Dates and turtles and pools, oh my!

"We had a busy weekend" has become such a broken record in our family that I will not even preamble this post with a big ole paragraph, but instead I'll just launch right into the photos.

Friday night, Lester and I went out on a double date with our friends Antwyne and Mari. We had a great time eating up all the food at Fork &Wrench (and drinking a cocktail made just for me by the amazing bartender, Jay. It's called a "Squishy." Ask for it next time you go there. He puts it through the carbonater, so it's really fun watching him make it! Also it is GOOD.) And then we ended up having a few more drinks at Wit and Wisdom, which is Antwyne's fave spot.

Saturday morning, we dragggggggged ourselves out of bed and took the kids to Masonville Cove for Science Alive, where they learned all about turtles.

Here, they're watching a turtle race. I thought it was hilarious that Dean waited to see which turtle looked like he was going to win, and then declared, "That one is mine!" So when that turtle did indeed cross the finish line, he yelled, "Yaaay! My turtle won!" Hahahaa!

The turtle race was actually more thrilling than watching some of the World Cup games. IJS.

Here, all the kids are pretending to be turtles inside their paper-plate shells. Except for my child, Cary, who on his own decided that he was going to be an eagle instead, and scare all the turtles. He even tried to eat poor turtle Dean. All the parents were laughing at Cary's impromptu decision not to follow the crowd, but Lester and I already know all about that kid. For better or for worse, he does his own thing.

Flapping his wings and cawing, just to be rebellious.

The kids also made their own turtles. As usual Clair took her time coloring hers.

After Science Alive, Lester went to run our weekend errands (grocery store, Target run) and I took the kids to go hang out with my girl Kelly and her daughter Naomi at the Cheverly pool.

They loved this little wading pool but quickly decided they wanted bigger and riskier adventures. Who are these little thrillseekers?

At first, the kids played happily in the wading pool, but they eventually ventured over into the bigger kiddie pool, and wandered out into the water much farther than they ever have before. I was so impressed. Clair, especially, was fearless -- jumping off the wall into the pool (it was only a foot tall, so she still didn't get her head submerged), crawling around on her hands "like a fish" with her legs floating out behind her (which meant she had to hold her head up out of the water like a pro) and wading out until the water was up to her neck! I was so proud of her. I was proud of all my kids, actually -- they all did great, unlike at swim lessons, which were a bit of a bust, in my opinion.  We were there for four hours of non-stop splashing and fear-conquering, and it made me realize that if we just went to the pool more often, they might get over their fear of the water a lot faster. So we need to make a point of figuring out how to do that next summer.

There were two casualties - Dean slipped while running ("no running at the pool" now actually means something to him) and scraped his chest and Cary toppled over while sitting and conked his head. After the head-conking, it was time to go. The kids were sun-baked, thirsty, hungry and cranky, and exhausted from no naps and hours of pool fun.

So this happened about 15 minutes into our long drive home, which as you know is a RARITY with my three.

All three asleep at the same time! Praise the good Lord in heaven.

This meant I got to turn off the kids' CD, roll the windows down and drive the rest of the way home in SILENCE. 45 minutes of golden, delicious, breeze flowing through the windows silence.

Halleluiah for pool time!

Sunday we went to church, came home and napped, while Lester drove to D.C. to pick up a few remaining personal items from his house (we go to settlement on Tuesday - yay!) And after the kids went to bed, we spent almost 90 minutes watching old iPhone videos of Clair as a baby, and then the boys when they were just crawling, and going "Awwwww." So yeah, basically, we're complete and total suckers for these little crazies. We can't deny it.

Despite my nap, I'm still tired today from all that hanging out on Friday and sitting in the sun on Saturday and running around with kids and cooking dinner on Sunday.

But this is the best kind of tired, don't you think? The very, very best.

41 revolutions around the sun! (Or something like that.)

Wait. Is that right? You know I'm no good at math. If I turned 41 yesterday (which I did), does that mean I've now gone around the sun 40 times? 41 times? Or 42 times?

Is this a ridiculous question? Whatever.

Happy birthday to me!

Yesterday, I planned to go into work and sit in my air-conditioned office, occasionally stopping over to Facebook to "like" all my Happy Birthday posts, and then go out to lunch with my co-workers, who had planned a trip out for Indian buffet.

But Michelle called in sick (she'd been feeling poorly all week) and so I ended up staying home with Cary, Dean and Clair, whose idea of celebrating my birthday involves me being at their beck and call and refereeing fights and celebrating THEM. The prospect of being stuck in the house all day with those three nuts is bad enough on a regular day (the fighting, the noise, the messes, the whining! Lawd!) but on my birthday, it just seemed completely untenable.

So I packed us some brown bag lunches and hustled on out to the B&O Railroad Museum, where we have a membership, for a free day out and about in the sun!

Faithful readers of this blog will know that those "meh" looks on Cary and Dean's faces mean, "Holy cannoli! It's the CONDUCTOR! I'm bursting with excitement!"

Later on, we went to pick up Cary's glasses, which were finally ready. (More about that in a later post.)

These are his new glasses! Isn't he the CUTEST?

I ordered this book to help prepare him for glasses -- and because that little boy looks like Cary to me. It cracks me up!

And my Dad drove all the way from his side of the world -- over an hour -- just to bring me a plant, and pose for pictures with Cary, to show him that all the "good-looking fellas have glasses."

My Dad always makes me feel so special!

Lester took me and the whole family out to dinner at Gertrude's, which is at the Baltimore Museum of Art. It was the kids' first visit to a "white tablecloth" restaurant. At first, it looked like we were headed for disaster. Clair was whining like crazy and wouldn't sit in her chair. The boys were whining like crazy and playing with the knives on the table. People were giving us the judgy eyes. But we ordered their food first, so it came pretty quickly, and after they got a little food in their bellies, things calmed down and we ended up having a really nice meal. Dean kept trying to wave down the waiter (we stopped him this time) and when they brought my dessert, he blew out my candle (of course); Clair ate a good fourth of my $23 crab cake and Cary sat contentedly eating his food and fancy donuts and looking around at everyone and everything like, "Well would you look at that?"

I didn't take any pictures, because the kid-wrangling was a full-time job. But we didn't get kicked out - so #winning.

Earlier that morning, the kids came in to my bedroom singing "Happy Birthday" and presenting me with a homemade card and small gifts (a heavy-duty lobster cracker, because the one I had was garbage, and a new fluffy pillow because my old cheap one was flat and giving me neck-aches).

And last week, just because I am the luckiest girl in the world, Lester set up a whole surprise date night where he:

Sent a car to pick me up from work (thanks, Uber!)

Selfie on the way to the restaurant! I felt like a movie star!

Met me at the Thames Street Oyster House, a FABULOUS seafood restaurant in Fells Point that I highly recommend if you are ever in Baltimore. He was at the bar when I got there, looking dapper, with a glass of sangria ordered for me.

It's not every day a tall, handsome man (my natty beau - get it?) meets you at a restaurant bar with a drink at the ready.

This was the view from our table!

I devoured this lobster roll, which was so damn good, I can't EVEN. But, guess what? I left the fries on the plate! Yay for restraint!

See? No lobster roll. Plate full of fries.

Because I was saving room for this bread pudding with warm caramel sauce. Oh. Em. Gee. Soooo good!

Took me out to a play at the Hippodrome Theater. The show was hilarious.

I ran into my gynecologist at the theater, who was out with his wife. #Awkward.

And then, whisked me off to a room at the Four Seasons (!!), which we got through a hook-up from our friend Antwyne (thanks Antwyne and Mari!), where we stayed the night (thanks to my sister Tahira who watched all the children for us!)

Tahira made a pizza with the kids! They loved it.

Look at  Matty giving Clair a kiss because he LOVES her so much. And check out Clair looking so over it, because he ANNOYS her so much. Poor sweet Matty. One day, she's gonna be your best friend, Matt Pat. Just wait.

And to top it all off -- my awesome co-workers re-scheduled my Indian buffet lunch for today! And invited Stacey to come back and eat with us!

Soooo, basically BEST BIRTHDAY EVER. (As usual!)

I'm so blessed and lucky and happy as a clam. I hope the next 41 (40? 42?) rotations around the sun are just as perfect!

Date night!

Saturday night, Lester and I went out to dinner with friends of ours, Kelly and Jason - a couple who were jointly celebrating birthdays. We went to The Chesapeake and had delicious seafood and potent drinks and laughed and talked for four and a half hours! The time just flew by, we were having so much fun.

Afterwards, we drove to the Maryland Live Casino (my first time there) to meet up with another group of friends for our friend Brent Jones' birthday celebration.

Me, Laurie (!!), Andrea and the birthday boy, Brent!

I'm not a gambler and neither is Lester, but we brought $25 to waste. I decided to play $20 on the Big Money Wheel - $10 on 10 to 1 and $10 on 5 to 1. Can you believe that 5 to 1 came up?? I won $50! On my first time ever playing a casino game!

Risk-averse girl that I am, I took my chips and cashed out. We spent the other $5 at a slot machine and lost it all in a matter of five button-clicks. That was all the gambling my little heart could stand.  We were done gambling for the night, but not done hanging with our friends. We hammed it up for another couple hours and didn't get home until 1:30 a.m.

We had a great night out with friends, eating good food and laughing and talking and just being adults. But - ugh!! I can't do that too often. I was so tired on Sunday, it took me until almost 3 p.m. to feel "awake." I'd wanted to go to church, but HA! I barely got out of my pajamas.

Remember the days when you didn't leave the house to go out until 10 p.m.?? And when the club let out at 2 a.m., you left and went somewhere else?? How on Earth did we do that? As my grandmother used to say, "youth is wasted on the young."

Anyway, the real kudos of the night goes to my sister Tahira who came out to watch the baby Davises while the elder statesman stayed out way too late. She brought her own two with her and handled all five like a dream. Dinner, pajamas, bed and no drama whatsoever. Even Clair warmed up to her, calling her "Nanamommy" by the end of the night.  I'm pretty proud of my baby sister - and grateful!

Here they are all lined up on the bed, watching the Lorax, freshly scrubbed and sleepy:

Russy, Clair, Matty, Superman and Batman.

Tahira did such a good job with the kids, I might consider going out more often if I could convince her to babysit.

And if I could stay up past 10 p.m.

Surprise Date! (and thoughts on marriage)

Yesterday at 4:30,  Lester called and asked me if I wanted to go out on a date.
Sure, I said. When?
Now, he said.

Huh?!

Turns out my honey had already made arrangements with Michelle to stay a little late, and he was on his way to my office to pick me up. Talk about surprised! I love how Lester still courts me. It's very sweet!

We went to a wine bar in Harbor East, had appetizers, drinks and salted pretzel ice cream (surprisingly yummy!) and then walked around the neighborhood, going in and out of stores looking at beautiful merchandise we can't afford, holding hands and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Then we ended up at a restaurant at the new Four Seasons hotel called Wit and Wisdom, which I think is a totally cool name for a restaurant. We sat in the bar area, in a little nook facing the water, and ate lobster corn dogs and just talked.

Lobster corn dogs!

It was unbelievably lovely.

We were home by 8:30 p.m. and even though I really, really missed getting to say goodnight to my littlest sweeties, I was so happy to get to spend a little adult time out and about with my original sweetie.

As parents, you sacrifice a lot to raise children. Some people might grumble about it, but we (mostly) do it happily (mostly). We wanted these children. We prayed for them. So if it means our evenings and weekends consist of Legos, reading, meals, bath and bedtime (plus some screaming, crying and whining) every single night for months and months on end, then so be it. No, we're not living la vida loca like celebrity housewives up in here, but we are living la vida feliz. And we know how blessed we are to be able to do it.

But that doesn't mean that we don't get to have time to ourselves. And in fact, keeping our marriage strong is just as important to the health and happiness of our children as anything else we do. Maybe even more so.

Lester and I are firm believers that we didn't become a family when we had the kids. We already were a family, and a darn good one, before they came. The kids added to our family, and boy are we lucky we got the awesome additions we did. But when those babies grow up and move on and get families of their own, it'll be me and Lester left behind, just the two of us.

And when that day comes, if we keep pouring into our marriage, hopefully we'll be just as in love as we were in 2007 when we said "We do."



Occasional evenings like last night help make sure that we still do.

Another full weekend!

As the weather gets warmer, and my maternity leave days dwindle, I seem to be cramming more and more into the weekends. This weekend was no different.

Friday morning, I met up with my friend Jen and her two sweeties Molly and Keegan (Keegan's just a few weeks younger than Clair) and had a playground playdate. The boys and Clair had a ball!

Friday night, Lester and I had Date Night!! (Thanks to Michelle, who donated her babysitting time just because she is super sweet like that. We really LOVE Michelle.)

Lester gave me flowers when he got home from work (awww!), and then we went to a Turkish restaurant for dinner, where the food was amazing. We ate and drank and talked and, because we had a window seat, we people-watched and talked some more. It was really lovely.

 As good as the Turkish are with delicious meats and rice dishes, they are not so hot in the dessert department. So when we left there, we went to Morton's for their LEGENDARY HOT CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!! I honestly could not, in a million years, tell you how much I love Morton's LEGENDARY HOT CHOCOLATE CAKE! I love it so much that I have to say it in ALL CAPS every single time I say it, or else you will not properly understand how much I love, love, love Morton's LEGENDARY HOT CHOCOLATE CAKE!

It takes 30 minutes to make it, so while we waited, I ordered colossal shrimp cocktail and Lester had a Glenfidditch 12 year, neat. Then we both devoured the LEGENDARY HOT CHOCOLATE CAKE!!! and nearly collapsed from being so stuffed and happy and also a little bit drunk.

When we got home, all the children were asleep, and they stayed that way until ...wait for it.... 8 o'clock the next morning!!! Seriously, I think I can still hear angels singing from that marvelous occurrence.

We hustled and got ready so we could meet our friends Mark and Kelly (and their little girl Naomi) at the Touch-a-Truck festival in their neighborhood. We imagined our boys would lose their minds over all the trucks, buses, cars, etc. they'd be able to see, touch and climb in. And lose their minds they did, but not in the way we saw it in our heads.

Cary loved riding on the little train they had set up.

Someday I'll tell you how my child got out in public and acted as if he had no idea what "wait your turn" means. #Iswearmychildhashometraining

  And Dean loved honking the horn in the school bus.

What? This IS my happy face.

But other than that, Touch-a-Truck was a major FAIL. There were tears upon tears upon tears upon tears galore. "No like it!!!" Cary wailed. "Up! Up!" Dean demanded.

It was really noisy and incredibly loud what with all the sirens blaring and horns honking, and the trucks and buses must've seemed frighteningly bigger to them up close. No amount of balloon-buying, bounce-house-attempting (also a major FAIL) or faux excitement on our part could stop the melting down. At a certain point, both boys had to be held or else they would completely lose it. 

Cary, being held by Kelly, refused to even look at the camera. Dean was fine as long as he was in Lester's arms.

So, we said reluctant good-byes to our friends and boogied out of there. This is one way we know that we have gotten better at parenting. Early on in their lives, we would have 1) felt like we had done something wrong because our children were so unhappy 2) tried over and over to get them to see how much fun Touch-a-Truck day was 3) sniped and stressed because of the heat, the crying, the noise and the fact that we got up early and hustled down the highway to get to Touch-a-Truck and these darn kids don't appreciate it! And we would really like to talk to our friends, dangit! And it's so frikkin' hot!! And you LOVE trucks, boys! We have to read "My Big Truck Book" and "My Truck is Stuck" 8,000 times a day! What is the PROBLEM?!

But nearly 2 years into this thing, we know to just cut our losses, pack up the crying kiddos, laugh at the insanity, kiss our friends, arrange a time to see them without crying kiddos (and with cocktails instead) and keep on with the rest of the day. No problemo.

So that's what we did.

We first went to see my sister at her house so we could give the boys' cousins Aminah and Kwahli their birthday presents. Aminah turned 7 on Friday and Kwahli turned 4 on Saturday. I have pictures from that popsicle-filled visit as well, but my sister Kadija would kill me for posting them, because she hates photos of herself. So I will respect her wishes and not post them.

From there, we went to my Mom's and spent the entire day there. My mother bought the boys a bubble lawnmower that was supposed to be for their birthday, but she couldn't wait to give it to them. I don't have to tell you that they thought this was the BEST. THING. EVER.

What? This IS my happy face!

Clair enjoyed napping with her cousin Matthew, both on the floor and in my arms.

Zebra-print throw = napping New-Jersey-style

 

Mom and Matthew, me and Clair

And because it was Cinco de Mayo, we made soft tacos for the kids and strawberry margaritas for the adults. (Tahira has the best strawberry margarita recipe, with real blended strawberries. Yummmm!) 

All the Davises were exhausted by the end of the night, so we put on an Elmo Sings the Hits DVD in the car on the way home, keeping Cary and Dean singing happily -- and not crying even a little bit, despite the fact that they barely napped all day and it was 2 hours past their bedtime! The no-crying also made Mom and Dad happy, which is why I totally thumb my nose at the "your children will DIE if you let them ever watch television before they turn 2" madness.

At home, we put the kids in a warm, soapy tub to wash off all the popsicles, birthday cake, grass, Touch-a-Truck tears, taco sauce, bubble mixture and strawberries, got all three crankies in the bed, had another Cinco de Mayo toast and conked out ourselves. Clair slept until 6:30 a.m. (in her own crib!) drank a bottle and went back to sleep until 10. Her brothers didn't make a peep until 9:30 a.m.

Sunday morning, I made French toast, put the kids down for a nap, met two friends for lunch, came home, played with the boys, cooked dinner, drove BACK to my Mom's because we accidentally left Lester's car keys there, listened to two awesome "This American Life" episodes all the way through without interruption on the way up and back (that app is the best thing ever), got home in time to crawl into bed and watch Mad Men with Lester, while all three children slept (in their own cribs!) until the morning.

(NOTE: Notice how I am purposely NOT saying the words "sl*** thr*** the n****" where Clair is concerned, because I know that as soon as I do, it'll never happen again.)

Now it's Monday again and I only have TWO WEEKS left of maternity leave (pardon me while I go cry my eyes out). And I can't decide if I should rest up from the weekend or cram some more stuff in! Like organizing my bathroom closet? Also, the boys turn 2 on Friday and I still have no plan for their big day, so I really need to get crackin' on that.

Hmmm.

I think I'll take nap and organize and plan later. :-)

P.S. SERIOUSLY, WHERE IS AUNT FLO???