So far this has been a typical too- busy weekend. Especially in the summer there are always too many things going on. Yesterday we went to a birthday picnic for a neighborhood friend who turned 4 last week. Then during the afternoon we moved on to another picnic with Chris's hockey team. At both places there was plenty for the kids to do so it's nice for me to have a chance to sit back for a while and talk to some adults while keeping an eye on the boys to be sure they're not getting too wild or doing anything unacceptable.
Josh was his typical sociable self at both parties, he found a 9 year old girl to play with a little racetrack with him at the first event even dictating when the sound on the thing should be turned on and off. At the second party when a group of girls from the neighborhood came over my boys were eating and Josh saw them coming and started yelling "hi, hi!" He found one of them later on and was holding her hands while jumping in the trampoline. In general he was all over the place watching people play volleyball , horseshoes and "hillbilly golf" and sitting on a little "tractor" that they had there to do some landscaping work. We had several trips to the powder room with his saying that he had to go but then he changed his mind once we got there.
There was a Slip and Slide and a huge water slide at the second place which kept Dima busy pretty much from the time we got there until it was time to light a fire to roast marshmallows. Then I think he was torn between the fire and the water. I ended up keeping them away from the water cause Josh's lips were turning blue cause he was so cold. Dima shied away from the older kids and the ones his age at first but warmed up to them after a while especially once the older ones started building the fire.
Differences in the boy's personalities. While eating the s'mores Dima managed to do so pretty neatly with very little getting on his face. Josh, on the other hand, took the things apart and grabbed the marshmallows and pulled them like taffy and ended up with marshmallow and chocolate everywhere - this plus the ketchup on his back from his earlier hotdog.... Later on when the sparklers came out Dima was nervous about them - watching a few before he would even consider touching one but when Josh saw them he jumped right in and was making circles in the air and having a grand old time. Well, that was until he touched the hot part of one of them after several warnings of: "don't touch it it's hot!!" and then I put an end to that. By that point it was pretty late anyway and with no nap for the day I knew they'd be exhausted. Josh fell asleep on the drive home and I'm sure they'll sleep in today and that we'll be making up for the lost rest on Monday.
Today the boys - big and small - Josh, Dima, Chris and Uncle Jon are going to a Reading Phillies game. It'll be another day with no nap and lots of activity.
I usually sit out this sort of thing cause it gives me a change of scenery from what I do every day and because the one or two times I went to the Reading Royals hockey games with them I found it totally un-relaxing. Today I get to go to German American Day with my German dance group. Doing that kind of stuff gives me a chance to hang out with some adults without having to worry about what the boys are doing. During my kid-free time I can actually stop and shop somewhere if I want to without having to make a big ordeal of getting them through a store without incident or without having to stop in the toy car department (only to look, they rarely get to buy anything when I'm shopping with them) and even though I often have to drive a while to get to these events I don't mind it cause I can make calls to friends along the way. Something as simple as just to listen to whatever I want on the radio is refreshing for me.
When I went along to the games I wasn't a fan of trying to keep track of the kids in a huge crowd like that and it's an environment where Dima doesn't have a lot of outlets for his energy so he gets wound up and it's hard for him to calm down then he can physically get wound up (like swinging his arms around like at Hershey Park 0 and it's hard to get him to focus and to listen to what you're trying to tell him). I think one thing they've found that works is giving him radio to use the headphones on so that he has something to do and so that it filters out some of the noise that gets him wound up. At Hershey park a break from the exciting rides by doing the monorail seemed to help him out at the games I think they go for walks around the stadium to take a breather.
The games do have the mascots to keep the kids' attention. The "funny guys" as Josh has taken to calling them are usually the highlights of the games for them. There are fireworks when the home team scores - and sometimes after the games as well, so that's something they look forward to.
I'm sure we'll have a low-key relaxing day around here tomorrow since we'll be heading out to Southern Maryland on Tuesday. I'll have to get stuff together and I'd like to start off with us all at least somewhat rested if at all possible.
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