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Author: suburbandaddy
Beach Trip Through Pictures
We’re back from our week in Corolla, NC. It was the first trip we’ve attempted as a family of six.? It was exhausting but a good experience.? For a look at one of our previous trips, see this post on why I call it a trip and not a vacation.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 were very excited to be at the beach.? Here they are bright and early our first morning, bathing suits on, showing off their booties.
Suburban Grandpa joined us for the first few days.? Here he is enjoying a game of Chutes and Ladders with Thing 3.? Note the glass of wine by his side.
Thing 3 normally walks around with little to no clothing.? But at the beach, it seemed to take on a whole new appeal for him.
With four kids, you don’t just get up and walk to the beach.?? There is at least an hour of preparation, packing, applying sunscreen, with many false starts due to forgotten items, and then, finally, lugging all the gear across the sand.
Keeping Thing 4 on her nap schedule was not easy.? We’ve learned over the years to take advantage of nap times whenever and where ever they may occur.
There was a lot of boy bonding and surprisingly little fighting.
We all climbed to the top of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse.? Well, all of us except Thing 4 who I carried to the top.? As if walking up 214 stairs in the brutal heat weren’t enough, try it with an extra 24 lbs in your arms.
Speaking of brutal heat, the temperature hit 110 on the deck of the pool one day.? The heat put a damper on some of our daytime activities, especially for Thing 3 and Thing 4.
At the the end of the day we took in the ocean breeze and a swing.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 played some mini-golf.
Probably the best part of the week for the kids was the daily ice cream.?? We relaxed our dessert rules and often had it before, instead of, or as a meal.
Unlike the way he sleeps at home, it was no trouble getting Thing 3 to sleep.? He even slept in a bed with a blanket.
We were lucky to have Suburban Babysitter and her boyfriend join us for a few days.? He was a very good sport and let Thing 1 and Thing 2 bury him in the sand.
The drive back home is always the worst part of any trip.? It took 7 hours to get there but almost 9 hours to get back home because of traffic.? The boys took it well with almost no whining or complaining.? But by the 8th hour Thing 4 wanted O-U-T and the last hour was filled with crying.
Can You Guess What It Is?
Parents often sound like broken records saying the same thing to our kids over and over. There is one phrase in particular that I say at least 50 times a day without exaggeration.
Can you guess what it is? Put your answer in the comments.
Advice To Expectant Dads: Don’t Ever Do This
As a semi-famous dad blogger I get a lot of public relations pitches for products and services that may be of interest to my readers. I ignore most of them unless a) I get something cool for free or b) I think it might actually interest you.
I got one this week on the topic of Push Presents. If you aren’t familiar these are presents given to women after giving birth. I highly recommend that you give your wife a push present, especially if you are a first time expectant dad. This is definitely one of those cases where “no” really means “yes”, and “I don’t care” also means “yes”. Incidently, not being told about a desired push present is not an excuse for not getting one. As an expectant dad you don’t win. Get used to it.
Back to the PR pitch. It started by quoting a Babycenter.com survey that found 38% of new mothers received a push present and 55% of pregnant mothers wanted one. I feel really bad for the husbands of those 17% that wanted one but didn’t get a push present. Good luck with that.
Apparently the most popular form of push present is jewelry. Nothing surprising there. SuburbanMommy got some nice new jewelry a couple of times.
Instead of jewelry, why not give your wife her body back? With new mothers on average taking 3-4 months to lose all the baby weight, it can cause some frustrations. Additionally, it can be very difficult for new mothers to get back to the gym within the first few months as they are taking care of their newborn. For fathers who are looking for the best push present without diamonds, Premier Fitness Camp, a five star fitness resort, has created a special ?Body Back? package which reflects a 30% savings off the original price. Starting at $4,550 for 7 days new mothers will receive the following treatment and be able to shed the baby weight fast.
First of all, if you are an expectant dad and planning to spend $4,550 on a push present, I strongly suggest you spend it on jewelry.
But more importantly, you do not give a pregnant or recently pregnant woman anything that may call attention to her weight, her body, or having anything to do with weight loss!
I might have some experience in these matters. I might have once given a Wii Fit to a pregnant woman for her birthday after she told me she wanted one. I might still be paying the consequences for that colossal mistake.
What Life Is Like With 4 Kids
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to have 4 kids? It’s not all that unique to your daily life if you have any number of kids. Just more of it. I’ll take you through my day today, which is pretty typical, and see if it’s anything like you imagined.
If I had to describe my days in one word it would be: non-stop. Every day is a continuous flow of doing one thing immediately followed by another. There is no break. No time to think. Organization, planning and logistics are paramount, which does not bode well for me since none of those are my strong suit, but luckily SuburbanMommy excels at them.
My day starts shortly after 5 am. Continue reading What Life Is Like With 4 Kids
A Worthy Surprise
I just learned my lesson. Thing 1 had a swim-a-thon where the kids get pledges and then swim as many laps as they can. Swimming isn’t really his favorite sport, so we were pleased when he wanted to participate.
The money goes children with leukemia. So I told Thing 1 I would give him $3 per lap. I figured he would swim ten, fifteen tops. I almost offered $5 a lap since it was a good cause.
Well, he came home from the swim-a-thon tonight and announced he did forty-four laps! He wanted to keep going but the time ran out.
Thing 1 was quick to inform me it’s $132. At least it goes to a worthy cause. And it’s a good thing I didn’t pledge $5 a lap.
Future Criminal Mastermind
We had a little mystery to solve this week. Someone had written, in pen, on the wall. There were just a few letters and what looked like a star or maybe a shape which had been scribbled over.
Who could have done it? There were only three prime suspects. Thing 4 was off the hook because it was higher than she can reach. And at 16 months she doesn’t know how to write letters. For that reason, we ruled out Thing 3 because the letters were too nicely written for a four year old.
That left Thing 1 and Thing 2. Luckily, there was one really strong clue that made it pretty obvious. There were only two letters, written twice each, as the start of the same word. Not a lot to go on, except they happened to be the first two letters of Thing 2’s name. When confronted, he wisely confessed rather than try to deny it, because, fortunately for us, he is one of the world’s worst liars. He will not have a bright future as either a poker player or a criminal mastermind.
Dreams Are In There
Thing 3 has a new sleeping arrangement following a dream episode last week. He woke up screaming one night, terrified of bumble bees. He spent the remainder of that night in our bed. Which means we got even less sleep than normal with his squirming and kicking.
The next night the dreams came again, and this time he spent the remainder of the night on the floor in our room. At least we all could get a decent night sleep that way.
The next night, before bed, I had a long conversation with Thing 3 to try to ease his fears. I explained that dreams are not real, like watching TV. The way to stop a dream is to just wake up because then it’s gone. And I told him about the “magic” toys in his room that will protect him from dreams, something that worked well with Thing 2.
He wasn’t really buying it. Instead I got a barrage of questions as only Thing 3 can unleash. What are dreams? Where are they during the day? Why do dreams come when I sleep? Do you have dreams? How about animals?
The questioning went on like this for a good 10 minutes. Then he decided he couldn’t sleep in his room because dreams are hiding there, so he found a spot in the hallway just outside his doorway. He has been sleeping in this spot for a week now.
