Saturday

Saturday was quite a day.  It started off very lazily (which I'm all for, considering how insane my week days are.)  Jake always gets up at the butt-crack of dawn (ok, at 7 or 7:30) and comes in my room and says "Mom.  I hungry. Mom?  Mom?  I hungry, mom.  I need some cereal.  Mom?  You come downstairs and get me some cereal?  Mom?  I hungry, mom."  On and on until I drag my butt out of bed.

Usually I sit with him while he eats his Fruit Loops (with all the purples taken out first, of course), his bowl sitting on top of a kitchen towel (easier than fighting the spills), and then I put in a train video and let him play.  I lay down on the couch and I'm in and out of sleep most of the morning, as he's REALLY GOOD at playing independently now.  I help him with stuff when he needs me, but on the whole Jake will let me rest when he knows I'm exhausted.  (And I should note that I usually stay up late on Friday nights getting stuff done on the computer once he's asleep, so it's not like I'm going after 12 hours of sleep in a night.)  Lou on Saturdays is either working or out running errands.

Anyway, so this past Saturday I was meeting my college friend Kim at O'Charley's for lunch.  Poor Jake got confused and thought we were going to visit my COUSIN Kim, so on the way there he was like "Is yo' cousin Kim there yet?" and I had to explain to him (again) that sometimes people have the same name, and it's my FRIEND we're going to see.  Jake was absurdly super-shy during lunch, although he played nicely with his Thomas trains we brought along.  It was nice to hang out with Kim (who was my best friend first semester freshman year and then moved back home), and we're going to try to get together again next month.

The SECOND Jake and I got home . . . ok, it was like 10 minutes later . . . Lou told me that one of HIS college friends was in town and they had figured out a time we could get together.  We had to leave almost immediately -- and we drove to town and hung out with them in their hotel room for like 3 hours.  They have a little boy a year younger than Jake who also likes trains, so I got to see half of Polar Express (I thought it was dumb, but that's just me) and Jake played semi-nicely with the other kiddo.

Ok, THEN we went straight from there to downtown, where we were meeting Lou's family -- like, his WHOLE family -- at The Old Speghetti Factory to celebrate the four January birthdays.  We got there at 5:45 and our reservation for 15 of us wasn't until 6:30 -- so I had to corral Jake for almost an hour.  Jake hadn't had a nap all day AND hadn't had a chance to run around much since it was rainy and cold all day.  And the boy is 40 pounds, it's not like I can just stand there and hold him for more than 30 seconds, ever.  So that was a fun power struggle.  The highlight of the evening for Jake was after dinner when we were about to eat cake, the waiter (in a very loud voice) got everyone's attention, made us stand up, announced our birthdays and had everyone sing to us.  Now remember, Jake is OBSESSED with birthdays, so standing on a chair beside me as an entire room sings Happy Birthday is pretty freaking cool.  After they were done, he sat down for a minute, then said "Let's do it again" and starting singing it and kind of looked behind him like "why aren't you people singing?"  Lou and I about fell out of our chairs, we were laughing so hard.

I have a personal belief that for young children you should NEVER fully schedule your day, especially without nap breaks, and you should never take them to more than 2 events in a day.  It's just too much for them to handle.  So I broke my own rule -- completely unintentionally -- and I think we're not doing anything this coming Saturday but staying at home and watching TV.

Comments

[Kate]

Okay, that's creepy-- Brody won't eat the purple Fruit Loops either. He throws them on the floor.

*Twilight Zone music*

I'm crapped out just thinking about your day, and you had to deal with a toddler on top of it. Ick. You're a good woman. I would have looked my husband straight in the eye and been like, "Um, no, screw you!"

[Kelly]

I TOTALLY agree with you on the whole full day thing. That can happen now and again but not everyday. They need down time and NAPS!

So cute what Jake did about the birthday song! So funny!!!!!