Monday night was park night. We all hop in the car and ask for park suggestions. We originally were going to go to North Park, a cool park that is mainly a large wooden maze-like structure. Unfortunately, there are many small soccer fields around that park and it seems there are some serious tournaments going on right now as the large parking lot was overflowing and there was even a police officer on patrol duty. So we drove past the entrance and down the road. Jake took a random turn and low and behold, there ahead was another park. Ok, it was actually a school playground but it was at a school we hadn't scoped out yet so we stopped.
The kids had a blast! Two different structures to play on and even a tire swing!
This was as much as I was allowed to push it. It barely moved and then Carter told me that it was high enough.
Park time is ok for the baby. It doesn't hold the same excitement for her yet that it does for the others. The downside to school playgrounds is that there are no infant swings. That's about all Hannah can do at the park so she spends most of her time staring into space and being passed between us as we alternate who helps the older kids and who cares for the banana.
Carter bailed on the tire swing and I was actually allowed to push the girls a little!
He went to this swing instead. He wanted to be strapped in and safe but I still wasn't allowed to push him. Carter prefers to just sit in the swing.
Tonight, we took the kids swimming at the outdoor pool at our gym, Lifetime. It was a nice change up from the usual park escapades. There weren't many people there and even Hannah had fun sitting at the top of the zero depth entry and splashing in two inches of water. We left behind a stack of dirty dishes, a heap of laundry, and sticky floors. That's what tomorrow is for. The older three love, love, love swimming and I wasn't about to stay home doing housework while Jake had all the fun. I want all four to remember the days they spent doing fun things as a family so family outings it is.
I had a couple comments asking how I manage to get to all the projects I do while caring for four children. It's a combination of several things. 1) Taking advantage of nap times, especially the baby's. 2) Taking advantage of the power of the black box. 30 minutes of Jake and the Never Land Pirates can get a lot done. 3) Sleeping the bare minimum. I average maybe 6-7 hours of sleep a night. Every now and then it catches up to me and I need a 30 minute nap in the afternoon but otherwise I tend to stay up until 11:30-midnight and am up between 6-6:30 with the baby. But I get several hours at night to myself to work on things and an hour or two in the morning before the older kids are moving. This probably explains the bags under my eyes and the scale not budging since sleep is a big component in the reduction of both but right now I'm more about my me-time than my sleep-time.
I've also had comments that the blog is getting Hannah heavy. So here are the older three, alive and well. My apologies, but the little one changes much faster and if I don't document it somewhere, it will be lost in the abyss of my memory forever.
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