I often wonder what I did before kids. I mean really, what did I do all weekend? Oh yeah... I slept in. And watched movies on the couch in my PJs. And took naps. And ate fruit loops for dinner. And relaxed before I had to go back to another exhausting day at work.
Now? Those torturous Mondays? They are still torturous but that's mostly because I have to get up at the crack of dawn and go back to work after far too little sleep. But by comparision after a whirlwind weekend with the kiddos work days look pretty relaxing. :)
Take this weekend for example - We started the weekend off Friday after work and school with swim lessons followed by a trip to the pool for the kick-off of Flamingo Fridays (movies at the pool). We spent the evening playing, splashing, and swimming until we were long past pruned. And despite their protests ("But why couldn't we watch the cat movie??" "Why did we HAVE to go HOME!?!?") finally cruised into our driveway sometime after 10pm with two wide awake and completely wired kiddos.
You would think the long evening of swimming and late bedtime might convice them to sleep late come Saturday morning. But oh, no. Not the boys. As ususal they popped right up out of bed like Tigger chomping at the bit for some quality Saturday morning DVD time. So we spent the morning watching Scooby Doo and playing around the house. After a surpringly long and calm lunch at Chili's I dropped Kevin and the kids back off at home for a nap and went to run a few errands. When I got home the kiddos were laughing, playing and goofing off upstairs. They apparently had their second wind and completely refused to take a nap the entire hour and a half I was gone. Maybe they were just too excited to finally be heading back to the race track.
Ryan had been asking for weeks if we could go back to Houston Motor Sports Park and watch the races (we hadn't been since last year, but he still rememebred!). I had been keeping an eye out for cheap tickets and found a good deal for Saturday. So we headed to the track to meet up with some friends and catch an action packed evening of racing. Despite our typical best intentions to leave after the second or third race after intermission and be home at a decent time we didn't make it. :) Ryan wasn't quite ready to leave and since the kids were still watching and enjoying the races we decided to hang out and catch a few more. We finally managed to drag Ryan out, and had made it almost to the exit when the fireworks started. So we hung around to watch the fireworks, and then spent another 20 minutes in the parking lot looking for one of Ryan's favorite autographed race pictures that he was already begging to take to show and tell at school on Monday. Despite their best efforts to stay awake the kiddos finally passed out in the car on the way home probably 3 hours after bedtime.
After a second late night, and a boycot on naps the boys graciously let us sleep 15 minutes past the crack of dawn before they popped out of bed ready to see if they could talk us into another epsiode or two of their favorite cartoons before heading out to drive their cars all over the neighborhood, catch dozens of little sunfish at our pond, run timed laps at the McDonalds playground until Connor could barely walk before finally heading home to skip yet another nap in favor of a Land Before Time marathon in our bed allowing Kevin to nap almost through the entire first movie (aside from Ryan's elbows when his snorning got to be too loud), and me to get a surprising 10 minutes during the second movie, and the boys not a single wink. Cleary they still had energy to burn so we headed to the pool for a couple of hours to practice what we learned at swim lessons, and in the vain hope that the blistering heat if nothing else would finally zap some of that energy. Not that it worked of course. When the lifeguards finally kicked us out if the pool at closing time the boys enthusiastically asked if we could to go to the playground before eating dinner. Much to their dismay we ate and then called it a day and put them to bed. Only to have them stay up and play for 30 minutes or so before finally getting still enough to pass out.
What I wouldn't give to have a fraction of that energy. Or a weekend to stay at home all by myself. Sleep in until noon. And lay around in my PJ's watching movies and eating fruit loops. :)
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