Memorial Day Weekend

[Meghan]

Sydney had a big 3 day weekend. It started Saturday morning when she kicked Mike in the face and broke his glasses - right on the bridge; not repairable. So we all headed off to the mall to see if Lens Crafters could make him some on the spot, since he didn't have a back-up pair. Sydney and I played in the kids' area at the mall and ate lunch in the food court while he did the eye exam thing. It worked out well since it was in the 90's and not the greatest day to play outside.

In the late afternoon, after it had cooled down a bit, we played at the park with the girls from next door. They also brought over their Little Tikes gas pump, and Sydney showed us all how to fuel up her Cozy Coupe. Who knew Sydney knew how to pump her own gas?!

Sunday was my grandpa Papa's birthday. We all headed out to a restaurant for dinner. Sydney is usually pretty good at restaurants, but that night she was a holy terror. I think it had to do with the fact that some of our relatives who she had never met before were sitting at our table. She was very shy around them and didn't want to settle down and eat. I ended up having to take her and her cousin Kendall outside for most of the meal. Once outside, the girls ran amuck. They ran around screaming and chasing each other. At one point Sydney tripped and skinned her knee up pretty badly. She didn't even notice. She just got up and continued to run after Kendall.

We left the restaurant and went to my grandparents' house for cake and ice cream. Sydney was very good, but clearly getting tired. Her bedtime is generally 8pm, and we didn't leave until 8:45. Of course she crashed in the car, but for some reason she woke up screaming as we exited the tollway in Des Plaines. I think she just woke up and didn't know where she was. The screaming continued even after we got home. She eventually settled down and fell asleep on my lap.

Monday she woke up in a good mood, despite the drama of the night before. I decided to take her to the Mount Prospect Memorial Day Parade on my bike. The Memorial Day Parade is a very big deal where I grew up in Naperville. People show up hours early to stake out a spot on the parade route. The parade lasts for hours. It starts off with the Naperville Municpal Band, which is followed by floats and school bands and Boy Scouts and all other kinds of groups.

The Mount Prospect parade on the other hand......not too impressive. It started out with the obligatory fire engines with sirens blaring, followed by a contingent of veterans, one high school marching band, and some Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. It was over in 5 minutes. I was not impressed, but Sydney seemed to enjoy it. I rode slowly along the parade route on my bike as we were waiting for it to start, and she really liked looking at all the people waiting. She pointed out all the babies and dogs. She is very much into babies and dogs right now. When it was time for the parade to start, we got off our bike and she danced around, providing entertainment for all those around us. She was mesmerized by the marching band. She LOVED the drums.

After the parade when by, we got back on our bike and headed over to Lions Park in Mount Prospect, where the parade was supposed to end. The marching band came marching into the park and Sydney went nuts dancing again. Then we retreated to the playground. We hadn't played for long when suddenly the wind turned and it got very dark and cold. Parents started frantically rounding up their kids and piling them into wagons and strollers. The marching band took refuge in the band shell. I whisked Sydney out of a swing, much to her chagrin, and got her back on the bike. As we left the park, the first raindrops started to fall. It was only a 5 minute ride home, so I decided to go for it. I pedaled like crazy as the rain fell harder and harder. About a block from our house, the heavens opened up and started completely pouring on us. I heard my cell phone ringing in my backpack as I pedaled harder. We flew up the driveway and burst into the house just as Mike was hanging up from leaving me a voicemail, telling me that he'd come pick us up in the car. Sydney didn't seem bothered by this ordeal at all. Usually she doesn't like rain falling on her at all, but she was not upset when we got home.

After lunch and a nap, the weather cleared up and Sydney and I were off again. I put her in the jogging stroller and set out for the park. Typically I take about 20 minutes to jog to the park, then we play for an hour or so, then jog 20 minutes home. I am trying to do some interval training, running all-out sprints sandwiched between light jogging. It is hard. It is hard when all you have to think about is running. It is even harder when you are pushing a stroller and occasionally having to throw out a verse of "Old MacDonald."

So all in all, it was a pretty good weekend. We didn't do anything super exciting, but we had fun.

[mightymulhern]

Apparently the play area in the mall didn't go so well. As seems to happen sometimes, Sydney got mobbed by some older kids who wanted to pet her and were saying "a baby" as soon as she got there. That never goes over well. ...I'm sure that if I got mobbed by people who wanted to pet me, I'd probably start swinging so I can understand her discontent. She was real clingy with me after I got done at Lens Crafters.

The restaurant on Sunday was indeed pretty crazy. At one point, Sydney made a bee line for the door running between tables and trying to escape. She literally made it to the front door of the restaurant before I caught up to her. ...which was out of our section, across a room full of tables, down a hall, and another turn toward the door. She was nuts.

After getting rained on this morning, we got Sydney a snack and then shortly there after tried to get her settled down. She was getting cranky but seemed content to sit in my lap and look out the window. A few minutes later I noticed her head was tilted to the side and she was no longer fidgeting. She has passed out there in the chair with me.

After Meghan's afternoon run, Sydney didn't want to come back in so I went out to play with her in the driveway. What she wanted though was to get back in the stroller and go back to the park. Not really thinking about it, I took her. When we got there she wasn't very quick to get out of the stroller and wasn't real excited about anything. We did some swinging. Then she wanted out and I thought she was going to walk over to the little kids slide. Halfway there she laid down spread eagle on the sidewalk and just laid there. I took that as my cue to take her home. Later I realized she'd been outside in the humidity for 2-3hrs and hadn't had a snack since her nap. Ooops. She got really really cranky after we got home and was then eating both applesauce and yogurt as fast as they could be spooned into her mouth. Once she had cooled down and eaten, our happy kid returned.

We also noticed today that Sydney is getting another set of molars. One is nearly poking through on the bottom. This set of 4 molars will be the last of the baby teeth she'll get.

Unrelated to this weekend's activities, Sydney has been playing with a peanut butter jar filled with hair ties a lot lately. She takes them out... puts them in... and repeats. She also always tries to put one in her hair which is kind of sad because I have to explain that she doesn't have enough hair. One day she will... one day...

Also unrelated to this weekend's activities, if you ask Sydney if she pooped, she will turn around and walk backwards toward you so that you can peek down the back of her diaper and check. Apparently they do this at school because the behavior is very consistent. "Sydney, did you poop?" *Sydney backs toward you* This has been going on since before Christmas. Now however we have a new twist. Sydney wants to check US for poop. When she does it we say, "Do you see any poop in there?". Occasionally she says "Yeah" which is pretty funny. Tonight we've been trying to explain the purpose of the potty in conjunction with this crazy activity.

The words, "No", "Yeah", "Peez", and "K" are probably the most popular in our house. "More" isn't too far behind.

Oh... I almost forgot. Sydney now makes a face and says "Eeeeewww" when you clean wax out of her ears or wipe her nose. It's really funny to see.

[mightymulhern]

One more tid bit... while we were at the park with the neighbor kids, one of them talked me into going down the big red twisty slide on my back head first. It was actually kind of scary because it feels like you're going to go flying off the end.

While I was pretending to be 6, Sydney was swinging, watching, and laughing hysterically. She laughed her head off both times I went down.