Week in the Life.

It's been sort of a crazy one! My saving grace with having two kids is that they usually take an afternoon nap at the same time, and I get a few minutes of quiet time to myself. Not this week! It feels like one of them is constantly awake, and no one is in a good mood (because they're overtired!) Ellie has been especially mouthy and rude. People say "oh, wait until she's a teenager," but frankly, I would love for her to just tell me she hates me and slam her door, or ignore me for her friends for a few hours. A three year old is all of the attitude, none of the avoiding. She is right on my tail at all times.

Wednesday I attempted to be a nice mom, and since no one was napping, take them to the Spectrum, which is a big outdoor mall with a nice carousel. Plus it has a Target, and I needed to return a hideous bathing suit. So we did our return and walk over to the carousel... to find that it's closed for repairs. Ellie's reaction was like I had just burned the place down in front of her, using her favorite stuffed animals as kindling. The saving grace was that Tim was at a boozy work afternoon at the Dave and Busters next door, so he brought us in to the dwindling party, and Ellie ate some chicken fingers. And on the way out we stopped at a store that only sells rhinestone items and she got a new Hello Kitty "jewelry-o."

Also, here is what she looks like, walking through a mall:

And here she is with her Gigi and Grizz! Doing safe things, with people who don't have bad backs.

Today we had a couple of our friends over and the girls did some good playing outside together. There was some minor screamage over the trike, and the kids picked all of the little ground cover flowers on the side of the house, but the thing that they enjoyed the most was a long piece of ivy that I yanked out of the Indian Hawthorne. The three girls each grabbed part of it and ran back and forth for about fifteen minutes, playing a minor game of crack the whip, while Adam played with the leaves that got stripped. Who doesn't love that sort of free entertainment?

This is also good free entertainment. The hour before bed time, always a crazy show around our house.