Day # 43: Family reunion

   We just returned from a week at the beach with my parents, Aunt, Uncle, five cousins, the cousins children (does that make them my second cousins?) and a boyfriend. A grand total of 23! Unlike the vacation from hell trip to New York in June, this one was actually incredibly relaxing. Our days were filled with naps, margaritas, and the beach.  I must admit that things started to take a downhill turn towards the end of the week. A few of us passed around the stomach bug (which I was included in), my mother was bitten by a spider, and my cousin had to be rushed to the ER for emergency surgery for compression syndrome. Not to mention a bit of sea sickness during a deep sea fishing trip and yacht excursion. We sure do know how to have fun!  We have now (grudgingly) returned home, back to the daily grind of laundry, the gym, grocery shopping, and not laying on the beach. Aside from all of that, I came home relaxed, rested, and very tan.

Day #42: Zumba and Zumba Gold

   I have been running for 17 years. I hadn't really realized it had been that long until I stopped to think about it ( a sign of my age I suppose, when you can vividly remember things from 17 years ago!). And now it makes sense that my knees are starting to ache. I've been going to a gym (on and off, but mostly on) for almost 10 years. So sometimes I get in a gym rut; my routines are the same, I'm rarely sore, I'm bored! So in an effort to revamp my gym routine I try new classes out and add them into my week when I can. I am OBSESSED with Les Mills Body classes. Obsessed. They have a wide range of classes: Body Attack (my personal favorite), Body Combat (my second favorite), Body Pump, Body Step, Body Jam, Body Flow, etc. You get the point. So through the years I've tried some of these and usually take about 2 classes a week, just to mix things up. My friend Amy and I work out together most days and last week we decided to try Zumba. All I hear are good things about this class, from the young and old. I mean, people rave about it. Unfortunately I have no dance skill/coordination/rhythm of any kind. None. And I proved it in Zumba last week. This is why I run; I at least have enough coordination to do that. So we ventured in to Zumba and low and behold, I fell in love. If I could, I would marry Zumba and have zumba babies. It was so. much. fun. I told Amy I felt like the lights should have been low and I should have done a tequila shot before class though. Since I cannot shake what my mama gave me I spent most of class hopping around and laughing at myself, which is always fun to do. However, the next day I was sore, and thus reassured that Zumba was indeed a good workout.
  Today Amy and I decided to go to  Zumba on a different day at a different gym. As we were walking in I noticed that the class was Zumba Gold, not just Zumba. I wondered aloud what the "gold" part meant and was told it was a slower paced Zumba. You know, for beginners (like me) and people who want to move slower...hmm. I started looking around and noticed Amy and I were the only people under the age of 70! Okay, I exaggerate, but only a little bit. Really, there were about 12 people, or, senior citizens, I should say. It really did look like a retirement home field trip in there. One man had to be 80 and he somehow managed to incorporate a chair into the class.?.  Needless to say, we bailed out after song 2. So if ever you find yourself wondering if there is a difference between Zumba and Zumba Gold, there is. A big one. If you are under the age of 65, go ahead and try Zumba!

Day #41: Pee and Poop- the sequel

   I'm sitting outside on the back deck, under the umbrella enjoying the heat of summer and the occasional breeze. I have two halfway finished magazines, a book, and my computer all to keep me entertained. I've had a productive Monday morning, well I have yet to shower, but I ran 4 miles, cleaned out the guest room, weeded and trimmed up the front yard, and vacuumed downstairs. I plan on going inside in an hour to start dinner; meatloaf, mac and cheese, and baked applesauce. I'm way too excited about dinner. The kids are playing happily together in the kiddie pool, jumping in, splashing. Everything is going great, or so I thought.  Savannah came to me, looking very serious and mumbled something to me. I look at her, thinking I have surely heard her wrong. I ask her to repeat herself. "I pooped under the bucket". I look in the yard and the big red bucket is suspiciously flipped over. I look at her and ask if she is serious. Oh yes, she is. She squatted, pooped, and covered it up with a big red bucket (and how did I miss that, I was sitting right here....). Now, Savannah is 4. The last pooping "accident" she had, she was probably two and potty training; this was no accident. Even worse, she knew it was wrong, which is why she covered it up and then confessed! She was testing me. Because next she said, "Luke did it". Yes, as you may all recall, Luke did poop on the deck last weekend, so Savannah seemed to interpret that as it being okay for her to poop in the yard.and hide it under a bucket. Oh Lord. I made that child clean up the poop with a paper towel and a plastic bag. That was gross. 

   The funny thing is, I had just opened up my computer to blog. and I was wondering what I was going to blog about today. And there it was, (literally) right in front of me.

Day# 40: Slacking off

   So I began my blogging journey by blogging almost daily. Now, I'm lucky if I blog once every other week. I blame my husband being home. When he was gone, I would blog whenever, but now all of that alone time (that I used to complain about), I no longer have. And I'm not complaining. I'm just saying, I went from no husband, to one who is home all.the.time. He has recently switched to a new training squadron and the pace there is slow at best. He goes to work around 9ish and is home by noon. And as I have mentioned before, when he is home and hanging around the house, I tend to be much less productive. So needless to say, I've been slacking lately on my blogging and it's not for lack of material, it's for lack of alone time. And I'm not complaining. Having my husband home and around is far better than being out of the country for 6 months. It's feast or famine around here; you gotta take what you have at the moment and make the best of it. So we have had A LOT of quality time, one "vacation" to NY, one beach vacation planned for mid- July, multiple zoo trips, and a few Busch Garden trips on the horizon. In between all of that is playing outside in the kiddie pool almost daily. I've also been catching up on sleep that I've missed the past, oh, 4 years or so. Luke now "sleeps in" until 7-7:30am and sometimes Savannah will even sleep until 8am! I feel like I've won the sleeping lottery. The past 4 years I have been up before 7am and several times each night, so I feel like I should take advantage of this. Plus, the big boy bed is right around the corner. Yesterday morning Savannah 'helped' Luke out of bed. I made them reenact this. Luke swung a leg over the rail and then Savannah held out her arms as he did a free fall into them. Nice. So my sleeping in will come to an end once again when Mr. Luke has the freedom to get in and out of bed as he pleases.... All that said,  slacking off is quite nice. You should give it a try.

Day #39: Poop and pee

    My title today says it all. During my first pregnancy I became obsessed overly concerned with bodily functions and the frequency with which they occur. My prenatal vitamins made me constipated, the iron supplements didn't help either, and I was up 3-4 times every night to pee. I mean, bodily functions were a HUGE part of my day and night, no wonder I was so concerned. Well then Savannah was born and for the first WEEK or her life, we had to track her pee/poop output, frequency, and color. (Can you seriously believe I've dedicated an entire blog to poop and pee?? What has my life become?!?) So once I became a mom, talking about stuff like this was normal. I find myself just chatting away with friends about whether Luke has pooped or not, like its all so...normal. And like they care.
  So to tie this story into present day, this morning we went to the beach. When we got home, Tyson stripped Luke down in the backyard and sprayed him off. I went inside and made a quick lunch for the kids so they could eat on the deck while they dried off. I come out and get Luke set up  (naked) on the deck to eat his lunch. The deck is wet and Tyson said he had to spray it off because Luke went up there and started peeing all over it. Classic boy. So he sat on a wet deck and ate his lunch, Savannah right next to him in her swim suit. I then go inside to fix Tyson lunch and when I come out, our lunches in hand, I find that Luke is squatting and has just finished pooping. On the deck. While eating lunch. And then....he stepped in it. True story.
  Theres just never a dull moment around here. And I love it.

Day #32-#38: Roadtripping to NYC

Where, oh where, do I begin this post? We have just returned from a week long family "vacation" to Philadelphia and New York City (note to self: vacation is NOT roadtripping with the little people; it is a beach.without kids.and a margarita.) Here are the high points though:

- Staying in a historic hotel in Philadelphia where the parking garage was several blocks away. Tyson has now banned us from staying anywhere unless there is on site parking. Apparently hauling the travel crib several blocks through Philly was unpleasant.

- Luke decided to choose this week to begin climbing out of his travel crib.

- Savannah started saying, "holy crack" (holy crap). I should probably stop saying that. But she was also told by her great aunt Claudia that "pouty's not pretty" and she now says that throughout the day to herself.

- Luke entered the pre-terrible -twos and threw FULL.OUT.TANTRUMS. complete with kicking, screaming, and hitting. He did this DURING my sister-in-laws graduation from the Merchant Marine Academy and at EVERY meal we had with family. I wanted to leave him in NYC. Seriously.

- I have a vague memory of being on a booze cruise and then walking barefoot through NYC.  Then passing out sleeping on the train ride home. Not my finest moment.

- Going to bed at 8:30pm because we were all in a hotel room together and my children need complete darkness and silence to sleep. Also, I now have to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Cruisin (the song Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis sing together in Duets) each night to Savannah. I'm not sure why that was the first song that came to mind when Savannah asked me to sing...

- Did you know that 4 year olds and 21 month olds DO NOT appreciate bus tours of NYC? They also do not care about times square, the statue of liberty, or ground zero. Imagine my surprise. Imagine it. They did like the subway though.

- P.S. My baby fever has vanished! Poof! Between tantrums, potty stops, walking blocks (and blocks and blocks and blocks) pushing a stroller in NYC, sleeping in hotel rooms with my little people...suddenly I have no desire for another baby. At least not anytime soon.

Day #31: Holy heat wave (thanks Amy for my catchy title)

   It was hot today. So hot. The kind of hot where we filled up the baby pool, turned on the sprinklers, and stripped down to the least amount of appropriate clothing possible. For Luke that meant a diaper half of the afternoon and complete nudity the other half. Boys like that being naked and running around thing. I made Tyson keep his shorts on though. It was also the first night in over two weeks that we did not eat outside for dinner. And of course, to top it off, my upstairs AC is not working properly. It's like 80 degrees up there, and I definitely keep it around 74 degrees at night. My air went out last year on July 4th. Apparently the AC must stop working when it's super hot outside. I mean, why can't it break when it's in the 70's and 80's so we could just sleep with our windows open? I'm thinking the guest room on the first floor is calling my name tonight.