March mega-post

Spring is here and we went from directly from having the heat on to having the A/C on. Not a bad problem to have.

Patrick has been enjoying the warm weather, especially because this is the very first time I have allowed his sweet baby head and toes to feel fresh air and see sunlight. He loves it so much he does happy baby grunts the whole time we're outside.

Mary has been enjoying one of her top five favorite outdoor activities: digging in the dirt. I just give her a shovel and a bucket and she occupies herself in the flower beds for at least an hour. Note: mulch is difficult to wash from the hair and scalp.

And somehow Mary knew that this was a daffodil. I was so proud of her for correctly identifying the flowers that I didn't mind when she picked them. All.

Last week Aunt Stephanie came to the zoo with us after ballet class. She and Mary watched the polar bears swimming and even rode the giant carousel. A special thank you to Steph for riding it with her...merry-go-rounds make me want to hurl.

Patrick and I hung out on the sidelines...

Last week we celebrated St. Patrick's Day in honor of our little "P" - do you like his shades? He looks more Elton John than leprechaun...

Auntie Erin sent the kids a box full of Irish goodies and Mary was shreiking with excitement as she opened the box. They loved everything, including Patrick's bow tie! (sorry for the blurry photos - I couldn't get her to stand still)

 Ryan is going to kill me for posting this photo ;)

This past weekend Ryan and I had a "date day" - it was the first time we'd been anywhere together without the kids. It was really nice and well, I only lasted a couple of hours before we headed back to Nutt-Nutt and Papa John's house to scoop them up. They were still napping when we got there but as soon as they woke up, it was go-time! Mary had a very important job to do and Patrick just enjoyed soaking up the sun and airing out his little piggies.

On Sunday evening the tornado sirens went off and we had brief but severe thunderstorms. On Monday morning when we went outside to play, there were huge worms getting swept down the street as everyone's sump pumps emptied out. First Mary took her shoes and socks off to splash in the puddles and then she decided to rescue the worms. Her Dora gardening gloves were too cumbersome so she just went for it with bare hands. She'd say "Squirmy is swimming away - hurry!" and then scoop the worms up and THROW them in the grass. Not sure there was much rescuing going on but she had a blast.

And I thought since I posted a silly pic of Ryan that I would post one of myself too...share the embarassment.

Leap Day

It was 70 degrees here on Leap Day so we made the most of it. Mary hasn't been feeling well so she woke up around 5am. What a wonderful way to start the day! (Do you sense the sarcasm?) After she laid in bed with us, awake, for the next hour and a half, we noticed that she felt feverish so we gave her some children's ibuprofen and some water to wash it down. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time but at 7am while I was feeding Patrick, Mary wandered into the nursery and Ryan said that she wanted to tell me that her tummy hurt. Then she threw up all over me, Patrick, the rug, the boppy pillow and Llama Llama Misses Mama. Bummer. But the good news was that she felt better. So we ate some breakfast and went about our morning. I asked Mary multiple times if she wanted to go to ballet class at 10am and she kept saying no so I didn't want to push it if she wasn't feeling well. At 10:15 she realized that we weren't at ballet class and had meltdown #1 of the day. I called the dance studio and asked if she could take the 11am class instead that day, which she could, so crisis averted. (Don't judge me for sending my feverish, vomiting child to dance class. We needed to get out of the house.)

Ballet class was wonderful and the moms were allowed in the studio for the last five minutes of class to watch the recital dance they've been practicing. Except this wasn't Mary's usual class so she didn't know the dance; she just twirled and jumped her heart out anyway.

I caved in to meltdown #2 on the way home and stopped at Arby's for a kid's meal. (Don't judge me for feeding my feverish, previously vomiting kid fast food.) While Mary took her afternoon nap, Patrick practiced using his baby gut to prop himself in the sitting position. He can officially sit up by himself now! 

After everyone was up from their naps, we played outside. It was an amazingly beautiful day and it started off great. We played soccer and Mary rode her bike.

Then we made the mistake of riding past the neighbor kids' house and she wanted to go up their driveway and right in their house to play with Sunny's (her friend's) baby dolls. Well, it was dinnertime and we had to go home. Cue meltdown #7 (at least) of the day. Mary was hysterical, flung herself in the middle of the street, complete with oncoming cars and then finished her fit on the curb where I stuck her after I extracted her from traffic. And then I did what any mother would do, and took pictures of her crying on the curb. Cute, right?

Hopefully our next Leap Day will be just as awesome!