I'm trying to squeeze every last drop of awesome out of this summer. It might be my only shot at being with the kidlets and not working full-time, so I want it to be pretty much the best summer ever.
The schedule had us down for early naps followed by the Museum of Life ans Science and a quick trip to the Durham Farmer's Market, but a pool invite is the summer trump card. We met friends at a La Leche League Cafe meeting at The Family Nest and then went to the pool. Whew - that is tiring with two kids! But Evelyn remains a daredevil and fish in the water, and Gideon was okay with it. We left just in time to beat the afternoon rain shower. I spent a good part of the evening sewing some pillowcase dresses which turned out pretty cute. I learned that two standard pillowcases make two toddler dresses and two doll dresses. I also figured out a way to do the neck casing that doesn't require bias tape and makes it easier to get the ribbon through, so it was good. I only cursed at the machine a few times along the way.
So far, so good!
Our theme for the first week of summer was "Eat 'em up!" and we learned about food all week. Here's a little recap of the highlights:
Saturday
We hit up the summer reading kickoff at the Durham County Library, where we paid off my ridiculously high late charge fees, got fancy new library cards, ate snow cones and popcorn, painted, played in the bounce house, gave some high-fives to McGruff (many adults and almost all the kids had no idea who he was), and stocked up on some theme-friendly picture books. I wasn't really prepared, so book choosing consisted of me walking the aisles and pulling anything with a title that I thought would work. We had some hits and mostly misses with this week's book selections.
Sunday
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| Ready for a Walk |
I spent pretty much all day finishing up some reports for work. Not so fun... but necessary. And then I took Evelyn to Duke park and she mastered the big red curly slide and cooperated when I said it was time to go home and nap. Win!
Monday
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| Noodle Necklaces! |
This was our first full day with just me and the kids and it was amazing. We got up and made breakfast, did some quick cleaning, made a couple loaves of banana bread and talked about recipes and ingredients, took a couple walks, made noodle necklaces, ran to the fabric store and grocery store (where Evelyn insisted on riding on my back - than you Ergo! Evelyn thanks you too because it made it easy for her to grab samples as I walked along). Then we fixed a "fancy dinner" where we set the table all formal-like. We really just ate a lasagna from the meal swap and I threw together a salad and some corn, but it was delicious all the same.
Tuesday
After a quick breakfast and some prepping for the day, we were off to our first storytime at the East Regional Library. We were a bit early, so I grabbed a few more food-related books. Storytime was alright - we were definitely the odd ones out as everyone else knew each other, but we still had some fun. As soon as it was over, we had to get in the car and go so we could get to Greensboro for some final stuff I needed to wrap up at lunch. We had lunch with my fellow doc intern, met my supervisor, and then I spent an hour or so making copies, filing things, etc. while crossing my fingers that Evelyn didn't explode and keeping Gidoen happy on his "bean bag chair" I fashioned out of a huge trash bag of shredded paper I covered with some blankets. It worked! We survived! The kidlets slept in the car to and from Greensboro, and we had a good day. I even got in some sewing and some reading of my library book. It's not very good but I'm following the summer reading program and I'm required to read weird monster books and stuff for the theme this year. I figure it gets me out of my nonfiction rut at least.
Wednesday
The schedule had us down for early naps followed by the Museum of Life ans Science and a quick trip to the Durham Farmer's Market, but a pool invite is the summer trump card. We met friends at a La Leche League Cafe meeting at The Family Nest and then went to the pool. Whew - that is tiring with two kids! But Evelyn remains a daredevil and fish in the water, and Gideon was okay with it. We left just in time to beat the afternoon rain shower. I spent a good part of the evening sewing some pillowcase dresses which turned out pretty cute. I learned that two standard pillowcases make two toddler dresses and two doll dresses. I also figured out a way to do the neck casing that doesn't require bias tape and makes it easier to get the ribbon through, so it was good. I only cursed at the machine a few times along the way.
Thursday
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| The Short Blueberry Pickers: Julia, Madeline, Anthony, Evelyn, GOB, Nora |
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| Little GOB |
This was a big day - Blueberry Picking Day! We spent the morning cleaning the house, went down for early naps, and then met our bravest friends just down the road at Snikroc Farm to get some berries. I say bravest because it was approaching 972 degrees and we were tramping through the blueberry bushes with a gaggle of toddlers and babies and buckets. That probably makes it sound terrible, but it was actually really fun - at least I thought so! We got a huge amount of berries for a few bucks, and the kids had fun. We came back to the house and cooled off and played with friends, which was really good for Evelyn. We haven't been able to have people over very much, so it was such a good chance to teach Evelyn about sharing her toys with other shorties. She had a couple moments of drama, but all-in-all I think it went well. Then our favorite photographer came over with Gigi's cupcakes (Or should I say frosting with a side of cupcake? Yum, sugar!) and Gideon's 3-month photos for us to review, and then I was off to mom's night out at Rockwell's Grill. We stayed until they kicked us out and then spent more time standing outside chatting in the dark, as is the norm for us. Oh and Rockwell's has the very best kid's menu I've ever seen, so we'll definitely be heading back with the Mouse at some point.
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| GOB at Kids Together |
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| Mouse at Kids Together |
Friday
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| Dragon at Kids Together |
It started out to be pretty random, but ended up being so good. I was going to do some baking, but since it was so hot and our oven doesn't really keep heat in at all, that plan was quickly nixed. I decided it seemed like a good day to take a leisurely stroll around Target in search of distractions during our travel to Kansas soon. We found a few things and kept ourselves out of the heat and on our feet throughout the morning. We met Jonathan for lunch and then finally had a chance to visit the Kids Together Playground. Aaaaaamazing. I took a few pictures but their website does a much better job of highlighting all the features. What did I like best, though? Since it's built to be fully accessible for all kids, almost every play structure was super stroller-friendly, so I didn't have to strap Gideon on in the crazy heat and I could still keep up with Evelyn. There was also a ton of shade, the playground(s) are super spread out, there are hand-washing places, water fountains, and a little sprinkler shower thing for cooling off... it was just really cool. And it was nice that there were only about four other kids there when we were there. Probably because it was 1,000 degrees. After we were all worn out, we headed to Amy and Josh's house for the evening. They're super close to the playground, too, so I think we'll be making that combo visit more often. We played and played, put all the kids to bed (Four kids aged 5 and under sleeping at the same time?! Yes indeed. The adults won!), had the best ice cream, and stayed up way too late playing games and talking.
One week down and it was a success!
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