Sunday, July 5, 2009

Cook out, and clean out!

After church, Wimbledon's historic match between Federer and Roddick kept us from heading straight to a cook out at one of our client's homes. Avalai skipped her late morning nap, and that came back to haunt us!
Avalai was thrilled to go to a party with "kids", and kept asking on the way "Kids? Kids Mommy?" So we assured her that yes we'd see kids once we got there.
Besides her now ususal blowing kisses at the red lights to turn them green as she says "Ummon geen"...she was reading a fairly new animal picture book on the way. I wish I had video taped that ride! First she was saying each animal name and then making their signature "noise". The ones...like the giraffe...that she didn't know a noise for...she made up a noise for them. We even asked, "Oh really? Is that what a giraffe says?" And she was insistent that she was correct, and repeated the same noise.
We started tuning out the zoo of noises behind us, until we started hearing, "Umm ear bunny!...Umm ear!" (Come here) And then, "Umm ear monkey!...Umm ear!" I looked back at her, and she's touching the animal picture and trying to pinch the picture up as if she can just pull the animals right out of that little book! Hilarious to see!
Once we arrived, she hear the happy screams of kids playing while we were unbuckling her seatbelts. "KIDS" she screamed! She couldn't contain her excitement.
And once we got around to the backyard, she took a quick glance of the entire place...stopped immediately to "say hi" to the doggy, and then made a beeline to the playset!
Poor Matt! He's such a good Dad!! Patiently, he helped her climb the rope walkway to get to the slide, then ran around to catch her. He kept her out of the dirt pit, and pushed her on the swings etc. She never will stay on any apparatus for more than a couple minutes. So, he helped her hop off when she was ready to move on to each thing. She watched crickets jumping, and stood back calmly as other kids pushed past her to go down the slide first. She never minds if they want to cut in front. She's almost just as happy watching them go down as she is when she slides down herself :) Throughout the 2 hours that we were there, Avalai wanted only to play on that playset... and despite our attempts to distract her, she'd missed that nap, and was not willing to compromise on her wishes! If we had not been at this friend's house with a lot of people that we don't really know...we would not have put up with such demands. But why is it that so many of our normal rules and standards go out the window when we just want to keep kids from pitching a fit in front of everyone? I do a better job in a grocery store than among a group of coworkers! And she was just soooo tired that she wasn't reasonable at that point. So poor Matt spent his entire time chasing her around the play area. With her energy level, I leave the chasing up to him! His dad says that he was the same way. My mom says I was NOT! So...HE gets to run after her, which he willingly does without complaint. He's a great dad! All the other men were playing yard games, and he's keeping her from getting hurt or trompled :)
We had great taco salad, but I always leave those parties kinda hungry. I'm no burger and hotdog fan. And you can only eat so much macaroni salad :)
For the rest of the day, I tackled some house clearing. I'm determined to make my house less embarassing by getting through some of these boxes that piled up throughout our shifting and remodeling before and right after Avalai was born. I accomplished so much! And the trashcan won't even hold all that I disposed of! Matt was so proud! If only I had 3 weeks of non-stop time to do it in, I'd have a sparkling, organized home. Since that won't happen, I'm getting through it one box at a time.
I'm finally going to bed with a sense of accomplishment:) We'll see if I can tackle something else tomorrow.

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