One of the bonuses of staying home is getting to get to know my little Katelyn better. She makes me giggle and laugh all the time. Monday mornings we attend a Tippie Toes dance class but Katelyn has been kind of hit-or-miss with her participation lately. She needs a lot of incentive to keep her interest. Thank goodness the girls had princess wands this week. Although Katelyn may have mistaken hers more as a weapon than a fairy accessory.
Video of Katelyn as a Battle Princess:
She had a good time during the rest of the class. The last activity involved little drumsticks for each child. She'd pretend she was Marina from Fresh Beat Band, hit them together and yell "1, 2, 3, 4!", as if she was about to go to town on a drum set. Tiredness was starting to get the best of her and she'd start to participate, throw down her drumsticks nonchalantly, sprawl down on her back, and state "I'm tired. I want to go home." So dramatic.
I've started to worry that Tyler is involved in too many activities. My free time now seems to need to be filled with tasks that are beneficial for the kids. He used to get very excited about swim class, but lately he's been dragging his feet about it. He says he's not a fan of swimming in the big pool since it's a much longer length, but I wonder if it's more. I bought a package earlier in the Summer for 20 lessons, and when he's done with those we'll be done with swimming.
Back at home later, Katelyn quietly kept herself occupied while Tyler did his Kumon homework. She was quite involved reading Tyler's Star Wars comic book.
These two kids crack me up. They play so wonderfully together sometimes, but other times the amount of high pitched whining drives me a little batty. But at the end of the day, they always come together for bedtime story time.
Hey look who it is, the MIA member of our family - Mojo! Sometimes I worry that our little guy is getting on in his years, and we try to be more loving towards him. He is still a hit with the kids though. Katelyn is very sensitive to Mojo's meows, and will always point out to us if he is running low on water or food. She also calls him "Moji" affectionately. It's like her little nickname for him.
I've been trying to figure out how to mash Katelyn's naps up with Tyler's early pick up and afternoon activities. He won't be attending his after school care starting November and I'll need to pick him up at 1:20pm, which is right smack in the middle of Katelyn's daily naps. I haven't quite fine tuned the process yet, because Wednesday Katelyn slept from 12-3pm! We were almost late for Tyler's Taekwondo class, but Katelyn sure was in a great mood!
Thursday was the day that everything really hit the fan. Suffice it to say that a lunch with Tyler's Kindergarten friends went horribly wrong due to the extremely insecure delusions of another mother. The worse part was that I took out my frustrations with her on Tyler. I felt like such a horrible mother. I came home and fixed myself a very stiff drink. Deep breaths.
Friday was Tyler's first piano lesson! I have been quite inconsistent with all this. Last Summer we had a short 4 week group class at Piano Forte. Tyler was more interested in dropping pencils in the piano and turning the volume up and banging around. Fail. Then we had a Group deal of 3 courses with a local piano teacher that didn't really amount to much. Next was a trial lesson with a referred piano teacher that went great, but I never followed up on. Hopefully this time we're really on top of things. Ms. Miranda Wu comes highly recommended and she seems to be the top caliber teacher that I was looking for. Fingers crossed! Katelyn kept herself occupied with earphones and the iPad.
After dropping Tyler off at school, Katelyn and I went park hunting. This may be our new past time in the mornings! I have a very small window of time to get Katelyn to use up some energy before I get her home for a (very) early lunch and then down for naps. I'm amazed at how many small parks there are in our area, I just need to look at the navigation and drive to any greenbelts. She loves trying out new parks! An unexpected CD blasted loudly to wake her up from her nap after just an hour or so. Oops. At least we got to pick up Tyler in time. :)
Friday evening Will and I had a date night with our friends the Owyangs. They invited us the night before and we were able to find a babysitter in time (Ashley, from ICDC). Yay! We headed out to a restaurant called Playground in Santa Ana, opened by the founder of the Lime Truck (they won Food Truck Wars apparently). The food was delicious, especially their brussel sprouts. Added bonus was going through a pitcher of Sangria with Joanne! Afterward we walked around the block to "Chapter One" and had a couple of drinks. Fun night.
A little more difficult, was waking up super early the next morning for Tyler's 9am soccer game. Which means we needed to be there at 8:30am. It was quite chilly and actually drizzling, but the game went on. Tyler did a good job, even though he didn't score any goals.
Katelyn and Nate kept dry and occupied themselves with their electronics.
Go Tyler!!
After the game, we headed over to the Great Park for their Pumpkin Harvest festival. This was the where the Peak drama happened of the week. It ended up totally ruining my mood and I had a really hard time enjoying the festivities with the kids. That's what I meant earlier - the actions of another causing me to miss out on enjoyment with my family - ridiculous! Here's Katelyn with their friend Lucas. His little sister, who's in Katelyn's ICDC class, didn't want to be in the photo. Awww.
The kids still had fun though!
After naps, we headed over to our friend's the Hong's place in Tustin. They are the cutest couple and have the cutest little 18 month old Christian. We met them through my friend Tiff and were stoked that they lived so close to us. Dinner was so 'grown up' - I'm talking linen napkins people! Makes me realize what bums Will and I are, we're so unclassy, haha! Can't wait to do it again!
On Sunday after Tyler's Chinese school, we headed over to our friend the Sundarum's home for a little playdate. The kids watched a movie while the adults played "Cards Against Humanity" a board game we had wanted to play on our camping trip last month but never got around to it. OMG it was a hilarious game. The kids had a good time too.
After the playdate, we headed over to our in-laws' place for a very early dinner. We ate at 4:30pm, the kids were hungry and the grandparents had made some delicious fresh food. The kids always love the food the grandparents make.
And lastly, Sunday night, I met up with my friend Hannah for an impromptu girls night out. She helped me hash out the drama from the week. She didn't egg me on, but instead helped me see the bigger picture. Love her! Thank goodness for friends like this. :)
No more crazy posts hopefully. I'm now officially actively trying to be drama free!
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