some set up and registration issues.

It takes a villages sometimes. 

Here's the walk about 1/2 a mile in:

Maia walked (or skipped, hopped, danced and ran) much of the walk. 

Parker hung out mostly in the stroller. 

In the home stretch:

Adrian, Lydia, Maia and Aunt Kathleen

Stopping on the bridge, however, Adrian pointed out some mayflies resting on the wall, and taught Maia how to pick them up by the wings.

Here she goes!

She did it!

The rest of the event involved a small picnic for our walkers. By the time we all got home, we were all exhausted.

Well, it could have been worse...

Each afternoon at daycare, between 4:30 and 5:30 pm is a rush of parents coming to pick up their children.  As such, this is unstructured time for the kids: free play. Since this daycare has a plethora of outdoor space, and several different playground areas to chose from, the early preschool through pre-k kids are usually outside at one or another of these play areas from 4:15-5:15.  My routine usually consists of gathering up the items, reading notes from teachers, picking up Parker and heading out to get Maia from wherever it tells me she is on the whiteboard in her classroom. On this day, it is the slide playground. It's a bit of a walk from school, so I load up Parker and we drive over to it.  I go through the usual brief conversation with teachers, how was the day, and we load up Maia too.  I climb in, turn the key and....

click click click click click.

What?

click click click click click

Sigh. 

Check the terminals, all is connected. Take out the key, try it again. The rest of the class is heading back to school, and I call Ray to find out if he can come get us, or if we should just walk home.  The walk is short, just a few blocks, but it would involve bringing a 3.5 year old and a 22 month old (who thinks running away from mommy is a fun new game!) across 4 lanes of highway.

We decide to stay and wait for daddy. I dig in my purse for... something... anything. One lonely pack of gummy snacks, split between two hungry kids. But they're fine. And honestly, this couldn't have happened at a nicer place. We'll unload and go back to the playground, and Maia helps us figure out how to get in (entrances are a bit childproofed.)

As I'm carrying Parker from the car to the grass, he shouts to the ducks in the duck pond at just the price  moment that sends his paci tumbling into the storm drain.  He is perplexed by this, and asks about his paci for the remainder of our time here. And for a few days after.

So we play in the slide playground. The kids have a great time having their run of the place, and Maia is excited to show me all of her daring moves. 

We play "store" together.

And Parker is thrilled to play trucks.

At last, Ray comes to rescue us. By this time (almost an hour later) the engine will turn over with all accessory items off... but a new battery is in place by the next day. A little hiccup in the budget, of course... but at least we had a good time waiting!

Superheroes

Maia is now coming to the age where she has friends... and those friends have birthdays, and therefore birthday parties. She has a small group that she has been at daycare with since the infant room: Claire, Celia and Nicholas. Maia is the youngest of these four.

Nicholas had a birthday at the end of April. And he has a very crafty mother, who invited us to a fantastically well thought out Super Hero birthday party. There was Powerade to drink, and lollipops wearing little capes. And each kid got to choose their own cape, and design their own mask.

 There. Done. Awesome.

 A bounce house? Of course. How else can you fly?

 Maia and Claire (best best friends) found another way to fly.  They actually spent most of the party hogging the swings, and having a royal fit if anyone took a turn while they were away getting in a drink.

It was a coolish, breezy day - but it was a nice change of pace since it'd been cold and rainy previously. So with a gaggle of kids running from inside the house to the yard and back... sometimes the screen door was open, and sometimes it was closed. Unfortunately, Maia ran headlong into the door once when it was closed and Lost. It. Completely.

But her super hero, Nicholas, arrived. He brought her upstairs to his bathroom where he had a plethora of bandaids to choose from (for the record, she didn't suffer a single scratch. Just a bruised ego). I stood near the bottom of the stairs waiting for them for what seemed like an eternity.  They were laughing and giggling and shouting.  Finally, I hear Nicholas announce loudly: You. Look. Awesome!!!


And down she came, looking like this. Hysterical.

After the party was over, we had to stop at the store, and Maia begged to go in with all her garb on. Mask. Bandaids. Cape. And she could not have felt more Super.

Happy bourt day tew yew

We went to a friend's birthday party, and then there were a few at daycare. So it was the song of the day for a week or two. 

Parker is part of a trio of boys that have been together since the infant room: Nicholas, Ezra and Parker. Parker is the youngest of these three. But they have great fun together and, clearly, think about each other on the weekends.  Ezra's mother recently confessed to me that she was relieved Ezra finally learned how to say his Ps. They had been Fs, and she got rather embarrassed when he was yelling about going to to see Farker while they were at the grocery store. 

Easter

The Easter Bunny came to our house

As well as LOTS of treats and special things from Nanas, Grandmas and Aunts.

THANK YOU!!!

After church, we went to Ellen's house.  It was a beautify, breezy, slightly cool day.  Parker, however was tired. And wouldn't look at the camera (which is why Adrian was trying to help. He's really not choking him!)

Ellen had a wonderful egg hunt set up throughout the house and back yard. 

 So while Maia and her cousins searched for every last egg,

 Parker thought what looked more interesting was the RUNNING. 

and run he did...

... until he ran himself to sleep!