When you Aren't Looking

You know how when you really need something for the house, like a lamp, or a rug, you can never find what you need, but when you aren't searching, you see 50 things you could take home?  Well I have been hunting and hunting for an inexpensive rug to go in our bedroom to act as an interim rug until my dream rug actually fits into my budget.  I have checked everywhere: Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, Walmart, Pier One, Homegoods, Lowes, Overstock.com, Ikea.  No luck. Nada.  However, Ikea did have this wool tribal rug that matched my living room (which also had no rug) walls ever so perfectly.  So I snagged a bargain rug for a room that wasn't even on my radar.   I am not much of a problem solver.

Why, oh why, are big rugs the equivalent cost of a used car? 

   

Diversions

                                I gained 3 pounds on vacation.  There. I said it.
                    Now hoping you are so distracted by these adorable guys that you forget it. 

P is not doing so well in his outdoor soccer program .  They were practicing the concept of stealing the ball from an opponent, but when a little boy actually took P's ball (which P tried to hold onto for dear life with his hands), he burst into tears and ran off the field.  We are hoping to work with him more before this Sunday's practice/game.

Hopefully, as of tomorrow, Patrick will be registered at his new school and can start Monday.  I found out that the preschool teacher who had P in childcare my first year at MOPS will be his teacher and I couldn't be any happier.  This will be a big change: going from an hour and twenty minutes/4 days a week to 3 hours/3 times a week. 

When School Gets an F

There was an "incident"  involving P at school on Monday.  The mom instinct that told me that the high school's nursery program which P attended (note the past tense) was poorly organized turned out to be right.  Knowing full well that P had a nut allergy, the worst of which is peanuts, the teacher had the entire class, including my sweet P, make PEANUT BUTTER BIRD FEEDERS. 

Mistake #1.

P of course had an allergic reaction just from touching the peanut butter and they gave him the dose of benadryl he had in his backpack which seemed to do the trick in controlling the hives.  Luckily, no epi pen needed.  Yet to my knowledge, they never once had him in the nurses office (mistake #2), and they never called me. I found out when I went to pick him up (mistake #3). 

How does this happen in today's day and age?  I put in a call to the school principal yesterday and never received a call back from him.  Nice.  I called again a little while and got him at his desk.  He didn't seem that concerned or apologetic.  We are meeting this week.  I am already looking into new schools.  I hadn't planned on sending P to a real preschool program , but he loves school so much.

I am still stunned at the stupidity of a senior teacher.  Her apology included, "I thought he could touch it, just not eat it".  All of this despite my conversation with her a week and a half prior where she told me they would use crisco instead of peanut butter due to Patrick's allergies. 

Luckily, P is just fine, also to the relief of his best friend, alligator.

Off to See the Wizard

Logging in after a perfect, three day trip with Tom. 

We went to see the Wizard - I needed a new, non-scatterbrained brain. Tom needed a new back that wasn't hunched permanently over a keyboard.  And we both needed time with each other.
FYI:  the Wizard is currently living in Palm Beach.

You can set up a breakfast meeting with him ocean side here:

Okay, we didn't stay here, but having an ocean side breakfast at the Ritz was on my must-do list for this trip.  It was impossibly hard to find for such a huge building along the beach, but a 35 minute drive took us an hour and a half.  Tom refused to give up because he knew how much I wanted to briefly crash this resort.  It was well worth it- a delicious overpriced breakfast with spectacular views.

Our fabulous kitchen that we did not use. Not once.  We ate out for every single meal. 

The marina at our resort.  Not too many boats since the winter crowd is just arriving. 

 

 We did nothing on this trip. Truly.  Our plane rolled in around 11 on a Thursday, so we took a taxi to the condo then headed to lunch along one of the inner canals.  Two words: beer and shrimp.  Then we speedily packed (isn't everything speedy when you aren't doing it with two little ones in tow?) a single bag with two towels and two books and spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach.  (I read two books on this trip).  The next day, while I took a 2 1/2 hour nap, Tom caught three fish off the sea wall, including this stingray.  Of course I missed the great photo ops since I was snoozing, but at least he had his camera phone. 

The huge yacht in the background is "Privacy", Tiger Wood's boat.

The weather was mostly good, but we woke up to threatening storms our last morning.  We hustled to the beach and squeezed in one last walk, but things quickly turned dark-

It poured the rest of the day while we straightened up and packed.  By Saturday I was missing the kids in the worst way and ready to get home.  Patrick was waiting up for us at 10pm when we walked in the door. 

Thanks, Wizard, for everything.

School Days

This week marks Patrick's second week of preschool - he goes 4 days a week for only an hour and 20 minutes a day.  I thought for sure there would be tears on the first day, but as soon as he got into the classroom and discovered glitter, he barely looked up when I said goodbye.  Now he runs straight from the car into class. 

While P is away learning, I have been using the hour to exercise.  I load Tommy into the single jogger and we jog the track.  A lot easier than jogging my hilly neighborhood!  I am no longer doing Weight Watchers officially, although I am still eating better portions.  I haven't lost anything further, but I am hopeful that regularly exercising an hour a day will help. I just got burnt out on entering every single bite throughout the day.

Me Time

Two things are new to me this fall:

One is that I am leading our local Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group, and the other is that I just started Beth Moore's Daniel bible study.  Equally excited about both, although a little apprehensive about my time management skills.  MOPS has definitely been a time consuming labor of love, much more so than I expected. 

The bible study is something I have wanted to do for years. When the opportunity presented itself, I had no more excuses.  I was a lot surprised at how much work I will need to put into the study, but I am captivated after just the first session.  I could hardly believe I had been there for two hours when I climbed into my car and looked at the clock.  I think this study group is exactly what I asked God for.  Funny how that works :)

Game Day

Patrick had been doing a soccer program at our indoor sportsplex for over a year, but it only teaches skills- they don't actually attempt to play games.  Another downside is it falls on a weekday morning when Tom is at work.  So when a friend mentioned that her son had done another program that has outdoor games for 3 and 4 year-olds at a field only 5 minutes from our house, we were psyched.  Especially Tom, who could now make the new Sunday game times. 

First off, Patrick had a blast.  Big smiles the entire time.  Legs moving a mile a minute. 
Second, he had no idea what he was doing.  It was like watching a Marx Brothers movie. 

All the kids run one direction - P runs in the other. 
All the kids chase after the ball down the field - P doesn't start running until they are already starting to come back up. 
Gosh, I truly fear Patrick has inherited my lack of direction. 

#3 is nearly double P's size and could probably squash him with a sneeze.  Let's hope this kid is always on P's team!  I'm convinced he is really twelve.

So that is my husband in the gray, actively being recruited to be a second coach.  I am not sure what he has decided, but he would be a natural. 



Uncle M showed up to see P's first game

We loved this shot and the next-have you ever seen so much concentration?

Tom seemed a little concerned that P was the only kid not wearing soccer cleats (optional for his age group).  I told him a compass would be more helpful than cleats at this point.  Go #44!

Zoo with Baba

Last week, we spontaneously decided to do a quick zoo trip with Baba - it had been a while since we had gone with her.  Who doesn't love a giraffe?   

My Best Little Helper

After Patrick finished his lunch, he received one very crumbly cookie with instructions that he needed to eat it at the table so I didn't have to pick up 10,000 cookie pieces off my floor.  I continued loading the dishwasher only to hear P say:

"Look, Mom! I cleaned up all the crumbs on my chair so you didn't have to."

He said it so sweetly, and genuinely meant for it to be a help to me that I just had to laugh (even though he just pushed half a cookie onto my floor).  This is one time I could not be mad as I grabbed the vacuum again. 

The Whine that Broke the Mommy's Back

Yes, I'm here.  And fine. Well, if you don't count the 5:30pm meltdown in the kitchen two days ago. Tom had been on this non-stop work binge for like 2 weeks, and I was feeling a lot in need of a mothering break. I just could NOT hear the kids whine one more time.  Then they did. And I cried.  I felt tons better the next day. 

A day or so after my little pity party, I had a meeting with someone on my MOPS leadership team (if you don't know about Mothers of Preschoolers, would love to tell you!) I found out this mom has 4-year-old triplets, and a 2 1/2 year old.  AND her husband is a civilian who deploys in 6-month increments overseas.  He is there now. Wow.  I felt guilty for not being able to handle a measly two kids, even with a husband who is here should I did need him.  Then I realized it isn't just about the numbers.  Being a mom is tough, whether you are pregnant with your first, have one, or have ten.  We all need a moment every once in a while. 

With Tom's crazy schedule, I haven't felt much like blogging, but I will this weekend.  Lots of photos I want to get up. 
Feel free to have a moment between now and then if you need it.

Catching Up on Some Reads

Now that I have read the most recent book by one of Tom's super-talented college friends, Bob Smiley, Don't Mess With Travis, I am feeling inspired to read more regularly.  To be honest, I didn't know how much I would enjoy it, because politics do to me what dirty diapers do to Tom: REPEL.  My dad is so confrontational about his political viewpoints, that he turned me completely off to wanting to talk about, or hear anything related to our nation's politics growing up.  I know that throwing my hands up in the air is bad, but the damage has been done.  With that in mind, I stayed up until 1:30 AM the night I started the book.  Tom kept waking up and telling me to turn off the lights.  I finished it the next day (I made both kids take naps so I could finish it).  You all should read it.  Really. Pretty funny.  I haven't had a lot of opportunities to hang out with the author, but he must be a riot.  His wife must be a saint :)

Then yesterday, my neighbor lent me Hunger Games. Yes, I think I was the last person in our galaxy to still not have read the book or seen the movie.  I started it last night at 10:00 pm and finished at 2:35 am.   I have a problem, I know, and it doesn't just apply to books.  I am inpatient.  When I want to do something, I want to do it right away.  I can't read a great book over the course of a week.  The suspense would kill me.  So now I am tired from all my late night reading.  But of course, instead of sleeping, I am blogging. 

Sigh.

Please feel free to send me some recommendations on dull reads.