Category: Benjamin

I told Matt that I feel like this has been a week of false starts. Between this and that, it feels like some sort of franken-week, and like I haven’t really gotten anything accomplished.

Sunday night onto Monday morning I had some sort of super fun GI bug that left me pretty drained. I stayed home from work and basically slept the WHOLE DAY, just barely managing to accomplish a couple of things via email. By 5pm or so, I’d kind of rallied and I got up and we took the kids to their first swim lesson.

We signed them up for these super-intensive, super expensive lessons because a) they’re 3 and 5 and can hardly swim at all and b) we’re going on a cruise this summer and my wouldn’t it be nice if we could actually take advantage of the pools on the ship? and c) Mommy would like to sit back and read a novel and not worry about her precious ones drowning! Anyway, all said and done it’s about a 90 minute commitment 2 evenings a week, so non-trivial. In addition to that they have some weird rules about eating beforehand so (presumably) your kid won’t throw up in the pool.

So we did swim lessons (in driving snow) which actually went pretty well considering Ben’s paralyzing fear of the water. And then we came home and did the dinner thing and the homework thing and the kids went off to bed and I went for a run. Of course sleeping all day had screwed up my internal clock and I couldn’t fall asleep until way too late. Grrrr

Today I couldn’t get out of bed to go to the gym. And then I went off to work for a few hours which was super productive, but then I had to leave for my great aunt’s funeral and the family gathering afterward. It was simple and lovely and sad.

Then, of course, I hightailed it back home to change clothes and gather stuff and run out for swim lesson #2. This one, though an hour later, went even better. Ben actually seemed to enjoy himself by the end and made real progress with his backfloat. Tabby swam across the pool and dove for rings. The only problem was that since they can’t eat beforehand, we were all STARVING and so we all chowed down on Subway on the way home. My car will never be the same again.

So in two days I’ve spent about 3 hours doing swim lessons, spent not much more than double that at the office, and exactly 0 hours at the gym. On the plus side, the house is spotless and I’m pretty well rested. Trade offs.

We’ve got a few parties coming up in the pretty near future and so I’ve been finding myself spending too much time browsing around Pinterest and Oriental Trading company looking for fun party stuff.

The first party on the horizon is Tabby’s class Valentine’s Day Party. A friend and I and one other mom are the politically correct “room parents.” It’s funny because we have quite a few dads involved in school stuff – crossing guards, PTA presidents, etc. – but I’ve never seen a room dad. But I digress.

So we get to put together a little soiree for the kinders on Vday. My friend was a teacher and she always has great ideas for activities for the kids. She came up with a cool puzzle scavenger hunt that the kids can do on their own and then bring all the pieces together to reveal a secret message. It sounds like great fun and is even learning based what with the puzzle pieces and the reading and all that.

I on the otherhand, have Pinterest. And there I found these great Valentine’s floats. They’re made with Cherry 7up, ice cream and twizzlers for straws. We have to have a bunch of healthy food options available, but I thought these would be a fun treat for the kids and it’s nice to break away from cupcakes and cookies. Plus no decorating! And those are about as far as I’ve gotten. We’ll need to come up with a simple craft and probably some stickers for the kids to take home.

Then there’s Tabby’s impending 6th birthday. I think we’ve finally decided she’s going to have it at our local rec center with swimming afterward. Now we need to figure out about the party part. The activity portion is taken care of with swimming, so decorations, food and maybe a little craft or take-home something. But I don’t know where to go with this. I’ve had two thoughts: hedgehogs and kawaii (random Japanese cuteness).

Hedgehogs are obvious, but I thought the Kawaii “theme” would be fun because T has the slightly bizarre distinction of being the kid in her kindergarten class who listed her favorite food as “sushi” and I thought it would be fun to have candy sushi at her party. But that’s where that idea ends. The problem with either theme is that there’s no page in the catalog for hedgehog or kawaii birthday supplies so I have to come up with pretty much anything that we use and I don’t really have the time at the moment. So maybe we ditch themey things and she just picks a cake she likes and we buy some balloons.

Lastly there’s Ben. He and Tabby have been at their new schools the same amount of time, but while we’ve met lots of Tabby’s classmates and their parents, we don’t know ANYONE from Ben’s school. There’s no set pickup/dropoff time for his school so whereas with Tabby’s you’re constantly seeing the same people at start and end, the parents trickle in and out and rarely do we see any of them let alone stand around chatting for five minutes before/after school. As a result, we don’t really know Ben’s new classmates and I’m trying to figure out if we should do a party for him this year. He definitely wants one. We could easily invite our family friends and their kids (few of whom, I should point out, are actually Ben’s age) and have a nice party for him. But I’ve considered inviting his classmates and seeing if anyone will come and trying to get some of that friendliness started. Part of me also wants to have him wait until next year for a friends party so we can alternate who gets a big friend party each year, but next year may be the same friend situation all over again. It’s a bummer.

So I leave you with party on the brain.