Six Kids, Ages 2 to 5

On Monday, I drove two hours to visit a friend from physical therapy school. She has four kids. Her oldest just turned five, the twins are three, and the baby is two.

It was great to see Beth. The last time we saw each other her oldest was only five months old. Beth is one of the easiest going, hardest working people I know. She makes having four young children look easy.

The kids enjoyed playing in the water table and little pool.
They also had fun on the playground. I missed getting their pictures on it.

We had a great lunch outside because as Beth said, "I can just hose it down when we are finished."

After lunch, Wesley played with Beth's son in his room and Lydia played with the girls in the twins' room. Lydia loved all the girl toys. Here is one of the twins all dressed up.

Me and my kids.

The kids played so well together and everyone had fun until we tried taking a group photo. You can tell in this photo that Lydia needed a nap. She fell asleep almost as soon as we got in the car.

It was very refreshing for me to spend time with Beth and her kids. We are both Christian moms who enjoy working part-time. We were very close during school and it was nice to catch up. We still have a lot in common.

Moon Bounce + Ice Cream Truck = FUN!

On Tuesday we celebrated National Night Out with our neighbors. The kids loved the moon bounce.

This was a rather easy event for Vi and me (especially for me). The landscaping company who takes care of all the common areas in our neighborhood donated hotdogs and hamburgers and grilled them. Another neighbor who runs a bakery donated all the buns. Vi picked up drinks and condiments.

The kids also played on the still new playground.

Lydia took a little break on the bridge.

Baby O-Lydia (as Wesley calls her) learned to climb up the rock wall.

Lydia took another break in the moon bounce.

The property management company arranged for the moon bounce and the ice cream truck.

Wesley remembered the treat he had last year from the ice cream truck and he wanted the same thing.

It was a great evening. I really enjoyed talking with our neighbors and seeing all the kids having fun.

A Mom's Nightmare at the Museum

Saturday was David's birthday.
I made a simple cake to help us celebrate on Friday night.

On Saturday morning we went to the Natural History Museum.

We started out in the Ocean exhibit and really enjoyed it.

We like taking our kids places and we get out a lot and usually things going very well; however, things went terribly bad on Saturday. I told Chris that evening that I thought it had been the worst day with the kids ever. Well, the worst day with a certain two year old.

She started fussy and screaming around 11:30. I think it was a combo of being hungry and tired. We gave her a snack and she fused during that also. As we walked around the museum again she continued to fuss. Thanfully she eventually fell asleep in the stroller and slept for about 90 minutes.

My favorite exhibit was about forensic anthropology. Lydia was sleeping soundly so I got a good chance to look at most of it. I would love to go back and look at all of that stuff again and read all of the information. I normally don’t feel that way about the museum exhibits but I found this one to be fascinating. Thankfully, I can read about most of it online and it will be on exhibit through the beginning of 2011.

We had a late lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian. The food in the food court there is wonderful. It was our second time eating lunch there with David and his family.

During lunch, Lydia again acted like a whiny two year old. I felt bad for David who was spending his birthday with The Grumpy Family. Chris and I were in not in the best of form either. I wish I had handled things better. Ugghh, I will probably be embarrassed about this day for awhile.

After long naps on Sunday, the kids were much more cooperative. Wesley sat at the table and did some "school" work and Lydia played nicely with one of her favorite toys. That night we took them out to eat and they did really well even with the 20 minute wait for a table.

Aye Matey

Last Tuesday I took the kids to a local water park, Pirate's Cove.



The water park is designed for younger children. (I was afraid to take three kids by myself to a large water park.) There is a small bucket that dumps and three little slides. Lydia could wear the life jacket on the double green slide but not the blue tunnel slide so I just removed her jacket and caught her at the bottom of the tunnel slide.

Wesley and Claire had fun on the slides and on the diving boards.

Lydia needs to have some sort of floatation device on at all times at the pool. After the pool break, she jumped in with the rest of the kids (without a life jacket) and bobbed up and down until I reached in and pulled her out. I made the mistake of taking her life jacket off when she went to the potty and I didn't put it right back on like I should have.

There was one pool break during the four hours we were there.

The pool is divided into four areas. Life jackets are only allowed in the shallowest area. When we went into the four foot area I had to remove Lydia's life jacket. This made her very unsafe and she was constantly saying, "let go of me" and "don't hold me." Every time she jumped in the pool, she tried to convince me to "move back, move way over there."

She thinks she can swim but she can't. She can go forward but she also sinks. At this point she is completely unsafe in or near the water.

The shallow end had a couple of these cool palm tree sprayers.

We had chairs under one of the huge umbrellas. I packed a lunch for all of us but I didn't factor in how hungry swimming makes everyone. Thankfully Leslie brought snacks to share with us.

There is also a baby pool area and a large sand pit at Pirate's Cove. Since my kids were so happy in the big pool we just stayed there the entire time. I told Claire that if she comes to visit us next summer I will take her to a bigger water park. She really did have a good time on Tuesday and I was so happy that she got to spend the day at the pool with Wesley and Lydia.

I hope to go back there again this summer.

A City Zoo

On Monday I took Claire, Wesley, and Lydia to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.

This was our third visit and there are several reasons I love making an annual trip to the Maryland Zoo.

1. It is FREE with our FONZ membership.

2. There are different animals than at the National Zoo.

3. It is a lot less crowded.

4. Almost all of it is shaded.

5. The kids like it.

The zoo is divided into two sections: African Journey and Maryland Wilderness.

The baby elephant is about 16 months old. The chimpanzees were very playful on Monday. Up close with a giraffe. Wesley and Claire enjoyed feeding the giraffe but Lydia thought it was a little too close for comfort. The Maryland Wilderness includes a Children's Zoo. The kids brushed the goats. The silo slide in the barn was closed but the tree slide was open.The big excitement at the zoo was seeing a black rat snake in a tree above the path. One of the zoo workers got it out of the tree but she wasn't being very careful and the snake bit her at least twice. The kids had fun and they were so well behaved. Wesley and Claire jumped across the lily pads. We rode the carousel. I was proud of myself because I actually packed lunch for all of us. We ate our sandwiches, chips, and bananas at a picnic table in the shade.

I rewarded the children's good behavior with a treat. My kids chose popsicles.
At Base Camp Discovery, Wesley and Claire got to pet a king snake. The zoo "doesn't allow young children to touch the snakes because the snakes could carry salmonella." So Lydia was not allowed to touch it.

"Red and yellow, kill a fellow. Red and black, friend of Jack."
Lydia fell asleep right after we saw the polar bears so she missed seeing the praire dogs. She slept all the way home and Wesley also fell asleep in the car. Five hours at the zoo wore me out also.