Gah, what is it with Fridays (or Thursdays) and me not being able to get my act together for a New Thing? Here's a shocker for today's post...we didn't formally do anything new today. But! In my defense, it was not entirely due to my slackitude. The LP played a part in it, too...oh yeah, that's right...I'm throwing the kids under the bus on this one. Mother of the Year, right here!
Today started off early for us. LP2, for reasons known only to himself, decided to wake up at 4:30 am and stay awake. Normally he'll have a feed and go back to sleep. Not today. When it became obvious he wasn't going to settle, Daddy took over (bless his heart), and sent me back to bed. Where I went. Willingly. From that point on, everything kind of went sideways today. When one LP was awake, the other one was sleeping. This makes it difficult to attempt New Things. Unless, of course, we want to play "watch your sibling sleep and see if s/he freaks out when they wake up and see us staring at them".
We did have a brief period this afternoon when both LP were awake at the same time but we had to make hay while the sun was shining (hot enough to make you second-guess about how much deodorant was necessary, I might add), so we took care of some things on the never-ending To Do list. Most important was opening up a bank account for LP2. This is something we have been meaning to do since he was born and just never set time aside for. Since we were going to the bank anyway, we decided it was time to crack into the LP's piggy banks and make deposits into their accounts.
The LP are not fools. At this point in time, LP1 is the ringleader in The Great Change Scam but I think it is only because she is the only one out of the two of them capable of coherent speech. And she is very good at using her words to charm money out of people. Much like her aunties before her, she has identified Grandpa as an easy mark. Poor Grandpa cannot enter our house without being hit up for "monies". LP1 is always very quick to get him to make a contribution first to her piggy bank and then over to her brother's. Usually she can con him out of whatever change is in his pockets. There have been days, however, when Grandpa has been caught without change. But does the man write an IOU or ask us if we have any change? No. He has been strong-armed into donating a bill or two into the LP banks. I need to learn her methods. LP1 doesn't just target Grandpa, though. Like a magpie, she is attracted to shiny coins and will pounce on them wherever she sees them. I am forever finding change hidden all over the house. Judging by the amount of money in their respective piggy banks, the Great Change Scam is bringing in lucrative profits.
Once we had tallied all of the change in both piggy banks and made notes detailing the exact amount of coins and bills in each, we headed over to the bank. Daddy and LP1 went to deposit her riches into her account while LP2 and I sat down to open an account. Did you know that if you are bringing change into the bank you are supposed to roll it? Well, we didn't. Fortunately, everyone we dealt with today was very helpful and overlooked our egregious faux pas. I'm sure they have put a note on our permanent record and if we attempt to bring unrolled change in again, they will kick us out.
We thought everything had gone well at the bank and that maybe it was a good way to introduce the LP to saving money until we were in the car, headed to our next destination. LP1 had a meltdown over the fact that she had lost her "monies" and left them in the bank. We tried to explain that the bank was keeping her money safe but I think the point was lost. She soon fell asleep. And dreamed of becoming a bank robber.
The rest of the afternoon was spent running errands. LP1 had a very long nap once we came home and when she awoke, it was nearly time for dinner. Both kids had a splash in their little pool before dinner and, if the world was just and not totally unfair, would have stayed there for a very long time. But as we are terrible parents, we wanted them to have dinner. They got out of the pool with little complaint (I think hunger won out over the desire to be merpeople).
And just because it has been that kind of a day, we further threw the usual routine into chaos by heading out again after dinner. Last summer we purchased a gazebo for our backyard. It didn't cost very much but provided much-needed shade in our Gobi-like yard. We were very fond of it. So fond of it, in fact, that on the first nice day we had this spring, I made Daddy set it up again. We were looking forward to another summer of usage...until it flew into the air during a major windstorm and was impaled on our weathervane. O, cruel fate! It was a sad, sad day in our house; it was like we had lost a dear friend. Since then, we have dithered back and forth about replacing it. Truth be told, it was cheap and obviously not built to last. At first we thought we could make it through the summer without it, but we have come to realize that we really do need shade back there. I tend to limit the amount of time we spend outside because it gets too hot and sunny for the LP and this really isn't fair to them. And while we have big plans and dreams for our backyard, they obviously aren't going to happen this summer. Year-long maternity leaves are a wonderful blessing in Canada but they certainly do not pay as well as actually working. After much discussion about What To Do, Daddy saw that the same gazebo was on sale again this week. While some may say it was foolish to purchase the same model again, we say that we need something to get us through this summer and it was in our price range. Our after-dinner jaunt was to the last store in our area that sold Cheaply Made Not Built To Last Gazebo. Daddy and I raced the last daylight after the LP were in bed to get it set up. I think they will be happy to see it out there tomorrow.
Once again, I am writing about a day that didn't go as planned. But it was also a day that saw us cracking up at the kids' antics, doing things together and, ultimately, doing something that will benefit us all. I don't think it was a total waste. I will, however, keep striving to make sure we are actually Doing Something New on Fridays.
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