Saturday, July 23, 2011

The mother of invention

One thing I miss about my pre-kids life is sleeping in on the weekend. I'm a night owl, but that used to mean that whatever time I went to bed, I'd wake up 9-10 hours later.

Ava and Dylan usually wake up between 6:45 and 7:15 a.m. and want me to fix them breakfast, if I'm not jetting out to work. So now that means that regardless of what time I went to bed, I wake up when they do. Which can mean rough mornings when I've alternated between my bed and both of theirs all night responding to cries, wet diapers, or bathroom runs.

A few month ago, before Ava could recognize her name, I started leaving a covered bowl of cereal and cup of milk in the fridge with a heart on it and telling Ava to find the heart, to buy myself a little more time in bed. I trust her to pour her own milk and clean up any minor spills.

This morning I added a new twist: a treasure hunt. I hoped that it would eliminate at least one reason for her first foray into our bed in the morning.


Right outside her room, she found the first post-it with her name and an arrow directing her to the next one just down the hall.
The final note was on the fridge itself with a poorly-rendered drawing of a bowl of cereal and cup of milk and a heart. It worked, but it's such a gorgeous day out that I couldn't stay in bed!

I'm trying to get active again, but I have so little time without the kids that it's tough to fit it in and I don't really like or have time to to drive to a gym. So I found a 10 minute workout online that I started doing in the living room.

But J. turned up his nose at it and gave me some sets he uses to train his basketball clients. They got my core working and stretched my legs, then we took breakfast out to the deck where the sun was shining and Mt. Rainier is out.
After a leisurely morning cleaning up, getting everyone dressed and having lunch on the deck, we hit a local park then were off to a birthday party at a local gymnastics academy.


As you can tell by the expressions, they had a blast. Then I got some quiet time after they went to sleep. And I haven't heard a peep from either of them in hours. Loving that gym more and more.

Even without sleeping in, it shaped up to be an awesome, sunny Seattle day.

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