A Day in Which I Killed It

Being a mother of two can be a rocky endeavor. I have a full post about my thoughts, feelings and impressions of mother-of-two-hood sitting in my Drafts folder, waiting for some finishing touches before I can share it, but for now, suffice it to say that it is a rollercoaster ride. There are some days when I feel like I'm totally nailing this gig, and everything goes smoothly and we're all in sync and happy and loving life. And then there are days like yesterday, where nobody is sleeping, and the tantrums are epic and maddeningly frequent, and my patience is embarrassingly lacking and everybody is just  NOT OKAY. Those days are tough and tend to end in tears for more than one of us, oftentimes accompanied by a shameful quantity of mint Oreos and/or wine for me.

BUT there are days when we do feel like we have it all together! To be honest, most days are some sort of happy medium between the two extremes, but every now and then we have a day in which I feel like I am Supermom and we are just KILLING IT. Wednesday was one of those days.

We had an epic morning of activity on Wednesday. Everyone was up and napped and dressed in time for a 10:00 a.m. departure (a rarity—usually getting out of the house is quite a time-consuming feat!). We bundled up and walked to the Skyway station to catch the train downtown.

It was chilly by Florida standards!

Ellie on the train

We met up with a bunch of moms in Hemming Park for a playdate sponsored by Jax4Kids.com, which included a "touch tank"...

Ellie checking out the turtles

...nature rubbings...

Making an impression of a seashell

...storytime....

Borrowed this one from Jax4Kids!

...and science experiments.

Ellie made sure to get a front row seat for the milk/food coloring/dish soap experiment!

Making glitter bottles with oil, food coloring, water and sequins!

We also played a "little" chess.

She liked the giant checkers, too!

When we finished all that fun, we crossed the street to the Main Library, where we made a tiger tail in Toddler Art class...

She loved this craft, because now she can be Daniel Tiger. And by "loved," I mean "sleeping with her paper tiger tail in bed with her each night" kind of love.

...then we hit up Music and Movement storytime...

Listening to Mr. Josh

E.J. got his own set of bells for instrument time!

...and finished things off by playing in the boat-shaped seating area (Ellie's favorite), where we made some new friends.

My little tiger

We managed to leave the library with minimal crying and resisting, and took the train back home, where everybody had lunch and naps.

That evening was Ash Wednesday, and we managed to make it to church with both children, and once again, nobody cried! Quite the contrary, in fact—they were both quite well-behaved and, frankly, adorable.

E.J.'s first Ash Wednesday

After church

Selfie with my Ellie

Handsome W. Men

Then everybody was off to bed in a timely manner and we closed the book on a pretty epic day. It's so nice to have these really perfect days from time to time! I really am blessed with one great family.

Valentine's Day 2015

We had a really nice Valentine's Day this year! Eric and I have never been very big celebrators of Valentine's Day, and this year our activities didn't really include any sort of real date night for the two of us—at least, nothing out of the house. But we had a lot of fun with the little ones!

The festivity kicked off the Tuesday before Valentine's Day for Ellie and Eric, with a Daddy-Daughter date night at Chick-Fil-A. They got all dressed up for the big event!

Pretty in pink!

Ready for date night!

At Chick-Fil-A, they shared a meal, hit the photobooth, and spent some time in the play area. They skipped out on the long line for limo rides, but Ellie was happy to end the night with a glitter wand and pink carnation in hand.

Out on the town!

Sharing a fancy meal

The night before Valentine's Day we celebrated with a heart-shaped pizza with Ellie, and then Eric and I had some cocktails and watched a Redbox movie because we are wild and crazy people.

Heart pizza!

The kids also ate bananas together. As you can see, we're still having the "eating face" issue.

Then Saturday was actual Valentine's Day—E.J.'s first! He kicked it off with standing practice, because yes, he pulls himself to standing now already, because TIME IS CRUEL.

He's clearly impressed with himself.

We had festive donuts for breakfast...

My love language is donuts.

...and exchanged valentines, and opened up some treats sent from my dad and mom.

Opening up a present from her Papa

Reading a new Doc McStuffins book from Grammy

We decided to head downtown to check out the Saturday storytime at the Main Library, which was a lot of fun. The storytime itself was great, and Ellie was really into it. Immediately following we participated in Toddler Art, where Ellie made a lovely painted heart impression. Then we stayed and played/read for a bit before heading home.

Storytime closed with this animatronic owl that had Ellie fascinated.

Gluing hearts in art class

Making her impression

Ta-da!

Reading together

Hanging out in the library

Back at home, E.J. spent some time being the cutest thing in the entire world.

OMG.

And, you know, eating carnations. Because those are totally passable as food.

He's really going for it.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet. After the kids napped we ran some errands, including picking up some Doc McStuffins shoes for Ellie:

She's so official.

We made her take them off for bed, but at some point during the night she got up and put them back on and slept in them!

I busted her on the monitor in the morning!

The night was very mellow for Eric and me, because he was running a half marathon the next morning. So, no decadent meal or bottles of wine were consumed, and we went to bed pretty early. Wild and crazy, I tell you.

All around, it was a great day of love in our little family!

Little Learners

I mentioned in yesterday's post that my dad bought us a membership to the Museum of Science and History as a Christmas gift, and last month we went to the museum for the first time. During that visit, Ellie was feeling particularly...well, two-year-old-y, so we didn't do much besides hang out in the kids' play area. However, last week we hit the museum again, this time for the Little Learners program, which is geared towards kids Ellie's age.

The first part of the program was a show in the planetarium, which I worked hard to sell to Ellie beforehand: It's a movie! On the ceiling! With all our friends! So fun! I knew I had quite the uphill battle before me, given her recent fear of anything that makes any noise even slightly above a whisper. As expected, when the lights went out and the show started, it was freak-out time. I tried my best to settle her down, because I really think she would enjoy it if she could just get past the initial panic, but no luck. So, we ditched that part of the program and went back to our trusty play area. On the plus side, we had the place to ourselves, because everyone else was in the planetarium!

Ellie in the treetops

E.J. found something to play with, too!

Doing puzzles

My kid crawls so fast these days, his pants can't even keep up.

The second part of the program, the "Turtle Talk," was a much better fit for Ellie. They had the woman who cares for all the animals at the museum come and do a very brief talk about tortoises and turtles - differences between the two, what they eat, etc. Then they had both a tortoise and a kiddie-pool-full of turtles for the kids to touch. Ellie loved this. She watched the talk with interest and really enjoyed touching the turtles.

The museum posted this picture of the Turtle Talk on Facebook. See us over there on the right?

Listening to the Turtle Talk

Petting the tortoise

Touching the turtles

I had planned to head home after the program finished, but Ellie was in a good mood and was willing to walk through the museum a little bit, so we hung out and checked out a few more of the exhibits. She especially liked one about power and energy (it had a lot of computer screens to play on...kids these days)...

Playing in the electricity exhibit

...but her most favorite was, of course, the animal room. She once again gravitated towards the turtles, though she also enjoyed seeing the snakes, owls and alligators.

Hi, alligators!

Hanging out with the turtles again

This snake was hiding under his mulch a little...

...So Ellie stepped back and counted to 10 to make the game of "hide and seek" really official.

We wandered through a few more exhibits...

Learning about women in the military

...before a pirate/treasure-themed exhibit spooked her, and she asked to leave. That is, after making a stop in the gift shop to play with their various offerings.

Hanging out with the little guy while Ellie admired the museum gift shop rock collection

It was a fun way to spend the morning! I think we'll look into that Little Learners program a little more. They offer it once a month, and maybe one of these days we'll even make it through the planetarium show. Either way, we'll definitely be hitting the museum more often!