Kid Adventures

Another crazy week!  Right now, it’s dreary and rainy and cold and I just want to crawl into bed and finish my book and sleep.  I had taken Monday and Tuesday off (the last of my vacation days - I need to start accruing!)  and took my two god-children, Cameron and Maggie.  It’s amazing what kids remember.  Every time Cam goes to my car he asks about the kazoo.  My mom had sent me two and the kids had first used them when they were in my car.  For everyone’s sanity I kept them in the car (and not brought into the house).  Except one time, Maggie brought hers in.  Months and even years go by and Monday, when we are loading up the car seats, first thing Cam asks for is the kazoo.  I only have one, so the adventure starts in our search for a kazoo.  In the end, we spent time running errands, but no kazoos.  We checked out the new movie, Turbo.  

We got to the movie theater a bit early, so stopped by the neighboring grocery store and picked up some food - bananas, rabbits (a take on the classic gold fish) and lemonade.  And we had a little picnic on the side of the store.  It turned into a great time of photo shoots.  The kids wanted to be captured in super hero mode as they were running by.

After the movie, we swung by their mom’s place and had a nice visit.  It was really strange since her work has been going through some changes so the office was very quiet.  Perfect timing for a visit with two little kids.  We wrapped up the day with a play date at a nearby playground with a good friend of Cece’s who has three little girls about the same age.  The playground was empty - all ours and we got to play and catch up.  At the end of the day I felt like a proper suburban mum.

Tuesday was the grand adventure into the city to visit the Museum of Science a la public transportation (one bus and two subway trains).  Another funny thing was that we parked my car at my place and I explained how my neighbor, Cathy, looked in on my cats while I was away.  They were excited on seeing the cats, but really wanted to meet my neighbor - they were enthralled.  Of course, she was working so not this time.

Of course, it took longer getting to and from the museum than the time we spent in the museum, but the kids loved the adventure of the traveling and thankfully the waits weren’t too long.  By mid-morning, both kids were tired already.  I attribute it to all the excitement of having me visit. We’d start the morning with them coming into my bedroom (I stayed over) and hanging out before getting ready for the day.  And then we’d pick out outfits (first day, Maggie and I had matching shirts on, second day, Cam and I - pure accident that I packed clothes they had - good old polos) 

and I’d try to talk them into eating breakfast - they’re aren’t big on eating in the morning.  So at the museum, they would oscillate back and forth between super happy and then cranky, pouty, close to throwing a tantrum.  Good old power of distraction would do the trick and snuggles (at least with Maggie - she was exhausted) to keep them going.

I did kick myself that we all chose blue shirts.  It turned out that the museum was popular for school groups and they all seemed to have blue shirts on.  So keeping an eye on two kids running around in blue shirts was challenging!  

After the museum we made our way to Dad’s work this time and got to check out his work and all the cool toys the IT guys had on their desks.  And then I was off to my dentist appointment were I think I was close to falling asleep a few times as they worked on my fillings.  I was exhausted!

It turns out that I was coming down with something - Wednesday I tried to make it into work and my body was just done.  I was dressed, make-up on but couldn’t get out the door.  I ended up crashing and sleeping most of the day (I had done this on Saturday so must have just delayed the inevitable).  It wasn’t until the next day I woke up with a sore throat I realized I had a cold.  Very strange feeling and even more of a reason why I just want to crawl into bed today.  Instead, I have to finish ripping up the carpet in my loft since Nick is coming over early tomorrow morning and we’re loading up the pick-up to dump it all before we have to return the truck to dad.  I can’t wait to get it out of the house.  I have high hopes of the transformation of the loft.  I did realize last night I forgot to take the before pictures. But the after pictures will be awesome!  I just need to do all the work first….