Busy Week

In addition to the usual summer stuff - packing lunches for camp, the "laundry scramble" as I call it every morning, trying to find clean bathing suits towels and/or chuck yesterday's damp bathing suits/ towels in the dryer real quick - this week has been particularly busy...

 At work I have been filling in for a coworker who is on vacation for 2 weeks, as well as trying to find time to train a new hire, and at home I have been busy lining up a new tenant for our rental property (our current tenants move out August 10th). I think I have someone lined up who is supposed to be signing the lease/ providing the deposit today and moving in on August 16th. But in the meantime I have been fielding email and phone inquiries, scheduling showings, etc.

So that is why there has not been much blogging the last few days! Yesterday morning I was running around doing the usual, trying to get all 3 kids fed/ ready to go, making sure backpacks were packed, etc, when I noticed the seat of Caroline's pants were all wet. At first I thought she had gotten into the dog's water dish again (she has this REALLY ANNOYING game of dumping out Clara's water dish and then SITTING IN the spilled water and trying to splash around, like she thinks it's her own little water park) but then I realized, this was all Mommy's fault -- I'D FORGOTTEN TO DIAPER HER. Yes, I'd put pants on her but, no diaper.

Maybe things will calm down a little around here soon, and I will be able to remember once again to do things like diaper my child....

A Licking!

Out at dinner last night we met Ellie, a service dog trained in "emotional support". This apparently means licking! I was lucky enough to capture this great pic!

The Two Reasons I Didn't Sleep

These are the two reasons why I got a crappy night's sleep last night. They are both awfully cute though!

And... He's Back Again

Also: Why I Didn't Go to the 6am Boxing Class Like I Said I was Going to.

Yes I had every intention of getting up at 5am and dragging myself to a 6am boxing class. Whether or not I would have gone had I actually gotten a decent night's sleep can never be known ;) But what actually did happen was that Caroline started fussing around 3:30 am, and after listening to her fuss for a while, I decided I'd better get up and shut her bedroom door and shut Ben and Becca's doors too so that she wouldn't wake them up.

So I got up to do this around 4 am and headed by the front door on the way to the stairs, and that is when I heard Ulysses meowing at the front door. Who by now had gone missing again for about 3 weeks or so. So I let him in, not really one bit surprised to see him, since by now I am on to his disappearing acts. He started acting the way he does when he has not seen me in a long time, which is to say meowing very loudly, following me around, etc.

Caroline, already awake of course, heard the meowing and started yelling "Puppy! Puppy!" (She is having some confusion with her animal categories lately where everything that walks on four legs she calls a puppy, everything that walks on two legs is either Daddy or a duck, and pretty much everything else is a fish).

So I completed my original mission of closing her bedroom door, which she was NOT HAPPY about, and then went back to bed, where Ulysses followed me purring/meowing and generally not letting me fall back to sleep until almost 5. I did have a brief thought of, hey I am up anyway so... But I am not that crazy. Plus I promised Ben I'd stay up to watch game 7 of the NBA finals with him tonight! (Rather, I told him I would fall asleep on the couch with him).

Birthday Boy

Ben will be hosting a sleepover birthday party in a couple of weeks with a few of his friends, but for today, his actual birthday, we kept it a family affair. Some pictures--

With his new Kindle Fire HD courtesy of Mom and Dad:

With his new Miami Heat jersey and warm-up pants courtesy of Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathleen. (Ben has become a basketball fanatic lately, playing it, playing video games of it, watching it, etc. His favorite player is LeBron James, hence the Heat attire).

At the "birthday feast" of steak (which Rebecca kept calling bacon, which shows you how often she has either), salmon, mashed potatoes, salad, watermelon, Coke Zero (of which we let him drink 2 cans and paid for that later) and (not pictured) Oreo ice cream cake. This is Ben's ideal meal, containing many of his favorite foods.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN!! Daddy and I couldn't have asked for a more awesome son. We love you!!!!

Ps- Mommy got a present today too, a fixed A/C ;)

Monday After Vacation

This Monday after vacation sucked even more than most Mondays after vacation do. Caroline, who's had a fever since Friday afternoon, still had a fever so I kept her home and took her to the doctor this morning. She has an ear infection, which is good because it's an easy fix and she can go to day care tomorrow and has an excuse in case she spikes a fever again (ear infection) or has diarrhea (antibiotics). But, having her home all day meant that I got approximately 2 hours of work done, from 12:30 to 2:30 while she napped. 18 months is pretty much a god-awful age for trying to get anything done, there is very little independent play and what there is is dangerous (trying to take knives out of the dishwasher was one example from my day), and much of the rest of her behavior involves trying to climb up my leg and screeching when I am not giving her my 100% undivided attention. Sigh.

On top of that, when we returned home from vacation on Saturday we noticed our downstairs A/C  unit was making a loud noise, so somewhere amidst the sick baby chaos today I managed to have a service technician out to look at it, and he informed me the fan motor is broken and ball bearings are loose in there rolling around or something, and that I cannot run it until he replaces the part because if I do it will cause major additional damage to the unit. Unfortunately the part had to be ordered, and the earliest it could possibly be installed will be tomorrow afternoon. The good news is that if by some miracle it does manage to get fixed tomorrow, it shouldn't be too bad because the weather is forecast to be cool and rainy, with a high only of 80 tomorrow. So I have my fingers crossed that it gets fixed quickly -- I am NOT happy without A/C. And my office and bedroom are both on the first floor, ie affected by the malfunctioning A/C.

My final bit of bad luck today was walking out to the grill to heat it up in preparation for grilling some chicken I'd marinated, only to realize the propane tank was empty. I had to switch to plan B for the kids' dinner, chicken nuggets in the toaster oven (because I didn't want to turn the oven on with no A/C).

Fun day - not!

My Happy Camper

Ben and Rebecca had their first day of camp today. For Ben, it is his 5th year at Camp Mindy, but for Becca it is her first year, having graduated from pre-school camp to big-kid camp. True to their natures, Ben worried aloud about who would be in his group, would he know anybody, who his counselors were, etc. Becca voiced no such concerns and upon seeing the different groups of kids seated with their counselors as we walked in, she ran over to each group and hugged the kid or two in each that she knew from preschool. Her group contains 3 of her preschool classmates, including one of her best friends, so she is happy. Here is my happy camper on her first day!

Last Day at Hilton Head

A dolphin-watching cruise, and a really big drink!

More Vacation Pictures

Beach baby, Becca on the pirate ship, hot tub time!

Chillaxin'

Baby knows how to relax on vacation ;)

Vacation, Day 3

Caroline braves the water (sort of) and Ben gets a surprise early birthday cake.

Vacation, Day 2

Some photo-ops, a bike ride, pina coladas at The Salty Dog. 

A Day at the Beach

Our first full day in Hilton head.... Building sand castles, obsessively wiping sand off feet, and a fly-away boogie board :)

Road Trip

Hilton Head bound - Ben is buried back there somewhere ;)

Sometimes You Feel Like a Cat

Last day of preschool, and feeling very feline :)

My Graduate

Love this pic of my graduate, positively beaming :) and ready to do some "hard math" next fall in Kindergarten, LOL.

One Week Left...

One week left of school for both Ben and Rebecca, and then we head to Hilton Head for a much-anticipated beach week!! I can't wait!!!

We had a lot of activities going on this weekend -- Ben had an end-of-year sleepover on Friday night with some of his 3rd grade classmates, where he reports that they had a water balloon fight at 10pm , and he may have gotten a couple of hours of sleep. He did actually (amazingly) take a nap Saturday afternoon, after we threatened his life if he didn't ;) (He was being a total sleep-deprived pain in the butt). After he woke up we headed with the whole family to his friend Jared's house, where another group of friends was gathered for a barbecue in honor of Jared's send-off to camp -- he is spending 9 weeks at sleep-away camp, and wanted to have all his friends over before he leaves.

After all the activity on Saturday, it's no wonder that both Ben and Rebecca slept until almost 9am Sunday morning! (Caroline of course was up by her usual 7ish). Sunday was filled with more activities, including a pool party for one of Rebecca's friends, and while Joel and I took her and Caroline to that Ben got to see the new Star Trek movie and go out to dinner with Papa and Mary. He came home so ridiculously sugared / caffeined up it was funny for about 10 minutes but after that Joel and I started to lose patience. He was literally jogging around the house talking a mile a minute. He had a great time though and thought the movie was awesome, and tried repeatedly to ruin it for Joel and I who still haven't seen it ;)

Also yesterday I attended my first kickboxing class at Title Boxing Club and today I am so ridiculously sore it is completely pathetic. I have lost almost 25 pounds since January and have only 2 or 3 pounds to go to hit my (downwardly revised) goal weight, and I want to add some fun/challenging exercise to my routine to actually get in shape. I signed up for a 6 month membership, and my goal is to go 3 times a week. Something tells my I am going to need some advil before I go again tomorrow, because right now I can't even cross/uncross my legs at my desk without being in pain, and picking up Caroline the umpteen times she needed/demanded to be picked up this morning was just torture!