Sorry again for the delay but here’s the last blog post for Memorial Day weekend with some bonus material thrown in.
Monday
Man, it’s the middle of the work week and I don’t feel too inspired anymore. This will be a bit abbreviated methinks.
6:30am – Wake up
8:20am – Jennifer gets Trevor down for a nap. Yay Jennifer!
8:30am – Jennifer takes Graham shopping. Used to be Graham would always want to go out with us wherever we were going but not so much anymore. He proclaims that he wants to stay and play with his trucks. We explain to him that shopping with Mommy will be fun and great Graham-Mommy time.
8:31am – I start working on cleaning up the kitchen and doing laundry.
9:45am – Still working on laundry and the kitchen. There’s more work of both with kids in the house. Wondering how old Graham will be before he is physically capable and can be compelled to help out, eh.
9:50am – Oh good, Jennifer and Graham are back, I can stop now.
10:00am – Trevor’s up.
10:15am – I take Graham, Trevor and Maisy for a brief walk. It’s actually a momentous occasion because, for the first time, it will be done with a wagon. My cousin Brian and his wife Crystal generously let us borrow their old double stroller (front-to-back, not side-to-side) for taking the kids on walks. Graham will be sitting facing backward toward Trevor. Jennifer puts a quilt down for Trevor’s feet.
10:16am – Graham takes the quilt and starts covering Trevor with it.
10:17am – I tell Graham that if he covers Trevor’s face again with the quilt we’re turning around and going back home.
10:25am – This is more difficult than pushing the stroller. More on that in a minute.
10:40am – Meet some neighbors two streets over with a five year-old girl and a three year-old boy a month older than Graham. One of my goals for these walks is to find other kids, particularly boys Graham and Trevor’s ages. It’s always a bit of a dance when you walk by someone’s house, see kids outside and try to figure out whether the parents want to talk to you or not. Many people feel the same way about meeting others with kids and some people are more private. I always say ‘hi’ and then try to gauge by body language whether they’re interested in chatting. I’ll err on continuing to walk but knowing that if I see them on a later walk I’ll throw caution to the wind and stop and chat. Anyway, Maisy Insaisy solved this one as the girl asked if she could pet her. Excellent work, Maisy. And the mother is a stay-at-home mom to boot!
10:55am – Am back at the house. Trevor did great and Graham genuinely enjoyed having him as a riding partner. Let’s compare the wagon vs. the stroller though:
Ease of Movement –It’s much easier to push the stroller and use Maisy to help pull it by strategically placing the leash so that it is partially on top of the stroller than to have to pull the wagon and avoid being pulled off your feet by Maisy. It’s like working out on one of those machines that you sit down in, raise your arms at a 90 degree angle and then bring them in and out laterally except that the right arm is moving at a different speed and with different weight with the left. Advantage: Stroller.
Child Enjoyment – Graham and Trevor can see each other and interact with each other in the wagon. Not so in the stroller where Graham has to turn around painfully to see Trevor and Trevor can kick Graham. Advantage: Wagon.
Maneuverability – Turning and keeping the stroller in a straight line with one hand is like trying to run a Greyhound Bus through the Indy 500. The wagon can turn using all four wheels but is still a million times more controllable than the shopping carts at Ikea. Advantage: Wagon.
Slumber Vehicle – The double stroller allows for both of its occupants to go to sleep; Trevor can even be placed in it almost totally on his back. If they both fell asleep in the wagon I’d be worried about their necks big time, though at least they’re buckled in. Advantage: Stroller.
Space for Accessories – Lately I’ve been taking binoculars, my bird identification book and the tube of sunscreen along. The double stroller has a huge pouch underneath that is big enough to store a mini-fridge. The wagon has four cup holders but not much else. Advantage: Stroller.
Stylishness – The double stroller screams ergonomical and its dark blue color is fairly non-descript though at least not bugly. The wagon, although made of plastic, is reminiscent of the old red metal Radio Flyer wagons we grew up in. And it has a canopy that covers the whole thing. Advantage: Wagon.
Off-Road Capability – Not sure on this. There’s a route in the neighborhood that requires us to cross a field and go along a creek path for 50 yards but I haven’t tried it in a while. The wagon would be easier to maneuver and presumably has a lower center of gravity but pulling it might take more muscle. Pushing the double stroller would be even tougher and I’d figure would be more prone to tipping. Advantage: Toss-up
Um, that makes it a 3-3 tie. Well, too bad for the stroller because Graham is tall enough that his feet dangle over the footrest in it. Plus the wagon is cuter. Bring on the wagon!
11:05am – Start to work on lunch with the agreement that Jennifer watches the kiddos. Lunch will be grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, the latter specifically requested by the Red-Haired One. I used to smoke pork butts and the occasional brisket but with kids that takes wayyyy too much effort. The time commitment is much greater since you have to marinade the meat the night before and then run a fire for 8-12 hours during the day. And, because smoking is sometimes so touchy, your meat doesn’t always turn out tasting super duper awesome like it should (though, when you do everything right, it tastes out-of-this-world). So grilling is much safer. It takes an hour tops, even though I use wood, and almost always comes out tasting awesome. So bring on the grill!
12:45pm – Lunch is finally on as the fire burned out too fast initially while I was watching Trevor for a bit. Thus I had to throw more log pieces on, threw too many and had to wait 15 minutes for it to die down sufficiently to grill on without scorching the meat. But it tastes awesome! Graham even has two pieces of burger before I take it inside and asks for more.
12:50pm – Graham doesn’t touch his hamburger but eats half his hot dog.
1:30pm – We pumped up the new little inflatable pool for summer, adorned with Cars characters and it’s time to play in it. Who does Graham want to join him? Why me of course. I strap on my Speedo (can’t find my regular swimsuit) and hop in. Nothing quite like a grown man in a Speedo playing in a kiddie pool. But man on a hot day sitting in the kiddie pool feels quite relaxing, even when your son is squirting you and the dog with a squirt gun. And no, Maisy was not in the pool.
OK, it’s Saturday night and I don’t remember too much else from Monday. Yeah, sorry, this whole parenting thing means that when you put your three year-old down for bed by 8, clean the kitchen for 30 minutes, work in the yard for 30 minutes and then have some unwinding time before hitting the blog only to find that your eight-month old has woken up and won’t go back to sleep, well, the blog takes a backseat. But hey, it’s Saturday night and what better time to write a blog post than Saturday night, right, at least after the kids have gone to bed. Actually, that’s another story. Jennifer and I went out to eat a dinner by ourselves for the FIRST TIME IN THREE YEARS!!!!!! THREE…YEARS!!!! I couldn’t believe it. We had had people watch Graham or Graham and Trevor before while we did things like go to the movies, shop or eat lunch but it had been that long since someone had actually had our kid or kids and put them to bed. Wow. Not that people hadn’t offered or that we were afraid of asking; it’s just that it never really crossed our minds. We’ve never really been movie-goers and we’re definitely not out-late types. As far as eating dinner out, we’re happy to eat dinner with the kids and have downtime to ourselves after they go to bed.
So the babysitters tonight were Jennifer’s parents, visiting from Dallas. We left around 5:30 and had a nice dinner at Z Tejas which, at least to us, was surprisingly uncrowded. But again, we’re early birds so perhaps it really doesn’t get jumping until later. We were happy to have a booth to ourselves, order an appetizer and have a nice long dinner. I don’t recall Jennifer checking her cell phone until perhaps after we’d left and were driving down to, guess where, Babies ‘R Us. It brought to mind the time we left a two month-old Graham with Aunt Becky, Uncle Pat, Cousin Jill and my dad and stepmom while we ate out and went to Target to buy diapers. We needed to get Graham a harness booster seat (I’m still not sure on the terminology) so we could give Trevor his carseat. Once we’d finished, Jennifer sent a text to her parents asking for an update. It was a bad sign that we hadn’t heard anything because by then at least Trevor should have been asleep. While we were driving over to Whole Foods, she quickly got a return text. Here’s how the conversation went:
Jennifer Text:
Father-in-Law Text:
Jennifer (to me): Uh oh. Trevor’s still awake. (begins texting back)
Me: Just call them.
Jennifer: Forget Whole Foods. Let’s go.
After arriving home, Jennifer promptly got Trevor to go to sleep. Separation anxiety? Maybe but I’ve been able to put him to sleep plenty of times though only for naps. At least Graham was asleep.
So it figures our night out would be cut short. Oh well.
Another note: Graham is now of the age where you can’t say things in front of him.
Graham has been taught that whenever you do something bad, you’ve made a bad choice. Well, even though (to our knowledge) he’s never seen the cartoon or had a book read to him, he is familiar with Spider-Man. So one time he was describing a Spider-Man story to Jennifer. It started like this:
Graham: Mommy, there was the bad gu-…the guy who made bad choices.
…now that we think about it, Jennifer’s parents also babysat for us a year and a half ago so we could attend the company Christmas party though that still doesn’t count as a dinner by ourselves.
And I think that’s it for now. Thanks for reading!
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