Weekend

Friday night: Left work early to attend a potluck at school. All the tables were kid-height, which meant that for the first hour, I was running around attempting to keep X from shoving his hands into every tray and smearing pasta into his hair while K alternately played with his friends and looked sad because I wasn't paying attention to him. It got a lot easier once Daddy joined us. We danced, I ate a delicious ice cream sundae, and K proudly pointed out the picture he drew of me for the Mother's Day wall.

Saturday: At the party, someone had mentioned that they took their baby to the Children's Museum, and of course he was sick within 48 hours. Somehow only the first part of this registered (ATTENTION: FORESHADOWING) and around 9:30 when the kids were starting to get antsy, I announced that we were all going to the Children's Museum. I woke JW up, packed the diaper bag, and off we went. The kids had a great time, especially in the Peep's World room where K played with water and X dipped a spatula in and drank some before I could stop him (FORESHADOWING #2). We ate lunch in the cafeteria, and then JW took the baby home for a nap while K and I stayed on and took the T home later. In the evening we all ran around outside.

Sunday: I jolted awake at 4:30 when I heard loud coughing, and then dozed off again when all seemed quiet. A little before 5, X woke up screaming. He was inconsolable, quieting down only for a few moments here and there when I fed him his bottle and held him. I pulled his jacket on and took him out for a walk. He was okay while we walked around the neighborhood. After a while my arms got tired and I decided to take him out in the stroller. He slumped in the seat, looking exhausted. I hoped he would fall asleep. Instead, about a mile from home, he spewed cottage cheese all over himself and the stroller. I cleaned him up as best I could, held him for as far as possible while pushing the stroller, and then wrapped him in my fleece sweatshirt and put him back in. He fell asleep almost immediately, and was much more cheerful after a half-hour nap. (In the garage, where I parked him after we got home. I washed his jacket in the sink, while looking out the window at him sleeping in the garage. Which I guess is one advantage of our odd kitchen layout.) As it turns out, we all got lucky. X ended up sleeping for most of the day, but he didn't throw up again and seemed to be in a good mood. I thought we were in for it when he went down for a nap at 4 p.m. and was still sleeping when I went to bed at 11, but he slept a full 15 hours until 7 a.m. Monday morning and woke up happy (and ravenous).

As for the rest of us, we took a family trip to Home Depot where we bought some plants and patio furniture. We finally have a table and chairs in our backyard! We celebrated by having dinner out there. K had a playdate with a friend from school who is moving away this summer, and the neighbor girl came over to color at our new table. In the evening, K and I drew robots.

Monday morning: I PLANTED my plants. First I woke up at 5:30 and went running, a habit I'm trying to re-establish. (It's only been a week and a half, but it's a start.) Everybody was still asleep when I returned, so I grabbed a shovel and planted my azalea. And then I intercepted K as he was coming downstairs, and we went back out and planted the marigolds. He kept saying, "Gardening is fun! It's like playing, but it's real!" I am terrible at anything involving plants, and when I didn't get around to planting them yesterday I thought they would just sit on our front steps until they eventually died. I was so proud of myself that I accosted a neighbor who was innocently walking her dog, and made her come back and look at my plant.

Life is SO much better when the weather is nice and we can be outside.