Thing 1
If you are Thing 1, all you want are your two front teeth. He lost one last week, helped along by his brother’s fist, and lost his second front tooth this morning in a piece of toast. On Christmas Eve. I hope the tooth fairy and Santa don’t get confused tonight. Merry Christmas.
Now that Thing 1 has started 1st grade in a new school, we want to know more about what he does all day and how he is doing.? But you won’t get any of that information from him.
Me:? “How was school today?”
Thing 1:? “Good”
Me:? “What did you do?”
Thing 1: “I don’t remember”
So I rephrased the questions so I would have to get some kind of answer.
Me: “What was the best thing that happened today at school”?
Thing 1: “Playing outside at recess.”?? Of course
Me:? “The best thing other than recess”
Thing 1:? “Going to the library.? I got two books”.
Wow, actual information!? Further questioning revealed that he checked out two sports books (of course).? One all about the Pittsburgh Penguins and another about the Pittsburgh Pirates.? I’m not sure about the sudden interest in Pittsburgh teams, but hey, he’s reading.
Me:? “And what was the worst thing that happened in school today?”
Long pause.? I wanted to see if there were kids that he wasn’t getting along with, or maybe some bully 4th graders on the school bus or in the cafeteria.
Thing 1:? “The worst part was in gym class when we had to sit still.”
Not sure what that was about.? So I did some more questioning and found out.? It turns out they were learning about different intensity levels of physical activity.? Level 1 is being stationary.? Level 2 is light walking.? Level 3 is jogging.? And so on.? They simulated each level and for Level 1 they had to sit still in one place in the gym.? For 4 minutes!
And that was the worst part of his day because he wanted to run around during gym class.? I forgot how horrible first grade can be.? Hopefully tomorrow will be better for him.
For those of you anxiously awaiting this final stay-cation post, here you go. There was an open house for Thing 1’s elementary school – he started first grade this week. He met his teacher, saw his desk, and and saw where the bus will drop him off. ?Thing 1 was most excited about the big gym and playground.
We also checked out the local high school which kicked off it’s first football game with an outdoor fair complete with moonbounces, music, and dunk tanks. The high schoolers were very impressed with Thing 1’s dunking accuracy – 7 hits out of 12 throws. The day ended with an end of summer ice cream party in our neighborhood.
Today I introduced Thing 1 and Thing 2 to one of my all time favorite activities:? Wiffle Ball! We played in the morning before it got really hot. Then to stay cool we checked out a new “luxury” bowling alley with some SuburbanNeighbors who found themselves also on a stay-cation after cutting their beach vacation short thanks to hurricane Earl. Thing 2 continued his bowling domination over Thing 1 with a nice score of 100. It’s good for the oldest to not win at everything all the time.
We wrapped up the day at the pre-school/kindergarten open house where we met Thing 2 and Thing 3’s new teachers.? A big hit was the petting zoo in the parking lot compliments of Squeals on Wheels.? It was not good to be one of the animals yesterday.? Besides being poked, prodded, pulled, and dumped on with grass and dirt by the likes of Thing 3 and scores of other kids, it was about 97 degrees in the parking lot with no shade for the animals.
Read more to see pictures of the day Continue reading Stay-cation Day 4
We slowed down some today and built in sibling separation time so we didn’t have a repeat of yesterday. And since we also needed to get some household chores done in the morning, Thing 1 got to help me fold four loads of laundry, while Thing 2 was SuburbanMommy’s assistant at the grocery store.
Believe it or not, they actually like doing stuff like this. It isn’t often our kids get one on one time with mommy or daddy so it’s fun for them no matter what we’re doing. At least for a short period of time. Plus, SuburbanDaddy watches SportsCenter when he folds laundry so we had plenty of time to discuss the upcoming football season.
The day wasn’t all chores. We went ice skating together, the first time SuburbanMommy or I had been on ice skates in probably 20+ years.? Happily no mishaps to report other than feeling quite old as hoards of tiny kids out maneuvered me.? Then out to lunch, a stop at a toy store, and more split separation time. This time, I did a puzzle and colored with Thing 2 while SuburbanMommy did a project with Thing 1.
Day two of our stay-cation was another action packed day. We started with a family round of mini golf, cooled off at Splashdown Water Park, and finished up at Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream (some of us, more on that soon).
One of the byproducts of this stay-cation is that Thing 1 and Thing 2 are spending a LOT of time together. Not a problem as long as they are engaged in some fun, new activity. But in between those fun activities they are sitting in very close proximity in the car in DC traffic where they can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves or the decibels to a bearable level. So today SuburbanDaddy had to get tough and Thing 1 ended up sipping water while his brother and parents enjoyed ice cream and smoothies. Tomorrow I think we will build in some separation time.
Here are the pictures… Continue reading Stay-cation Day Two
We usually take a family trip to the beach in the summer, which is anything but a vacation for anyone but the kids, but with our new addition this year we weren’t quite ready to go anywhere as a family of six.
Instead, we opted for a stay-cation with just Thing 1 and Thing 2. The younger ones will be in daycare all day so we can do some of the activities we can’t do on the weekends with strollers and toddler tantrums and nap schedules.
We have a full lineup of activities for the week and the oldest Things are very excited. Today we took a boat ride on the Potomac, ate lunch (sitting down!) at a real restaurant – the famous Fish Market in Old Town, Alexandria – and hit balls at the driving range.
It was striking as we were walking, with no diaper bags or strollers, and no particular schedule in mind, that this is what it’s like to go somewhere with no baby gear or worries about turning our head away for even a moment or saying “put that down!” every minute.? This is SO EASY!? It gives us hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel for us in a few years.
But it was also noticeable that we were missing two of our Things and it felt a bit incomplete.? Sad even.? But that feeling lasted for, oh, about a second and quickly went away as we actually relaxed and enjoyed the boat ride without worrying Thing 3 would fall overboard or throw something into the water.
A quick recap of our day in pictures after the jump.? Tomorrow, look for more of the same.
Yesterday was our long anticipated first trip to a pro football game. We’ve been to baseball and basketball games this year, but there is something about your very first football game that you never forget. Being there yesterday brought back my first Giants game with my dad. Also, having not been to a football game myself in many years, it brought back all the not so great memories that makes football probably the worst live viewing experience of any sport – the traffic, crowds, bad weather, poor views, and outrageous prices.
But it was all worth it to see Thing 1 and Thing 2 experience it for the first time. I hope they have vivid memories because it may be a while before we go to another one.
Lesson #1: “Possible Obstructed View” means you have a big pillar right in front of you which kids can’t possibly see around. This was the view from our original seats.
Leave it to greedy NFL owners to have the nerve to build a stadium with seats like this and charge good money for them.
Since it was preseason we were able to move to empty seats in the upper level where we could see the entire field even if it looked like a bunch of ants playing.
That is, until it started to rain and they wanted to go back to our original seats because the seats were covered.
Lesson #2: When you have young kids with you, splurge for the parking lot closest to the stadium. I pre-paid $35 to be in a grass lot that was ideal for tailgating. We threw the footballs around and had a fun time eating sandwiches, snacks, and peeing in the portable potties (Thing 2: “How do I flush?”, Thing 1: “Where does it go?”). They were very intrigued by the games of beer pong going on all around us and Thing 1 wanted to know the rules.
But then we had to march from the parking lot about a half mile through the other parking lots to get to the game. Which was fine, except I didn’t realize how hard it would be to do after the game in reverse, in the dark, with Thing 1 and Thing 2, exhausted and 2 hours past their bedtime. I may have been completely slightly at fault for taking us in the wrong direction after the game but it doesn’t help to hear “is that the car?” and “maybe they know” and “are we lost” and “I’m tired of walking” every 10 seconds. It took us nearly an hour of walking to find the car. Which didn’t matter, in the end, because we still sat in a ton of traffic.