A little bit of this, and a lot more of that

I've actually been meaning to post for awhile now, but I've been caught up in reading during any spare moment. If you know me well then you'll know how...consumed I can become with a book. It doesn't even have to be a good book, I've spent plenty of time voraciously reading some really terrible books.

Last week I signed up for "Reading Adventure" at work, which is a summer reading program for our students that comes with a t-shirt and a pizza party at the end of the year. Under the guise of "motivating the kids" I signed up to read 8 books this summer, which is lower than my pre-child summer reading but much, much higher than anything I've been able to accomplish post-children. In fact, other than text books, I don't think I've had the opportunity to read 8 books since Penelope's birth. This is unusual for me.

Although having spent a good part of the day today trying to squeeze in as much reading time as possible, it's not hard to see why I haven't read much lately. The kids, of course, take up a lot of my time, but I also get reading tunnel vision and tend to neglect things when I'm reading. Things like eating, chores, and changing diapers.

I have read two books in the last three days, but the house is a disaster and the laundry isn't moving itself. Also? My kids would like to play with me. So no new book for a couple of days.

We did go out today, it was really lovely day. Not nearly as hot as it had been, and since Griffin decided 6am was the perfect time to wake up we were out of the house before 9. I took a chance on Fairytale Town, which can be kind of a crapshoot on Fridays. The zoo is always crazy-busy those days so FTT seemed like a slightly safer bet. It was pretty empty and the munchkins were able to run around rather freely.

Penelope made some new friends, one 4 year old and a pair of 6 year old girls. One girl taught her how to play duck-duck-goose and the older girls all pretended to be princesses in Cinderella's carriage (the carriage was real, this is Fairytale Town after all). All in all the kids had a good time and both took decent naps, which is good because the boy-child has been super clingy and I needed a break.

Here are some pictures from the day.


Penelope on the stage... She insisted on going up there and "dancing". In this picture she's saying "look at me mama!" *sigh* I think shell be ready for her first dance recital this August.






Crawling in the cheese (from The Cheese Stands Alone)




On Jack and Jill's hill fetching some water



In other news, I've slowed down on potty training because I am lazy.

Griffin is sort of sleeping better; for two nights he's only been up once. I'm not holding my breath. The books did say it might take a month of new routines/techniques before they were consistently effective. So we'll see. As long as we don't get any repeats of The Night From Hell then we should be ok. I still really look forward to Saturday nights when my parents have the kids because I get a least 8 solid hours of sleep. I miss my babies in the morning, but I do not miss 2am wake up calls in the slightest.

One of my oldest and dearest friends turned 30 in February. Another one of my oldest and dearest friends turns 30 next week. And the third oldest and dearest friends turns 30 a week before I turn 29 (again). Where the heck has the time gone? I swear to you that it was just last week my mom and I were getting ready to go see NKOTB for my 10th birthday. (FTR I have exactly three oldest and dearest friends. I have known Amy since the 4th grade, Christina since the 7th grade, and Meagan since the 9th grade).

Oh! For whatever reason that reminds me of some funny Penelope-isms. She's has become rather obsessed with "princess music" and so we listen to a lot of Disney soundtracks, especially The Princess and the Frog since it's fun and jazzy, even Griffin likes it (I have video of a naked Griffin rocking out but I won't post it online, next time you see me, ask and I'll show it to you). Penelope is now fond of saying "mama, I'm almost there!" and "I got to dig a little deeper!" and "mama, I'm a princess." yes honey, yes you are.

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