Day 3: Loch Raven Reservoir

The end of Day 2 went fairly well. Melinda and Jacob played so hard with Zoe (and I had a good time visiting with Emily!), that they went to bed with no problem. I could hardly believe the difference! I tucked them in, and just as I was finishing up, Alex started fussing from the other room, so I said goodnight quickly. After I had sat down with Alex for just a few minutes, I suddenly realized that it was still silent from the kids' bedroom. I went to check on them, and sure enough, they were sound asleep! Phew! Unfortunately Jacob woke up hysterical around 11:30pm, and it took maybe an hour to get him back to sleep (in my bed this time). I think I finally figured out what was getting to him - he didn't know where Melinda was. She had covered herself up with the body pillow instead of a blanket at some point, and he couldn't tell she was under it, and thought he was all alone. Ah, well, at least I had someone to cuddle with as I fell asleep!

I really didn't know what we would do today. Jesse suggested, over the phone, that I make sure to take them outside, since we've had a couple yucky days, but I hadn't convinced myself to make it a plan.

But Brittney from our ward called me up in the morning, and said she was taking her boys over to Loch Raven Reservoir to play and have a picnic lunch, and invited us to go with her. I had never been to the Reservoir before, only across it on a bridge on my way to other places. I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of trying to get everyone ready to be out of the house in only about an hour and a half, as well as packing a picnic lunch, but I knew we would have fun if we went, so I agreed. And it *was* a challenge to get everyone out the door, since the kids had dumped out EVERY toybox in the front room, and were fairly unwilling to pick it all back up before leaving. I finally bribed them with candy, but anyone who didn't help didn't get a piece. And Jacob didn't help. Hopefully he'll help next time?

Anyway, we headed over to the Reservoir. It's fairly close to us, really. See on the map? We live right near the 45 on the map, and the arrow shows where we went. Church is right down at the bottom tip of the triangle shape of roads by the 146 symbol, and that's only about 10 minutes through backroads.
The weather started out nice enough - mostly sunny and in the low 60's. But there was quite a breeze right next to the water. There were a lot of Canadian geese hanging out on the "beach", and the very first thing Melinda did (and Jacob, too, eventually) was chase after them. I think the geese were a little bit used to it, because they didn't fly away, they just kind of ran slowly out of her path, and sometimes went into the water to escape her.

After a few minutes the shoes came off and she headed to the water's edge. Melinda and Jacob both loved the little waves (even though they called them big ... I guess we have never taken Jacob to the ocean, and Melinda hasn't been since she was about 9 months...).


Uh oh. Now Melinda's gone and rolled up her pants and is stepping into the water. I guess I should have thought about making some rules before letting them loose. But honestly, my brain had gone mostly towards getting to the reservoir, not what we were going to do once we were there! And notice how all three boys are looking on and getting ideas. Brittney said both of hers were a bit afraid of going into the water, though, so she didn't have to deal with wet kids later. But see? Jacob's shoes are off now.... he's taking note.

Aaaand there he is, coming out of the water. I didn't have a chance roll up his pants for him, so they're already getting soaked.

And of course, Melinda and Jacob did what all kids love to do: Throw things into the water!

Melinda found an actual egg on the beach. It was BIG! Definitely had to be a goose egg. She was very concerned with it and kept trying to "give it back" to the geese, which means, of course, that she was walking further and further into the water trying to hand it to them, and they kept swimming away. There were a lot of goslings there... I'm not sure why this one isn't hatched and just hanging around at the beach. I picked it up and it felt heavy enough. It must be a dud or something? But also, nothing has cracked it open to eat it yet, so it can't have been abandoned long. Still, I had never seen a goose egg before, so it was interesting. And of course we had to talk about why it wasn't hatched, and I was having a hard time explaining why there might not actually be a baby goose in it, and ended up saying, "Maybe there's just yolk inside." And Melinda says, "Oh, so you can eat it?" So I think she finally got it. ;)
After she had thoroughly soaked her pants, she grabbed the bucket and shovel that Brittney had brought with her, and had a good time with some water. Jacob joined her before long, and they pretended to build a sand castle. It was a few small holes and a lot of water-dumping, in reality!
We ate our lunch. Well, most of us did. Jacob took about 3 bites from his sandwich, ate a couple grapes, and ran off again. By this time, the steady wind had blown in some dark clouds, and it was feeling pretty chilly, even to me, who was completely dry and had longer sleeves on. Melinda was shivering and complaining, and then I remembered I had a couple small blankets in the car that never made it back inside the house after winter. So I grabbed those and she huddled gratefully under them while she ate.

The geese wandered over to our direction, and Melinda started feeding them crusts from her sandwich. They really liked that! Jacob soon joined in by trying to feed them sticks and rocks. I kept trying to tell him they wanted "food, not rocks!" but he didn't listen. He still managed to get his finger nipped by one of the geese, though! The geese were getting aggressive enough that they were yanking bread right out of Melinda's hand, instead of waiting for her to break a piece off to throw at them.
See the cute goslings? They're eating Melinda's bread. (I sure hope it's okay to feed birds peanut butter and jelly... I'm positive they got at least some, somewhere in there.) It would have been fun to stay longer - the kids had a really fun time playing - but they were both too wet, and the wind too strong, and the day just chilly enough, that we needed to go back home.

Once home, they both enjoyed a nice warm bath (to make them comfortable and get the pebbly sand off of their feet!), and now Jacob's asleep on the couch while a movie is playing. Alex is hanging out asleep on the couch, too. I've taken to putting him in a blanket-cushioned car seat when he takes his long naps during the day, so he's more upright and contained. He seems to sleep better that way during the day - similar to wearing him in my sling, but not so demanding on my body.

Hopefully Jesse will be home today. If he will be, he should be leaving around 4 or 5pm, and then driving back home, so he'll still be home kinda late in the evening.

All in all? 3 days really hasn't been all that bad. The first day felt the longest. Still, we'll be happy to have daddy back home!

Day 2

Well, Day 1 went alright. We did get out of the house and do some shopping. Jacob fell asleep in the car on the way to Babies R Us, where we spent a gift card, and stayed asleep in the basket of the cart- with my diaper bag for a pillow- the whole time we were browsing. We then went grocery shopping*, and by the time we were home, it was 4:30. Just enough time to put groceries away, get the kids a snack, sit down to nurse Alex, and then Jesse called. After we all talked, we had some dinner. I was going to do leftovers, but the kids asked for sandwiches, and I obliged, and kept the leftovers to myself.

*At the end of the grocery shopping, I took Jake out of the cart to make room for the filled bags, and within seconds, had completely forgotten that I took him out. Which resulted in a very embarrassing moment: I practically ran him over with the grocery cart. I have no idea what exactly happened... he was probably hanging onto the front of the cart and I was just going a little too quickly for him to keep up with his legs, or something. All I know is that suddenly about 3 different people all looked at me in horror and exclaimed, "He fell down! He fell down!!!" He didn't even whimper, so I don't think he got hurt at all, though his pants did get scuffs on them. But I seriously felt like worst mommy of the year.

They asked me to play some Mario Kart on the Wii, a while after dinner. They like to watch video games. It's not as interesting to watch mommy play Mario Kart, as it is to watch daddy play Zelda, though, and pretty soon, Jacob was sticking slobbery fingers all over Melinda, which really upsets her for obvious reasons, and nothing I was doing was making him stay settled down... and well, it eventually degraded into Jacob chasing Melinda all over the room, with her running and crying hysterically, and finally Jacob shoving Melinda right off the couch. I had just had it at that point, and decided it was a perfect time for bedtime. Well, Melinda really didn't like that, especially since it wasn't her fault that Jacob was being aggressive and getting on my nerves. But it really was technically their bedtime, anyway, so I stuck to it. Unfortunately the crabby part of me really came out in the whole process, because Melinda just wouldn't stop having a fit about the whole going-to-bed thing, and I was just getting tired of it, and cranky. Not proud of how bedtime went down, especially toothbrushing time, but Melinda was eventually sound asleep, and Jacob was sticking to his now-typical "I'm scared of everything but not going to actually act scared, just say I am" routine. He eventually got sleepy enough to join Melinda on the top bunk, but woke her back up in the process, and because she had thrown such a fantastic fit, her nose was stuffy and she couldn't breathe through it, which prompted another fit. *FINALLY* both of them ended up asleep, and Alex fell asleep around 9pm as well. It was a relief after the noise all three of them were making for a while, there. But then, there was nothing on TV. No new Netflix video to watch. And I didn't know how long Alex would be asleep, so I ended up deciding to start a new book.

It was far too quiet for me last night. I enjoyed reading and not being on constant mom-duty, but I also just felt too exposed to my drifting thoughts, when it came time for bed. Things like, why can't I be more fun and less business-like as a mom? What will my kids feel about their relationship with me if I don't change myself during the next several years? How do I change it? But I don't want to go through all that effort to change it, it doesn't feel like I can. Why am I so lazy that I can't even convince myself that changing would be good, even if it's hard? Anyway, you can probably see the sort of mood I put myself into as I was falling asleep, with thoughts going in that direction. I found myself wishing for the noise of Jesse snoring just to distract me from my thoughts. Because the annoying part of my thoughts was simply that they were making me realize that my family would benefit greatly from any efforts I could make to inject a more fun attitude into how I operate as a mom... and well, I have so many other goals in the back of my head right now that adding one more big one just makes me want to give up completely. I can't do it all at once, and I have no idea which is most important and should take priority. Plus, I've never been great at fulfilling my goals, anyway.

But enough about me and my wandering thoughts. We're now on Day 2, and it's going alright, although it would be better if Jacob weren't in such a frustrating age. We had an activity planned for this morning, but it was canceled due to rainy, yucky weather. So we did more shopping instead, and I got shiny new crayons for the kids, among other things. Melinda said the crayons were "just so exciting!", which made me giggle. Ah, but I know what she means. I'm always such a sucker for a brand new smooth-writing pen, myself!

Emily is coming over in just a little while. She saw my post yesterday and decided it was a perfect day to bring us some dinner. I'm so glad! I'm sure I could have managed just fine, but I'm even happier not to have to worry about it at all, and then to have her and her daughter's company, as well! Emily's always such a joy to be around, and it will make the day feel much less lonely. (Jacy, I don't know how you can do a full week at a time without Steve around! Do you spend a lot of time on the phone to make sure to get some contact with adults, or what?)

Hopefully bedtime will go a little nicer for all of us tonight. And of course, I have American Idol to entertain myself with this evening!!

Day 1

Jesse's staying in New York (not the city, but within sight of it) for a couple nights for work. I'm not thrilled about it, to say the least. I probably depend on Jesse coming home from work every day more than a lot of mothers do... it's just about all that gets me through the day, sometimes, knowing that soon there will be another adult to play "tag team" with. So I have a couple days of being on my own with three kids, and hopefully my sanity will stay in tact. And actually, Jesse doesn't know if he'll be coming home on Wednesday or not. They might need to stay Wednesday night and not come home till Thursday, if the timing works out that way.

Sigh.

I think the key will probably be to get ourselves out of the house as much as possible, so the kids aren't constantly bored and fighting with each other. So today we'll do some grocery shopping, go spend a gift card at Babies R Us, and maybe even do some clothes shopping for me, if I have energy for it. (And while I have plenty of clothes, a very dismal few look decent on my body shape anymore!) I'd like to throw a playground in there for the kids' sake, but I'm not sure the weather will be good for one. Guess we'll have to find out.

Wish me luck! These next few days will be the testing grounds for the next big adventure: Jesse has to go to Japan in early June for at least a week. I'm reeeeally not looking forward to that. Especially right near, and possibly overlapping, our birthdays. :(