On Monday, instead of mowing and working and doing all of the other things we were "supposed" to do, we played hooky. It was great. My brother is staying with friends in a beach house at Topsail Island for the week, so we invited ourselves to visit. (Don't you love family???)

We actually had trouble getting the kids on the beach. As we were walking through the living room, they discovered they could play Mario Cart. It was their first time to play a video game and they were so excited!

We finally made it outside. One of the joys of Topsail is its quiet. This was the beach at some point between 10:30 and 11am. Ahh.

The kids were finally interested in the beach and the water.

But they also spent a lot of time digging in the sand and climbing up and down dunes.

We stopped for lunch at our favorite local burger restaurant on the island. Definitely a much more fun way to spend Monday than to greet real life.

Big Girl Bed

A couple of weeks ago, in a fit of desperation, we bought a toddler bed for Natalia. It had never been the plan to purchase yet another cheap, plastic bed. The Plan had been to buy Ree and Natalia bunk beds when Natalia was two and ready to move out of the crib and into a "big girl" bed.

But Natalia is not much of a fan of other people's plans, and we are still working on getting her to move into the crib. She will nap there. And there was that one time, when there was a hurricane outside making lots of noise, that she slept there. But that's about it.

She's only 16 months, but since she has pretty much only slept in a bed since her bassinet/baby swing days, we thought we would give it a whirl. After a quick internet search we determined that the Toys R Us in town had beds in stock but they were overpriced (no real surprise there). Kmart carries them, but according to the website the local store's were out of stock. Target.com informed us the local store does not carry them, but we could order one online and if we used our Target debit card we got 5% off and free shipping. We had a winner.

When the bed finally arrived, the kids were so excited to see it. You would've thought it was a present for all of them. The box had a picture of the assembled bed, and Natalia kept hugging the box and pretending to sleep on it. I took this as a good sign. (I also have an unfortunate habit of being an eternal optimist.)

Jeff put the bed together the next night. He assembled it in the living room, and the kids were beside themselves and had to be repeatedly reminded to stand back and to sit down on the rug (rather than running laps around Jeff.)

When the bed was assembled, Natalia ran to get her blankie and stuffed animals. At bedtime, we moved it into our room. (After much discussion, we figured we would let her sleep there in her bed before attempting to move her in with her siblings.) As soon as the bed was in place, she laid down and pretended to sleep.

Then she realized I was serious about her going to bed, and she freaked out. We still had the nightly royal rumble. This one did not end with her sleeping in the crib. This time she was so traumatized she ended up sleeping in our bed.

On the bright side, we upgraded our bed about 6 weeks ago, and now we at least have a queen sized mattress (we previously had been squished onto a very sad full sized mattress) for the three of us to share. How romantic!

Swimming Lessons

When I was little, I loved summer. I loved going to my grandmother's and I loved participating in the summer reading program at the library. (Yes, I was just as nerdy then as I am now.) But more than anything, I loved swimming. Actually, I love swimming to this day. There's just something about being in the water.

As much as I loved swimming in general, there was something extra special about swimming lessons. They were a time when I got to go to the pool regularly and try all kinds of different things. They were so much fun.

My kids don't look at swimming lessons quite the same way. They are not fans. But we started swimming lessons today anyway, and the kids will be at the YWCA four mornings a week for the next two weeks. Today everyone made it in the water AND they stayed there the entire lesson. This is very impressive for my children!

The boys' instructor is a gentleman in his 50s named "Mr. Mike" who has been teaching kids to swim for a pretty darn long time. He is fabulous. He taught Ree's class last year, and she made enormous progress, relatively speaking. (See above about getting in and staying in the water.) At the beginning of the class, he called the role, and the kids each sat down on the steps in the pool. He then asked each of the three and four-year-olds in the class to tell him their names. When he asked Leon his name, Leon replied, "I'm nervous." I am pretty sure Mr. Mike had never gotten that response before. Mr. Mike just about lost it and joked with Leon that he knew such a big word but wouldn't say his name. By the end of the lesson, Leon was even kind of smiling when Mr. Mike said it was time for "Nervous" to practice kicking. We will settle for baby steps.

Sleep, How I Miss Thee

It never occurred to me until I snapped at someone and got in a rather ugly situation today, that I have not slept in 3 weeks. Yikes. 

For many years I wasn't a sleeper. My senior year of high school I skated by on nearly no sleep. I probably did the same my junior year, but high school was an awfully long time ago, and I am too tired to remember this morning let alone the mid-90s. My junior and senior year of college I know I didn't sleep. I prided myself on being able to go out, close the bars, wake up and work out, and be ready for a new day. I was silly.

Somewhere in the years since then, I have discovered sleep. It turns out, I love sleep. Sleep is a wonderful thing. I am not the kind of person who can sleep in til noon, but I do love a good afternoon nap. (Even when not sleeping in college, I did manage to squeeze in afternoon naps on the weekends. So maybe I did sleep some then, just not on a "normal" schedule.)

But now my children have decided that I do not need sleep. Sleep takes away time I could spend with them. Natalia monopolizes my early mornings, evenings, and late nights. I let Ree steal my weekend afternoons. 

It's a good thing they're cute.