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.

What happens when you decide to focus at work...

What happens when you decide to focus on actually doing your work at work?

Blogging suffers. (Also, Facebooking suffers, but I can do that at home when I'm supposed to be paying attention to my children.)

Anyway, I have had a lot of stuff on my plate at work, especially since I was off two days last week for the Fourth, and we're off all of next week for our family trip to the beach. (More on that later.)

So I have not had time to blog and I honestly feel guilty about that, because I want to make sure I'm getting down the things I think, feel and observe about my children's lives when I think, fell and observe them. I know too well that time makes memories misty and water-colored (thanks Barbra!) and I don't trust myself to get it right after too much time has passed.

But I gotta work. And I realized I was getting way too distracted by blogging and Facebooking and other important things -- list-making, etc. So I had to make a change. I intend to make this a real change, not just a temporary one, so until I find a way to work blogging in more regularly while still being more focused on work, I'm afraid this blog will be updated much less.

Meanwhile, we had a GREAT time over the 4-day weekend. We went to a friend-of-a-friend's pool twice, went to my Mom's house, rode the water taxi to Fort McHenry (hello, synapse checklist!), saw fireworks (Cary liked, Dean did not, Clair said "Pop!" each time they went off), enjoyed a strawberry pancake breakfast as a family, and just had a darn good time of togetherness and love and fun.

Can't wait for more of that during our WEEK (yikes!) at the beach! (More on that later.)

Before I get to the pictures from our fun holiday of togetherness, I have to inject here that Cary has an ear infection, of course, now that we are on our way to the beach. The good news is, this should not affect his surgery in any way. So yay! Hopefully, by 9 a.m. on the 22nd, Cary Glenn Davis will be able to hear normally. I'll keep you updated on that.

Also, I started getting sick on Sunday night (thanks to Stacey, who had been hacking behind me at work for a week) so on Monday I went and bought all the echinacea/zinc/vitamin C crap I could find and started pumping myself with it. (I am usually a skeptic about that kind of stuff, but I was willing to try anything to avoid being sick on vacation.) I would like to report that I am at 98-percent today -- just three days later. HOORAY!

I will definitely have to try that regimen again before I will be a true believer, but I can say that I WILL try it again. That's a good sign.

Now...photos!!

How cute are they all patriotic and whatnot?

Call me a cornball, but I love "themed" kids.

Here we are on the WATER TAXI! Technically, since the boys are still 3, this counts toward their synapse checklist. I've decided to extend it through their third year. Aren't I clever?

We took the boat to Fort McHenry, where we heard a cannon shot (scared the daylights out of the boys), and met these soldiers. It was 10,000 degrees on July 4. Their uniforms are wool. God help them.

The day after the 4th, we went and spent the day at Nana and Granddad's, where the boys splashed in a pool in the yard with their cousins for hours and had the best time. Clair still refuses to go to anyone but me and cries hysterically when people try to hold her, play with her or even speak to her. Sigh.

 I attempted to make an American Flag cake. It tasted better than it looks. Cary said, "American flag cake? That is so silly!"

And on Sunday morning, Lester made pancakes, with fresh strawberries on top. YUMMM. P.S. Clair can now feed herself with a spoon.

This is a scene from the EPIC pool party Stacey invited us to two days after the 4th. There's a brass band IN THE POOL. There was also delicious BBQ and cocktails. We visited this pool on the 4th, as well, without the band or the extra people, and it was still fun. Heated salt-water pool in my next life? Yes, please!

This girl did NOT want to get out of the water. She is totally my water baby.

See? Look how much fun we're having!

Meanwhile, these two scaredy-cats would only stay on this raft, which they called a "boat" and allow women (and Lester) to float them around while they hollered out commands. Typical.

We'll see how these kiddos do when we get to the beach. I predict Clair will love, until she gets knocked down by a wave, and the boys will do just slightly better than they did last year, when they refused to even get in the water.

About the beach: We leave on Saturday and I have done NOTHING to prepare. Not one thing. No packing. No shopping. No obsessive list-making. No weather-checking. Nothing.

See what happens when you're focused on work? Everything else takes a backseat.

One of these days, I'll get this work-life balance thing right. Until then, see ya when I see ya! I got work to do!

Xoxoxox.

Of pools and teeth and babies who cling

So this weekend, my friend Stephanie rescued me from a weekend indoors with crazy babies and took me to her neighborhood pool, which you have to be a member of or a guest of a member to get in.

I almost didn't make it, because Cary had the WORST day of his life on Saturday, refusing to nap AT ALL -- not even 10 minutes of napping, people -- screaming at the top of his lungs instead, crying huge crocodile tears all day long, whining, fighting Dean, and begging to be held constantly.
(More on this later...)

But I was determined to get them out of the house for their very first pool visit, and no crazy baby was gonna stop me!

So here are the results of that lovely excursion:






And, just for good measure, here's a shot of me and my pregnant belly (at only 12 weeks, folks, this is how much I am showing. Lord help me.)

Yes, that is Dean trying to drink the water.

From those photos (except for the one of Cary crying in the pool chair), one would think a good time was had by all, eh?

NOT!

The babies loved the pool at first, until that fountain that Dean is trying to drink from sprayed them in their little faces (on separate occasions) and that totally freaked them out. I think they thought the pool was trying to attack them.

After that, they really only wanted to sit in one spot in the pool and stay very, very, very still, lest the pool try to attack them again.

Then, as I mentioned earlier, Cary hadn't slept at all, so he quickly became a major fussypot, and only wanted to sit on my lap, clinging to me for dear life. This of course made my ultra-jealous-abusive-boyfriend-son Dean want to sit on my lap, too. So there we were in the baby pool, sitting like statues -- me with one baby on each thigh, trying desperately to get them to see how FUN this was!!

Stephanie gets a gold star and the Purple Heart, because she tried mightily, too. But alas, we had to give up the pool date, and take the crazies home, give them a little snack (which they both refused) and then put them down for a nap. Cary cried for 30 minutes but then conked out for an hour. By then, it was time for dinner, which they gobbled (well, Cary did; Dean hasn't been eating much lately) and then bath and bedtime. I worried that the late nap would mess with their sleep, but they were in a coma for 13 hours!

So -- there's the upside to the pool!!! Lester and I got to sleep in on Sunday! Hooray!

Lester ended up taking Cary to the doctor today, because he really hasn't been himself at all for days, and it turns out that my poor sweetie has a little cold and a sore throat, but more importantly, the pediatrician says he has a TON of teeth coming in, including his molars.

So that explains his ultra-crazy behavior. I'm so glad to know it, because honestly, I was in tears this weekend for the first time in many, many, many months, because I just didn't know what was wrong with my normally happy, affable baby, and I didn't know how to help him, and I was flat out exhausted from all the crying and clinging.

Anyway, I'm not done with the pool; we have not been defeated! We'll try again soon when Cary's over his mega-teething campaign, and both boys have had good naps!

Thanks, Stephanie for helping take the boys on their first pool visit ever. You're the best!!