Keeping Track of Lauren & Jack » April 2009 Journal Entries » AboutMyBaby - online baby scrapbooks, photo albums, videos, birth and pregnancy announcements

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Wed, Apr 29, 2009 9:00 PM
We started swimming lessons, which is really just a refresher with their ISR instructor Miss Emma. They are both doing incredibly well and love the water. Lauren is working on strokes already and is making good progress already in just a few days. Jack is also ready for strokes and she said he had a great kick because he's so strong. She said she's never seen a 3 year old do as well and that he's a natural! So I'm extremely proud of both of them.

The other thing that's been happening is their preference to sleep in the same bed. I go to wake them up and invariably find Jack in Lauren's room. She seems to like it, I think she's also comforted by his prescence, so I'm allowing it for the time being. I actually think it's very cute that they are so attached and like to be near each other.

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Sun, Apr 26, 2009 11:34 PM
OK, so it's only been about 20 days since I wrote. Holy cow! How do I nutshell? Right after we returned from the beach we had a frantic weekend of cleaning the house so that we could show it to one of Mike's colleagues in the hopes that he may be interested to rent it. We also may try to sell some furniture which we showed to yet another colleage. I don't think they'll rent the house, but it's been good to get it cleaned up!

The next week was relatively uneventful except that we tried a new babysitter who we were not entirely pleased with. At one point she fell asleep on the couch when she was supposed to be giving the kids dinner! I guess we won't be using her any more. Last weekend we had our community-wide semi-annual garage sale where I sold a lot of the kids clothes, books, and gear. We really should have tried to sell more but I just didn't have the organizational capacity to get it together in time. There were also 2 bithday parties which meant dinner was a wash both nights due to too much cake!

This week we went to Disneyworld on Thursday just for the day. I realized that it was pretty much the only day this month if we wanted to go mid-week because we'll have swimming lessons every day for the next few weeks. We tried out some new things this time; Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean, and Alladin's Flying carpets. Splash Mountain was a big hit, and Lauren's new favorite. Jack seemed to enjoy it too, but closed his eyes and ducked his head down so he wouldn't get wet. It was a hot day though, so we dried quickly enough. Tried to get out of there early but still only made it home at 8:45, but the kids were in bed by 9PM.

This weekend we went to a free open-air Pops concert given by the Florida Orchestra on Saturday which was held in a park in our area. We decided to bring the kids even though it was another late night. We were going to bring a picnic, but at the last minute went out to dinner instead and only packed snacks, drinks and dessert. It worked out pretty well, we had our folding chairs and a blanket. The kids mostly wanted to run around and Lauren was swaning about, dancing. The only real drama was Lauren sitting in the grass to play duck, duck, goose and sitting right on a pile of fire ants. NOT FUN, although she only really had a few bites in the end. We ran into Lisa & Alex Levy who are neighbors and their son Darren also goes the same pre-school as Lauren and Jack. I enjoyed it even though it was another late night. Lauren started bawling in the car on the way home - completely out of the blue, saying she never wanted to be away from her family. I assured her that she never had to be, although I'm pretty sure she'll change her mind!

Today we filmed an info-mercial for a friend of Artistic Director of the New Tampa Players, (our local community theatre). It was just me taking the kids out of the car and saying one line about this stress formula. I did have to do about 5 takes of taking the product, which they did not happen to have, so instead they used Listerine strips! Yuck! Just ONE of those is quite strong, but 5 was a bit much within a few short mintues! But the kids did great, even though I'm sure they didn't really get what we were doing.

After that we rushed off downtown to the Performing Arts Center for a kids show that was based on the books "Good Night Moon" and "The Runaway Bunny". They used puppets and it was quite well done. I used to hate Good Night Moon, but it's been growing on me because it is very soothing to read for some reason. I makes me sleepy when I'm reading it, and it's been one of Jack's favorites. So it was neat to see it come to life in 3-D. It really did look like the book, right down to the day-glow colors! And after we got home Lauren found the book and read me the whole thing!

After all the late nights I said no TV after the bath, there was just a little homework and then bed. They were down by 7:45 and it was still light outside! And not a peep out of them. They must be so worn out, poor babies!

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Tue, Apr 7, 2009 10:57 PM
The kids had a busy weekend, they came to see my Saturday matinee performance and I was so proud of them. They did not call out to me and were extremely well behaved. I was so relieved because they were in the front row! Sunday Mike took them to a birthday party at ChuckECheeses and apparently Mike was not a big fan of the big Chuck. I had to go strike the sets, which means we have to dissasemble the sets, furniture, props, costumes and get everything moved to storage, or back to where it was borrowed from.

So that didn't leave me a whole lot of time to get ready for our trip to the beach. I had a ton of laundry to do, so we only left around 2PM on Monday. The only good thing about that was that our room was ready when we got there. As we unpacked I discovered I had forgotten 2 important articles. The pajamas for the kids and my book. PJ's we obviously can't do without, and my book was important since we're all staying in the same room. I was hoping there would be some way to watch TV without waking them once they're down for the night, but it's just impossible. So thankfully there was a Target nearby where I could get everything we neeeded, as well as food for breakfast since we have a full kitchen.

The place is beautiful, everything I remember, but here's the problem. There's a freak cold front that came with us, with high winds and cold temperatures. As in, too cold for the beach! Ugh! It is really unfortunate timing. And the worst of it is that since it was 80 degrees when I left, I didn't pack enough warm clothes. For the kids OR for myself!

Today we found the playground which is not large, but has swings and a slide, which seem to be all they really need! Then we headed off for lunch at St Armand's circle which is a very touristy area on another island just south of here. We did quite a bit of window shopping, even braving the art galleries which had amazing sculptures and (gulp) lots of breakable things! By the time we got back to the resort I was sorely in need of a nap. The kids headed back to the playground and then knocked a few balls around on the tennis court with Mike. When they returned Lauren said she was hit in the eye with a ball, and does it look red? No.

So then there was the whole question of dinner, becuase despite the fact that the resort is supposed to have 5 dining options, the only casual, kid friendly ones were either not open or all booked up. So Mike found a restaurant just around the corner and even though we had to wait 45 mins for a table, it was a great find! The food was good, the view was right on the water and the kids were entertained by Pelican dive-bombing into the sea to get fish.

The trick tonight was to let them stay up with me to watch American idol, so they were really tired by the time we put them in their own beds and they were both asleep in 5 minutes flat! Plus it's too cold to sit out on the balcony anyway, hence a lot of time to catch up on blogging!

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Thu, Apr 2, 2009 9:57 PM
Ok, I apologize for completely falling off the wagon with this blog. I wanted to remember to mention that I had Jack's teacher conference at school as well, and he seems to be doing well also. The important thing is to see progress from last time. He's showing less resistence to doing work, and he's doing well at participating in all the other activities. I'm just so releived that he likes it there, that he doesn't have any huge behavioral issues. I think he's doing verey well considering it 's been his first year of preschool and this is his 3rd teacher. His class has a lot of boys, and they seem to get each other in trouble sometimes, but nothing that his teacher is concerned about. She gave me some things to work on at home, like money (penny, nickel, dime, quarter)and also numbers 11-20.

I've also been distracted because I'm in a community theatre play which opened last weekend. Between that and Easter Egg hunts there's been a lot going on. And we're still waiting to hear for sure about Oxford. It's a terrible limbo to be in. The kids keep asking questions like, "If we move to England, can I bring my crayons?" Err, . . yes. I don't want to talk about all the things we WON"T be able to bring though!

Last Friday I took Lauren to get her hair cut at the curl specialist over in St Peterberg. It is sort of a hike, but we made a day of it and went to Great Explorations which is a sort of science Museum, and we also saw the Sunken Gardens (botanical)since it was free this month too. The hairdresser said that I should not be pulling her hair tight when it's wet (which I do every day) becuase the hair is elastic when wet and it will cause breakage around the hair line. Her hair line could even recede and get very frizzy. So since then I've been trying to do less with her hair, just putting in a loose barrett or clip. Of course her hair gets messy very quicly if it isn't pulled back off her face, so I'm going to have to figure out what to do now.

Tuesday we went to the dentist and I was proud of the fasct that they were both very easy with the hygenist and had easy cleanings. There are no cavities but apparently Lauren's tooth next to the one she knocked out has a lot of scar tissue, so we need to keep an eye on that. And apparently her big girl teeth should be coming in on the middle bottom teeth, so she should lose those in the next 6 months or so. Jack looks great but apparently we could do a better job brushing his upper molars. And we need to work on getting him to spit out so he can start using fluoride toothpaste.

I also registered both kids for their refresher ISR course with their swim instructor Ms. Emma, so we'll have that coming up in the next few weeks. It's starting to get very warm and humid out, so it's going to be swim weather very soon. A little while ago Jack told me that he doesn't want to swim, he'll just sit and watch. Yeah, right, we'll see how long that lasts!

And I finally decide to book our hotel for Spring break which is actually next week! We're going down to Longboat Key which is an island just off of Sarasota, which is only about an hour's drive from here. We went down there to visit some friends and I just fell in love with this resort. They have beautiful white sand beach with cabanas and a man coming round taking cocktail and snack orders, not to mention the fabulous pool. I thought we should take advantage of being here right near the beach while we have the chance! The only thing is that we're all staying in one room, so that might be a bit tricky. We will have a large balcony, so maybe Mike and I can sit out there sipping wine while the kids fall asleep. Or maybe we should buy them some earplugs!

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