Today or Tomorrow?

A conversation from Sunday...

Jack: Mommy, is it tomorrow yet?

Me: No, it's not tomorrow yet. Actually it's never tomorrow.

(I've heard this question before. It's so hard to explain it to him so I thought I'd just be blunt for this conversation.)

Jack: Then what day is it?

Me: Today is Sunday. It's always today.

Jack: When is it going to be tomorrow?

Me: Why do you want it to be tomorrow?

Jack: Because I want to eat my cookie and you said I could eat it tomorrow.

Me: Oh, okay, yes it is tomorrow. Let's go eat your cookie.

Email Fiasco

Today I sent out an email to Pat at work. As soon as I hit the sent button, I got a bad feeling. I was pretty sure I didn't hit Reply All. But something didn't quite feel right about it. Sure enough, as I checked the outgoing message log, I realized that I sent it to a lady at Defense Finance & Accounting Service.

Pat has had some issues with his pay and was emailing back and forth with this lady at DFAS to fix it. He copied me on the emails and I thought I should write back to him -

"Can you have her send you an excel spreadsheet with some actual calculations on it? Just joking, kind of. This is ridiculous. It seems like they just pull random numbers out of the air."

Only this went to the lovely lady who is trying to fix all these problems. I quickly sent her another email and apologized for my previous email, told her I was sure she knew what she was doing, and apologized again. She wrote back to me and was actually really nice about it and that made me feel even worse.

I hadn't heard from Pat about this until he was on his way home. He told me that he had to spend an extra hour at work because the Executive Officer called him into his office about some email I had sent. I was mortified even more until he finally told me that he was kidding and just wanted to mess with me. He's been looking at me and laughing at me and telling this story all night. Ha ha.

Maybe I subconsciously sent this email so I would have something to blog about tonight. Casey seems to go from adorable and sweet one minute to unbearable the next. (Also known as terrible twos I think.) And Jack is testing the limits of everything.

Actually, Pat thinks the story gets even better when he came home because both kids were running around naked while I was making dinner. We had just come in from puddle jumping and their clothes were wet. Then they got new stickers in the mail from Nana so they decided to stick the stickers all over themselves. Whatever keeps them busy while I make dinner!

Tuesday's Follies

Today I kind of felt like I was a visitor in my own home, kind of wondering who these kids were and why they were doing anything that they did. It was a pretty humorous but long day. Pat is on a business trip for the week, Casey's had a runny nose that has kept us away from the gym and it was a chilly, windy day so I had no desire to spend any time outside.

The morning started with some discussion of being a good citizen that I was trying to have with Jack. His teacher is talking about it in preschool and he had some homework about being a good citizen. He wasn't interested in talking about or thinking about being a good citizen this morning. I probably should have been talking about it at various points during the weekend but for some reason I tend to procrastinate on preschool homework. We (I) printed out some recycling pictures and we talked about it a little bit but he was more interested in cutting his paper into small pieces. Maybe that was his first step towards recycling that paper into new paper.

When we went upstairs to get dressed, Jack & Casey had no interest in clean clothes for the new day. Instead, they dragged all of their blankets and pillows into my bedroom to make new beds for themselves. Then Casey placed hers in the dog crate and asked me to shut the door for her. She just laid there until I finally had to drag her out so we could get dressed and out the door.

Casey used her shopping cart for shoe shopping today and put all the shoes she could find into it. Then she stopped like she was waiting to cross a street and said, "Turkey's coming!" I told her the turkey was done and she carried on with pushing a cart of shoes around the house. In the meantime, Jack was playing with his pet dog Rory. He told me that Rory was pulling him around the house and yanking him around a little bit. He tied Rory up to the toy kitchen so he wouldn't pull anymore. Sounds a lot like a dog named Tugger.

A lot of times, Casey asks to go take a nap when she is tired. Today, she thought it would be more fun to throw all of her blankets and animals out of her crib and then cry. About an hour later she was crying hysterically and yelling for something. All her blankets were still in the bed...but she was BUCK NAKED and yelling, "I want my monkey shirt!" Monkey shirt, pants and diaper were on the floor. At least she didn't wet the bed during the time her clothes were off. She saved that for later on the carpet.

During Jack's quiet time he asked if he could tell me some stories. He told me about a tiger who lived in Chuckle Hottage. Not to be confused with Chuckle Cottage where Little Miss Giggles lives. He also told me about a baby giraffe who was in the river and went down a waterfall.

After naptime, Jack and Casey raced each other across my bedroom and bathroom over and over. (At least I got some laundry folded.) Casey climbed into my bathtub and took her shirt off again in between races. After several races, Jack asked if we could open the window because he "needed some air." Then they took laundry baskets and filled them with blankets and pillows and themselves...

Jack is in this basket...

Between dinner and bathtime, Casey broke a mirror, but Jack managed to find his purple ball. He drove Pat and I crazy on Sunday asking us where his ball was. We didn't know and we told him repeatedly that we didn't know where it was, but that didn't seem to stop him from asking again. Now he's happy that he found it.

And I'm happy that everyone is in bed and the day is done!

A Spring Friday

Yesterday was a beautiful spring day. Although it seems to me that Virginia generally skips spring and moves right into summer...at least what summer feels like in Maine. Yesterday would have been a beautiful summer day in Maine but we had it here in March.

We spent the afternoon outdoors. Jack didn't nap and Casey took a short one, so we had plenty of time to play with every toy. Halfway through the afternoon, I thought I would document the day with some pictures, but since I thought of it so late, I only have a few to show.

I thought I might sit in this chair and read a magazine, take some pictures and field important calls. As soon as I got it out, I'm pretty sure I was needed to pitch or catch or bat or go for a walk or play volleyball with a beach ball or get Casey her cell phone.

We got the wagon out for her inaugural ride of 2010 and went for a cruise around the neighborhood. Casey brought her cell phone with her and "chatted" to somebody the whole way.

When we got back, Casey asked to ride some more, so Jack took her up and down the driveway a little bit.

Jack and I played a lot of baseball with his new bat and ball from Nana. We searched around the garage and found my softball glove so that we would both have gloves. I don't think I have ever felt like such a good baseball/softball player as I do when I play with Jack. I can hit almost any pitch he throws to me. It's like back in 8th grade when I was the MVP of the Alexander Elementary School softball team. Actually, I still don't know how I earned that accolade. I really wasn't much of a slugger, weighing in at probably 70 lbs. And I'm not sure my glove was all that golden either. Hmmm.

Casey's baseball future is looking pretty bright too. She ran to the garage and grabbed her Cinderella bat and ball...and headed straight into her playhouse with them. She found the perfect spot for the ball in her little sink...

Casey also spent a lot of the afternoon in car (Cozy Coupe) on her way to the "store." She would look over at me and say, "I'm going to the store, Mommy!"

Here's to more days of fun and sun in the driveway!

Another Dora Story

Every time I asked Casey what she wanted to read over the last few weeks, she would say "Dora." And we had no Dora books. We checked one out of the library a few months ago but had to return it. So, we went to Barnes & Noble and Casey got her Dora book. It's actually two stories in one. In the first part, Dora and her friends make a wish to "Little Star." Dora wishes for sunshine, Boots the monkey wishes for bananas and the iguana wishes for flowers. Not my first guess if someone asked me what an iguana wishes.

Then, Dora asks you, the reader, what your wish is. And three times in a row, Jack has said, "I wish for a boat to run into a sand bar." I have no idea where he came up with that. I'm not sure if Caillou had a rough boating day on one of his episodes or maybe Dora herself needed a "chart" instead of a "map" one day to help her navigate some treacherous waters. But Jack thinks he's pretty funny when he says it. I continue to look at him and wonder how that little brain works.

Chatting with Dora

Jack and Casey were watching Dora in the car on the way to they gym on Friday. I love it when Casey talks back to Dora. There is a part in the show where Dora always asks the viewers, "Where are we going?" Then the characters get a map out and figure out what places they have to go through (woods, windy rivers, mountains, etc) to get to their destination. On Friday, when Dora asked "Where are we going?", Casey yelled, "We're going to the gym, Dora!"

New Pillows

I finished the first of what I hope is many crafty projects today. I think I started this project about 4 weeks ago when I ran out to Hancock Fabric on a Sunday afternoon to buy some fabric to cover some pillows. The pillows I planned to cover were red and I switched to a blue with white polka dot. Hancock Fabric closes at 5pm on Sundays which I learned as I pondering different colors and a store manager announced that the store was now closed. The blue with polka dots was in front of me at the time and that's what I went with.

This couch doesn't get used much, except by the dog, so I wanted to make a cover for these red pillows that I could just throw in the wash when I needed to eliminate some dog slobber. I used a simple tutorial from a blog called Make It and Love It.

The hardest part of this project was cutting out the material. I didn't have all the right supplies to make sure that I had straight lines and square corners. I thought if I just used the polka dots as a guide that everything would come out alright. This was not true, as one came out a little skewed. Because I was a little dejected by this, it took about three weeks of the fabric just sitting on my dining room table before I finally sewed them. The second hardest part of the project was digging the sewing machine out of the closet and actually bringing it all the way down the stairs and taking it out of the box. After that, it was a sewing breeze.

It's not the most dramatic transformation ever, but it gives the couch and the room a fresh look and brings out the blue in the Annapolis picture above the couch.

Cookies and Costumes

I asked Jack if he wanted a cookie after his nap yesterday. He ended up eating two and I ate two (or so) and then that box of Girl Scout cookies was gone. And then Casey woke up from her nap. Jack ran upstairs to "get" her...he climbs into the crib and plays with her. I should have told him not to mention the cookies because I heard him saying, "Casey I just had two cookies but there's no more left so you can't have any." He wasn't taunting her but was so excited by the good fortune that he had to share it with his best friend. Luckily Casey took fruit snacks as a substitute for the cookies.

However, after naptime today, Jack said, "Mommy, why were there only 5 cookies in that box? Why did the girl only give you five? Don't you have any more?" Busted by the 3 year old. My response was to say nothing. I just let him ramble on a little more and then he distracted himself. I guess he really liked those cookies and I need to be a little more discreet about the cookies. I didn't really want to tell him that there were more cookies to begin with and that Pat and I had eaten them. I also didn't want to mention that there are still some boxes hidden in the cabinet...for adults only, but mostly for adult Mommies.

Here are a couple of funny pictures of Casey...Doctor Butterfly Casey who appears to be using her butterfly antennae as a stethoscope and performing a serious internal examination of a recycling truck. In fact, it looks like the recycling truck might be getting ready to give birth to a baby recycling bin.

Great Wolf Lodge Part 3

I didn't realize that there was going to be a part 3 to this story, but Jack and Casey weren't quite ready to let go of the fun. Jack keeps saying he wants to go there "next time" which I think means next week. First we watched the 4 little videos that I shot (grand total of about 1 min of viewing) over and over again. Jack wanted to watch himself playing in all the different areas, of which I have no video. I wish I had more, but I was always trying to keep my eye on one of them and that usually required me being in the water and I wasn't carrying my camera around in there.

We've been doing a little reorganizing around the house this weekend. Pat did an awesome job of cleaning out the garage and providing some useful storage in the entry from the garage. I reorganized a bunch of toys and discreetly put a bunch in "Mommy's" closet. The kids think it's just my boring crafting things but it's also where I hide presents (for now) and where some of our toys go to die. Basically I take toys that I think they won't miss and put them in the closet in a bin. If Jack doesn't ask for them after a while, then I will donate them or save them for Jack & Casey's cousins.

As part of my organizing plan, I bought a bigger bin for the dressup clothes and I was thinking of using the older one for Legos. Jack had other plans. After watching our waterpark videos and then a bunch of videos on YouTube, he decided the plastic bin was going to be a really good innertube for sliding. I think he spent hours today sitting in that box, pretending that he was going down a waterslide. This is the same child who only went down one slide by himself and needed serious convincing to go down one with the family. It was apparently a lot more fun in our living room in a plastic box. But I love his imagination. And should probably be thankful that he didn't decide to pretend the stairs were the waterslide and try to come down them while sitting in a plastic box.

More with the organizing...In the guest room/playroom I'm trying to create a better crafting area for myself where I can scrapbook and sew. (Do I sew? Not for a really long time, but I have some projects I want to work on.) A couple weeks ago, I bought some cubes at Michael's to store scrapbook supplies. They come in a nice compact box, about 15 inches square and 4 or 5 inches thick. I put one together last weekend. The box said it would take 15 minutes...an hour later I finally had it together. It wasn't hard, just time consuming...and maybe I had to take short breaks to watch various Olympic events.

Since then the other two boxes have been sitting on the floor in the living room. Pat offered to put them together for me tonight...he just got smart and brought in the automatic screwdriver. Unfortunately, I'm afraid Casey is going to be really upset about it in the morning. She has spent more time playing with these boxes last week than any toy she has. She loves to jump off them, either onto the floor or to launch herself onto a chair. Pat pushed them into a corner today because we were having company, but after dinner Casey was crying because she couldn't get them out to play. Hopefully if they're out of sight in the morning she will forget about them.

So, it's been a good weekend of playing, pretending and organizing...and it finally felt like spring. As a bonus, I also got my weekly grocery shopping done today. It has honestly been very hard to push the car cart around the grocery store once it is full of groceries and kids. This morning I went to a weight lifting class at the gym and my arms are really sore...I really don't think I could push it around tomorrow with both kids!

Here's the last group of pictures from Great Wolf Lodge. I originally tried to get Jack to put his arm around Casey. He didn't want to, so Casey put her arms around him...he turned around to not be in the picture...she still held him...

He looked up, she looked down...
He looked down, she looked right...
He looked up again, she looked at me...
And that's as good as I got. Kind of like an awkward prom picture.

Great Wolf Lodge Part 2

Here is the video of Casey running around to the slide. Over and over again!

We got to Great Wolf Lodge on Tuesday afternoon and spent a couple hours in the waterpark. Then we decided to try to get the kids to take a late nap. Our room was called a Kid Kamp room and it had a separate little room with bunk beds for the kids. Casey has never slept anywhere but in a crib or in a pac'n'play so she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do in that big open bed. And Jack was too excited to sleep. I think we both knew they weren't going to nap but it was worth a try...we hoped all the water play would knock them out.

After the aborted naptime, we took them down to the craft center. It was part playroom, part craftroom. They both worked at a little bit of coloring and Jack worked with the scissors, which are his new crafting passion. We decided to grab an early dinner before heading back to the waterpark. We drove over to a restaurant across the street and had a pretty good dinner. I think I declared it the "best dinner out with the kids in a long time." They were both pretty happy with some pirate stickers and a coloring book that I gave them and they both ate their dinner. Casey even asked/demanded to sit in a high chair, which was nice for me since it meant she wasn't crawling around on the bench or under the table.

After dinner we spent some more time in the pool. Despite the fact that it's always 84 and sunny there, it didn't feel so warm to me after dinner. It started snowing outside, big, heavy flakes and I think Pat and I were feeling more tired than the kids. Casey started having trouble crawling out of the pool to get up to the top of the slide so we knew she was tired. She also had a pretty dazed look on her face.

While Pat put Casey to bed (in the pac'n'play) I took Jack down to storytime in the lobby. There were animated characters singing songs and then there was a story in front of the big fireplace. It was so cute to see all the kids in their pajamas. Jack fell asleep shortly after we got back to the room. Despite the presence of the really cute Kid Kamp bunk beds, he wanted to sleep with Pat and I. I had an idea that I wasn't going to get a great night of sleep in the first place and I really didn't want to add sleeping with Jack to that. While he was laying with Pat, I pulled the sleeper bed out of the sofa and set that up. As soon as he saw that, he wanted to sleep in it. And so, despite the really cute bunk beds we had, neither kid ended up sleeping in them. Casey was in the little room, but in the pac'n'play. After Jack was asleep, my crazy husband drove all the way back to Chesapeake in the snow to play in a hockey game that didn't even start until 11:30pm. Then he drove back to Williamsburg for more fun.

We headed back to the water in the morning for a couple hours before it was time to check out. Jack was a lot braver the second day although he still wouldn't go down the slide. He figured out that he could walk down the lazy river and thought that was great. I appreciated all the time in the lazy river too since it was the warmest water.

Jack and Casey also loved going in the wave pool. The waves would be on for five minutes and then off for five minutes and they liked it both ways. Casey would get inside an inner tube and just walk around inside it. When the water got a little too deep for her, she would hang on the handles and float and I would push her back towards the shallow water. Jack liked to just sit on top of the inner tube and float around. He liked to think he was moving himself when he kicked his feet, but he usually had a little help.

We all had a really great time at the Great Wolf Lodge. Casey keeps saying that she wants to go swimming again. I think it was the perfect time of year to go...no crowds and the 84 degrees felt great while it was snowing out.

Great Wolf Lodge Part 1

Pat starts work again tomorrow. He's actually been working, except for this week, but more of a desk job for the last month. Tomorrow he heads back to work on a ship...a big ship also known as an aircraft carrier. We're both wondering how long the hours are going to be and how often he will have to stand duty and what the work environment will be like. In the Navy, it seems like it is either full speed ahead or all stop when it comes to working hours. He's either working crazy hours and standing a lot of duty or he's home by four and has already worked out. It never seems to be in the middle. But, we will deal with whatever comes our way.

Anyway, since we're not sure what the next two years are going to bring us, we took a mini-vacation on Tuesday night to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg. It is a hotel with an indoor waterpark. We drove up after Jack's school and immediately put our bathing suits on. I'm so glad that I decided to stock up on next size up swim diapers at the end of year sale last fall and that we bought Casey a bathing suit at a consignment store not too long ago. Even better is that the swim diapers just happened to have Dora on them and she's one of Casey's best friends these days.

The weather was 84 degrees and sunny in the waterpark. That's my kind of weather. Outside it actually snowed all night.

As soon as we got in the water, both Jack and Casey headed for a small kids waterslide. Jack went first and Pat didn't catch him before he went under water at the bottom, so that turned out the be the first and last time he went down a slide by himself. We spent a lot of time trying to convince him to do it again, but he wasn't doing it. I told Pat I thought he'd do it after a couple more days there, but we weren't staying long enough for that to happen.

Casey, on the other hand, went down the slide over and over and over again. She loved it. Every time she got out of the water she would be so excited to run back up and do it over again and every time I had to yell at her to walk. I have some video of it, but it's almost time for The Office so I'll try to post it another night.

Here are some pictures from dinner and a couple from the water park on Tuesday night. Jack refuses to smile for the camera and insists on making sad faces...

Every time I asked Casey to look at me, I was 2 seconds too late in snapping the picture and she turned away. I have a lot of profile pictures of her Tuesday night.