Well, Chrissie’s made it to the coast. She’s out of town for a weekend craft-a-way with Kat. They’ll be knitting / Sewing / Quilting it up at the coast from Friday Night – Sunday so I have the kids this weekend.

Everything went easy Friday night. After dinner out, where Chrissie and Kat left to the beach afterwards, we came home, walked Artie (in which we go 1/2 as far but it takes twice as long as a normal walk) but on the PJs, read books and it was off to bed. I’ll admit to bribing them with “morning” TV if they went quietly into the good night. This was quite devious of me since I was planning on snuggling in bed and doing “morning” TV anyway but I figured a good lever shouldn’t go to waste.

I was amazed at how little I cared about the schedule when I was running the show. On a typical night I get home from work, we eat dinner, have some playtime then go PJs, books, bed – bing bang boom. I’m usually watching the clock the whole time. “can’t play too long if we have bath,” “gotta get Leina down so she’s not grumpy in the morning,” “need to get this done tonight.”

But last night was very strange. I guess I didn’t care about the time ’cause I knew, with the dog walk, I was going to blow the schedule anyway. It was very liberating. I let Leina put on her own PJs (at her own schedule), we read extra books, sang extra songs and it was all ok. I knew I didn’t have anything to do Friday night except goof around online – I couldn’t work in the shop since I had to be available for emergencies – so I didn’t really have to a keep to a schedule. Only once Leina was down and put to bed did I realize it was 8:30pm – 1/2 an hour past the routine bedtime! But the kids didn’t have any ill effects this morning and the world didn’t end. Maybe well make Friday nights a traditional “stay up and smell the roses” night?

Of course, in all my activity last night I forgot to do the dishes. There they were waiting for me in the morning, all crusty and gross. Ugh. How could my wife have left without cleaning the kitchen? Sneaky dear, sneaky 😉

All is good in Rascal land.

Kulia woak up at 7:30 this morning so I was barely up myself. A little less snuggling and a lot more feeding and we were on our way. One quick story to relate: I was hittin’ the shower after breakfast, Kulia was playing by herself and I asked her to come up stairs to the craft room while I cleaned up. She said,

I count yesterday as “day 1” with Kulia (aka The Rascal) ’cause I was technically alone with her from noon on – and that’s more than enough time.

Day 1 re-cap:

We went out to lunch with Papa-Mac and she gave him her Rascal look the whole time, when not smacking down the Mac-and-Cheese. Then she came home and take a 3 hour nap. We finished off the day with an Artie walk in which she rode in the stroller and yelled, “faster, faster!” whenever we went down a hill.

Day 2:

She slept in until 8am. My body couldn’t handle the extra sleeping time and I woke up at 7:15 (the Leina wake up time). I finally had to get up and eat at 7:30am. I’ll try and stay up extra tonight to enjoy the sleeping in more.

We snuggled all morning in bed watching cartoons 🙂 After 4 shows (her Daily allowance of TV) she finally asked if we could go play. For those of you interested there is a limit to her TV desires. I would have bet it was at least 8 shows. There’s some hope for her yet.

We played Batman and Baby Robin, hide and seek, then puzzles, puzzles, puzzles. She’s slowly figuring out how to turn the pieces to get them to “click” into place. She gets so excited when she does I just kept going and going and going with them.

Then we went shopping. My first single parent mistake. Instead of filling her with the required 10am snack I figured we’d just stop by the donut shop while we were out and about. Not a good decision. She was a terror by the time we got there and scarffed 3/4 of her donut and wanted another one. I didn’t want to put anymore sugar in her than necessary but if she was that hungry I figured we’d better get something more nutritious from the car. When I told her the donuts were all done and we’d go to the car for some more Tantrum child went into full meltdown. Ah, there’s nothing like a screaming child in a small store. The joy of parenting. Luckily she’s still small and I could pick her up without much fuss. By the time we walked around the block to the car my arm was getting very sore but she’d calmed down. I got some raisins and fishes into her and she was much better. Regardless we weren’t doing the Costco trip after that. It was home and some quiet time.

Lunch was easy – she didn’t eat much wonder why? But we did another Artie walk afterwards ’cause the pooch won’t get one tonight. She went down quietly but slowly and is in hour 2.5 of the nap and starting to rustle up.

Manny is sick so dinner was cancelled. It;ll be lasagna again for me – the 3rd meal in a row. Many thanks to my prescient wife for cooking me a delicious one before she left! We’re going to do a post-dinner Safeway run ’cause Costco was pushed off until tomorrow. You may ask why I really need to go to Costco and that’s because we’re down to our last 1/4 bag of nuggets. At this rate Kulia won’t have anything to eat on Monday. And I don’t want Tantrum Child II to appear. Wish me luck.

Well, Chrissie and Leina are in the air and on their way to their San Diego adventure.

Look out San Diego – Leina’s coming to town.

It’s just Kulia (aka The Rascal) and me for the long weekend. Things have started out right – she’s 3 hours into her 1st nap already. I’ve crossed 2 items off on my to do list and already gotten a little Mythos time in as well.

I figure if I can keep The Rascal sleeping for 18 – 20 hours a day I should make it until Monday without a problem 😉

Here’s video of Christmas day with the girls in their new superhero costumes.
For the un-initiated Leina is Wonder Woman and Kulia is Robin (Batman’s sidekick) aka “Baby Robin”

Aren’t they cute?

Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EjxBCI2lbU

Here’s a video of the floors and tile after completion. Today I realized we had the “chromatic” bulbs in the ceiling lights of the kitchen which gave off a redish light and when I changed them out for energy efficient flourescent lights the floors looked the normal oak color. Now, funny enough, everthing looks red in this video now – go figure.

Anyway. I didn’t realize how much Elmo and I sound like an old married couple at the start of this video, it’s pretty funny. But after working next to someone for 12 four-hour days I challenge you not to sound like us. But I now have a greater insight into what Tutu goes through on a daily basis – I am in awe of you Tutu!