Monday, June 27, 2022

First Summer Weekend + Kitty's Back

Even though we are almost a month into meteorological summer, this was our first actual summer weekend. And it was a good one! 

Friday was a quiet night which is what we prefer. Saturday ended up being a full day, but it was the best day of the weekend. With young kids, it's best to have lots of plans/things to do - at least for us! 

It was Phil's morning to get up with Will, so I slept in until 7. I can't remember the last time that happened - it felt amazing! Once I was up and had breakfast, I took the boys for a walk/scoot to get some of their energy out and to give Phil a break. 

Stage 4 clinger Will would prefer to hold my hand while on a walk. He can't get close enough to mom!

After the walk, we headed to the library for a quick visit. They are always rotating out their toys and right now, the featured toy in this play house is... insects! Paul is terrified of them so won't go near them but Will thought they were cool. I am honestly very squeamish when it comes to bugs so I wouldn't choose to cozy up with insects! But different strokes for different folks! 


The other toy station was an ice cream shop which Paul really enjoyed. 


Our next stop was Paul's first gymnastics class! He had a blast! It's a 30-minute class and they rotate them through 4 stations with different things like a trampoline, balance beam, bar, etc. Phil grocery shops on Saturday morning so I had both boys but we need to change things up because Will was kind of a terror! Phil starts grocery shopping around 9 since that is when Aldi opens and he prefers to go there first to get as much from our list as possible - which makes total sense. But we are going to have to play around with the schedule so I don't have to bring Will with to class.

Then it was lunch-time, followed by nap/quiet time. I was excited/hopeful for a long nap from Will since we had done so much that morning. But unfortunately Will had a night terror one hour into his nap. It's uncommon for night terrors to happen during naptime, but Paul also had naptime night terrors. Night terrors are so scary for us as parents because the child appears to be awake, but they aren't. You can tell they don't know who you are and it's very hard to get them to calm down. On Saturday, it took 45 minutes to get Will out of the night terror. I share this experience in case a reader's child goes through the same thing. We didn't know what it was the first time Paul had one and that was especially scary. Paul has outgrown them, I think/hope. Will had one in early January when he was really sick with an ear infection so they can start very early! They tend to happen when a child is overtired or sick, but they can also happen for no reason.

After Will came out of the night terror, we had a snack and then headed over to Phil's coworker's house for a little play date with another family. They have a hot tub that they have turned into a kid's pool for the summer. The boys had fun splashing around. 


We were all tired at the end of the day on Saturday after our full day! 

Sunday was a bit of a quieter day. I got up with Will at 5. Phil took over around 7:30 and gave me a break until I left for swimming lessons with Will around 8:15. We do a lot of swapping of parenting duties on weekends, especially in the morning. It's what works for this stage of life but I don't think it will always be like this. But toddlers are just exhausting! 

After swimming lessons with Will, 2 college friends came over and we walked/Paul scooted to the Starbucks that is about a mile away. Us girls enjoyed some beverages and Paul got a donut. It was great to catch up with my friends and hear about how their summers are going so far. 

I once again had high expectations for naptime, but they were dashed. Will napped for about 75 minutes which is not enough... but Phil took over Will duty to give me a longer break to read/rest. 

And then Paul and Phil headed to Phil's mom - to bring back our cat, Oscar! 


Newer reader may not realize we have a cat, and long-time readers might have forgotten. She is very much a part-time cat for us these days. Once the pandemic hit in March 2020, she has mostly lived with my MIL. She's a widow so really needed the extra companionship from Oscar during the pandemic. And Oscar is just really not a fan of kids. She would never hurt our boys, but she hates loud noises... so being around a toddler who communicates by screaming is not ideal. Oh and yes, Oscar is a girl cat. We were told orange cats are always boys but it turns out that is wrong! But we didn't find out Oscar was a she until we'd settled on the name. 

She'll be with us for a week or 2 as my MIL will be out of town part of this week. Even though many cats are ok being on their own and just being checked on, that is not the case with Oscar. When we got our cat, we never envisioned that she'd mostly live with my MIL but it's the way things have played out and best for everybody. We did not have kids when we got Oscar in 2014 so we didn't have to take temperament around kids into consideration. She has always been pretty skittish... she LOVES Phil and just kind of tolerates me. ;) 

Keeping this curious kid out of her food and water dish will be interesting. Hopefully he's less excited about her food than he is about the spaghetti he ate on Sunday night. It was definitely a bath-requiring kind of meal!



In closing, another positive development from the weekend is that after months of Paul insisting that we sit in the chair in his room until he falls asleep, he now lets us leave and we just have to check on him every 10-20 minutes until he falls asleep. Which is totally doable for us and one thousand times better than sitting in the room until he falls asleep. He was ok with that all 3 nights of the weekend so hopefully this "sticks." I share this because some of these awful sleep stages can feel endless. But they can correct themselves! Now to get Will to sleep past 5-5:30... starting tonight we are taking our pediatricians advice to leave him in his crib until 6am... Hopefully he quickly learns to fall back asleep. He - and we - need more sleep. 

How was your weekend?

9 comments:

  1. Oh wow what a busy weekend! It sounds like a lot of fun!

    I am so relieved to hear that the issues with putting Paul to bed are going okay. (And of course they may not proceed along a straight line! Stay strong!) The nap time night terrors sound awful. My daughter had a night terror a few years ago and it was SO scary. I'm sorry your boys have both had them!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your weekends sounds so exhausting! If I have more than one thing planned for every day, I get so stressed out. You must be creating such lovely memories for your boys.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This does look like a lovely weekend - a good mix of being busy and having some downtime.
    Sorry about the naptime terror. We've had that happen once or twice and they are TERRIBLE for kids. Knock on wood - aside from those few isolated incidents, my kids have NEVER had any issues with nightmares etc. Which is shocking to me because I had them constantly as a kid and have such vivid memories of my parents putting me back to bed and even specific experiences I dreamed about in those nightmares (30 years later - how crazy is that?!).

    ReplyDelete
  4. You always pack so much into your weekends (but I know part of it is because you can't really entertain the boys at home the whole day!).

    I am so glad Oscar is back for a stint at your house :) I always love to hear about her.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sounds like such a busy weekend! You're right, sleep issues feel like forever but they do tend to work themselves out over time. That doesn't mean they aren't exhausting though!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hopefully things work out for Will and soon. Night terrors are awful. And glad Paul is letting you leave before he's asleep. Welcome home, Oscar! She's been missed!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, just reading this makes me tired! Life is so hard with little kids! There's a funny "e-card" that shows a woman saying "Woohoo, it's the weekend! Oh wait... I'm a mom." There really is no rest. I like how you and your husband split up the duties though. And, it truly gets easier. Now my kids are teenagers and I could sleep late on Sundays if I wanted (but strangely, I voluntarily get up early to run) and my biggest chore is driving my daughter around to her activities. I have way more time for myself. But... I know I've said this before... i miss those toddler days a little. There's something so precious about them, and once they're over, you never get them back. Until grandchildren- I'm already looking forward to grandchildren.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oof, this sounds soooo busy!! I think those super early wake ups (when you don't want to be up yet/ are woken up) make everything harder, too. I just barely even remember this stage of life, now. I know we obviously lived through it, but it's funny how it sort of becomes a blur. I guess I'm living proof for you that eventually it does get easier! Our weekends are very busy as well, but in a very different way. Even if we are out and about a lot or driving places, it's at least EASY- I mean, if I drive 2 hours to a sporting event, the boys will just sit quietly and listen to music or read or play on their phones, no whining, no crying, no snacks needed, rarely even a potty break! Ha. Also, in the mornings, no one ever wakes me up, and they are content to just do whatever they want, if we don't have somewhere to go. I sometimes wonder why I still feel like life is "hard", when I guess on paper it sounds pretty easy now. Hmm. I don't know the answer to that! Ha. I guess it's just hard in different ways. And the extra free time spent actively parenting young toddlers morphs into other things, I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This does sound like a busy weekend, but I totally get wanting to get out of the house and do things with the boys, especially considering how long Minnesota winters are. It makes sense you want to take full advantage of the nice weather when you can, and it probably makes bedtime a bit easier if the kids are tired, ha.

    I'm so glad Oscar is back! Yay!

    ReplyDelete