Too many times I feel harried, and hurried, and just plain worn out. Too many days I wonder, did I do enough to nurture, and stimulate the young minds I am molding? Too many days I wish I could be a perfect mom.
Now, I know I'll never be perfect. (no matter how hard I try. But gosh darn it, I have to try.) I know I will always beat myself up for something I feel like I got wrong. I know there will always be people who think I'm not being a good Mom, or that their way is better. It might be. But it may not be the right way for our family, and that is all I care about. What is right for Ryan and Evan. This was a day that I would feel none of that self doubt, or self criticism.
*****
Today at breakfast I asked the boys what they wanted to do today. (for once we had no plans) They thought about it and Ryan, today's spokesman for the pair, said "park" "Well," I said, "we went to the park yesterday, and we are going tomorrow, is there anywhere else you would like to go?" They thought about it for awhile, and Evan, very clearly said "zoo" (not a word I've heard from him, ever). Oh, I should note, that they both slept in to a glorious 6:30 this morning, so we were dining a bit later than usual. I quickly calculated all of the things I would have to do to make it to the zoo today, and decided to attempt to shift our plans to the Wild Animal Park. (it's about 20 minutes closer)
Once I mentioned the water, and they remembered the crocodile, we were set. We scurried around and left the house by 8:15. Arrived, sun screened the boys and myself, and were at the gates at opening. We did our usual, but the boys kept saying they wanted to feed the ducks. (I thought, hmm, we could have just gone to the lake 5 minutes from the house to feed the ducks, but...Okay, let's go feed the ducks)
Near the duck pond are little boat that are controlled by these wheels that today, the boys found very entertaining.
But even more interesting was the coin return and the little door where Ryan found a one dollar token, and a quarter, and Evan, not to be out done, also found a shiny quarter. You would think that they had just found a truck or bulldozer by the running and squealing. It was really cute, however, I quickly snatched their treasures from their hands (choking hazard much?) and sanitized their hands. (do you know how dirty money is? yuck)
Lunch was very uneventful (which in this house is great news) Evan ate two jars of Green Beans with very little fighting. Ryan ate all of his pasta and an entire container of yogurt.
During naps, I had the bright idea to try and cook with the boys. I've been hearing that they should start doing things like this but have been avoiding it like no one's business. I had to make some pasta for Ryan, so I decided to prep it, and when the boys woke up, we could "cook" it together.
Of course I have no pictures of this because um, you try to wrangle two toddlers in your non-childproofed kitchen, while trying to "cook" with them, AND then grab the camera too? No.
It went much better than I expected. They were so great. Evan loves the food processor, and Ryan does not, so he ground up the 4 chicken breasts. Ryan poured the chicken into a bowl, then Evan poured in the sauce. They let me stir, and package. And then we repeated the whole process again.* Each boy getting a turn at pouring sauce, chicken, noodles. They were so excited, they wanted to taste their creation!
After we finished, we drew pictures of what we had just done in the kitchen. Okay, I drew the pictures, they told me what to draw, and the colored over them. This gave us a chance to talk about what we had done, just a little reinforcement of concepts. Plus the boys were as always happy to color.
Okay, perfect mom award to this point. An outing, a cooking lesson, an art project, all. in. one. day. Feeling really smug and proud of myself for not taking the easy way anywhere in this day.
And then dinner. Evan threw up, argh. Ryan decided to moisturize in yogurt when I turned my back for a second.
Still, pretty good Mom, I grabbed my camera, snapped off a couple of pictures of yo-yo baby, and Evan ate 2 more jars of food, post vomit.I'm not sure why today was so great. The boys were in a great mood all day. (provided that Row-Row-Row- Your Boat was on the ipod) It all just seemed EASY! I can't believe I just said that, but yeah, it felt easy. The boys behaved and listened perfectly on our outing. They were really great in the kitchen, and even when they didn't share, or when there were little meltdowns over the song playing, it was easy. Maybe someone spiked my Luna bar with a Valium. Or maybe the boys are growing up a little bit. =( What ever it is, I hope we have many, many more "Sunshine Day(s)"
*I make two pounds of pasta at a time and freeze it in portions for easy meals and while I have a huge bowl that could mix all of it at time, somehow it's just easier to divide the batch in half and use a handy smaller bowl.
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A couple of asides.
I read in one of my Parenting Magazines that the average parent argues with their toddler 20 times an hour, some as many as 55 times an hour. Huh???? I think I need a definition of argue. Oh maybe I need to be very thankful.
Ryan said his first three word phrase yesterday "Big, Truck, Book"
and Evan today "More, Music, Please"
Words, and two word phases are coming rapid fire these days, they are parrots, they are sponges, they are chatty Cathy's.
Ryan woke up after about an hour of nap today, but instead of screaming for me to get him up, he sat and played with his babies. (he now sleeps with no less that 15 stuffed animals, who go almost everywhere with us, if I allow it) The conversation went like this
"baby, yup"
"pha, pha, yup" (Snoopy)
"ty-ty, yup" (tiger)
"mon, mon, yup"(monkey)
"Fwog, yup" (frog)
"Baaaaaa, yup" (sheep)
"ma, ma, yup"
"Da-di, yup"
"EV-an, yup"
and then he fell asleep. and I sat laughing so hard I cried.
Evan has been recognizing his letters, both in print and with signs. It's crazy! I usually do the signs when we are singing the alphabet song, but never really tried to teach them the signs. A couple of days ago, Evan started doing some of them and telling me what they were. He'd say E and I'd look up and he had his hand in the E shape, I think he knows about 15-20 of the letters. He's always loved looking at the letters on our T-shirts, and we'd tell him what they were, now he tells us.
The "fist bump" is our new favorite show of accomplishment. However the "high-five" is still a close second.
And finally a couple of other pictures from outings in the last few days.
I just missed the perfect shot of the two of them looking at me with a huge fish over their heads.
There's some PG-13 shots that are not for the web, of these two buck nekid boys, taking a sun shower on the street by the Marine Room after our Saturday morning in the surf. I honestly don't think there is anything cuter than baby butts. (that doesn't make me creepy does it?)
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