Thursday

Today was a great day, but ended busier than we should have let it end.

This morning the girls and I met my friend Emily and her daughter Maggie at Lynn Meadows Discovery Center for Bear Cub Club at 10:15 a.m.  It was our first time to go to Bear Cub Club, and I think Sydney had fun (there were parts where she seemed a little out of her element, and other parts that she loved).  We ate lunch at a picnic table on the museum grounds after BCC was over (which, in my opinion, was even more fun than BCC itself, because Sydney and Maggie were able to play together and Emily and I were able to chat).  The only negative was that it was raining, so the girls (and the adults) got pretty muddy on the walk to and from the picnic table, and the girls weren't able to play on the outdoor exhibits.

Maggie shared her umbrella with Sydney.  They probably got just as wet had there not been an umbrella at all, because they walked   s   o      s   l   o   w   l   y   (right Emily?).

(It was pretty hard to photograph them while they were walking and I was walking/carrying two bags, Lorelei, and an umbrella myself...pretty umbrella though, right?)

I like spending time with Emily and Maggie...the girls play great together, and that always makes me happy.  :-)

Lorelei fell asleep in the car on the way home, so I left her in there just long enough to unload the car and put Sydney down for a nap.  After I retrieved Lorelei from the car I started to feel super sleepy.  I was hoping she would want to go down for a longer nap so that I could lay down for a few minutes myself, but it didn't look like that was going to happen.  Finally, at 3:00 p.m., just 20 minutes before Sydney needed to get up from her nap, Lorelei started acting tired, so we went to her room so I could nurse her and put her to sleep.  She faked me out; she did not want to go to sleep, but I was so desperate for a short rest that I put her in the crib wide awake.  By this point I had 12 minutes before Sydney needed to get up.  I decided 12 minutes of rest was better than nothing; I just hoped Lorelei would entertain herself for a few minutes and not start screaming.

The master bedroom is right across the hall from the girls' bedrooms, so I could easily hear Lorelei rolling around, and I heard Sydney wake up a few minutes later.  Sydney waking up was a very good thing -- I don't like Sydney to sleep longer than 2 hours at nap time, because I think it interferes with bedtime.  And Sydney is great at entertaining herself in her crib, so her being awake bought me a few more minutes of rest.  And wouldn't you know it...a couple of minutes later, Lorelei fell asleep!  Woo hoo!  I was able to rest (I dozed a little, but never fell into a dead sleep) for 30 minutes, and it made all the difference.  I almost never nap during the day, but there are times when I reach a point where if I don't rest...things might get ugly.  When I find myself desperate for a break, I pray for time to rest...and I simultaneously pray that if rest isn't possible, that God grace me with renewed energy and patience...because I know that I'm out of both at that moment!

After Chet got home from work, we decided cooking dinner and cleaning up the kitchen was not desirable, so we went to Logan's Roadhouse instead (I had a coupon).

I've decided we're never going there again.  There are just too many things that are not desirable about that restaurant (I don't know if it's the whole chain, or just our location).  I'm never very impressed with the menu, the service isn't awesome, the high chairs are always dirty, and the tables are too small.  Why do restaurants put so much STUFF on tables nowadays?  Salt, pepper, sugar/sweeteners, drink menus, dessert menus, giant pail of peanuts (in this particular case).  There's not room for the basket of rolls, the pre-dinner plates, and then the dinner plates!  And Logan's doesn't clear anything from the table throughout the meal.  There were too many times that Lorelei almost got a hold of my dinner knife or swiped the roll basket onto the floor.  Plus, I had to change Lorelei's dirty diaper in the bathroom, and that always puts me in a punchy mood.

Okay, rant over.

It was raining when we left the restaurant, and we got into the car at 7:21 p.m.  Smart parents would have driven straight home, but we were near Dollar Tree, and I needed some sponges.  So we went.  It wasn't pouring down rain, but it wasn't just sprinkling either.  We were in and out of Dollar Tree pretty quick; all I needed were some kitchen sponges, a box of Whoppers (for Chet), and a pink loofah in the shape of a pig (for Syd).

We noticed a rainbow after we left Dollar Tree.

The self-serve yogurt place is just a couple of doors down from Dollar Tree...so that was our next stop (crazy, crazy parents).  Chet and Lorelei sat down at a table while I helped Sydney fix up her yogurt cup.  When we joined Chet and Lorelei at the table, Chet looked at me and said, "We have a problem.  I've been shat on."  He said it exactly like that.  It was a little crude, but he definitely could have been more crude.  And it was hilarious.  And gross.

Thankfully it had stopped raining by this time, so I took Lorelei to the car and cleaned her up.  We went back, finished our frozen yogurt, and headed home. We had the girls bathed and in bed in record time.  After they were in bed we cleaned up the toy/art supply explosion that we had left laying out before we went to the restaurant.  Then we watched the season finale of "Dallas."  And I did not blog, which is why this post is being written right now.