Live blogging a day with the kids

Note: For those not in the know, live blogging is when someone blogs an event live as it's happening. People live blog all sorts of things, like the Super Bowl or a presidential debate.

Friday, 6:15 am
*Yawn! Stretch!*
Good mornin'! I know, it's a little early to be getting up on a day off, but I'm only "off" in the sense that I'm not going to work. No daycare today, so I'm home with the kids. And while I love my kids, it's pretty stressful keeping them busy all day. But I can do it! Go me! Personal pep talks usually don't work well for me...hopefully this one is different. Amanda's getting ready for work and so I thought I would start this thing off. Julia promised she would sleep in today. Her normal bedtime is between 7:30 and 8:00 and I let her stay up until after 9:30 last night. That may sound irresponsible, but it was for a good reason! We watched the movie 8 Women. It was my 4 year-old's first rated R movie! But hey, don't worry, the movie is in French and she doesn't really know how to read (for the subtitles). And I covered her eyes for the death scene. And I've seen many PG-13 movies much more deserving of an R rating than 8 Women. But before I let her stay up late with me, I told her that we were staying home today so she could sleep in. She agreed that that sounded like a great idea and so the verbal contract had been made.
I'm going to go lay on the floor and stretch out my back.

6:45
Amanda's gone and Finn's up and I'm getting him dressed in the living room. Julia just came up the steps. The conversation went like this:
Me: Dude! You said you were gonna sleep in!
Her: I did.
Me: Yeah, like fifteen minutes.
Her: I can't keep sleeping if it's light out!
Giving up on that conversation.

7:00
Finn wants Fruity Cheerios for breakfast. I can't say I blame him, they're good. So we're all eating Fruity Cheerios and now Finn wants milk and a spoon like we're using. I've complied with his request and now he's putting handful's of milky cereal onto his spoon and then eating it. Eh, he's getting it half right.

7:45
I just fired up some Blue's Clues for the kids so I can take a shower.


8:40
Well it's already 60 degrees so we're going to head to the park to get in some early outside time. The kids are shoed and sunscreened and ready to go! Finn will ride in the stroller and Julia will walk. It's probably about a mile walk to get to the particular park we're heading to.

8:50
Barely halfway there and Julia's complaining about being tired. I just let her in on the secret that I brought a snack along and that seems to have given her a reason to continue on.

9:45
On the way home! The little yogurt ball thingys for a snack must have energized Julia. She's been telling stories about some of her favorite characters – Tinkerbelle, Care Bears, and Dora. Julia just started telling a story involving a princess. I'm not really paying attention but all of a sudden I caught something she said - "...and so Princess Emma got a gun..."
"Whoa! What are you talking about!?"
Julia let out a little sigh and started that part of the story again, "And so Princess Emma got a knife..."
Maybe I let her watch one too many rated R movies.

10:30
This exchange just took place a few minutes ago:
Me with exaggerated enthusiasm: Hey, should we just eat tons of cookies for lunch?!
Julia: No! That's not healthy.
Her again after a moment: We could eat lots of strawberries for lunch. Strawberries are healthy. We need to eat a healthy lunch. If you don't eat healthy, you might...
Here she paused and the continued in a harsh whisper: DIE!
Me: Oooookay. How about we got to Mariachi Loco for lunch?

11:05
Finn's got a new dipe, Julia went potty, and all three of us have our shoes on. Finn's been acting pretty tired so we're heading our for an early lunch to get him down for his nap at a decent time.

12:15 pm
Home again! The lunch went swimmingly! The kids ate well, we had plenty, and it was inexpensive. The salsa wasn't too spicy this time, which made me happy since the kids both eat a lot of it and I didn't want to have to deal with burning mouths.

12:20
Finn is in his crib and quiet. A load of towels is in the dryer. The house is content!

12:30
Ha! Julia asked if she could watch a movie and I told her she should lay down and take a nap like her brother. She got a funny look in her eye and asked if she could watch a movie if she beat me in a debate. Can you believe that! Her only stipulation is that she gets to pick the topic. Seriously, what do I care if she picks "Color pencils vs Crayons" or "The necessity of Boots as a sidekick to Dora." This should be interesting.

12:46
Holy crap. The debate topic that Julia chose was "Which man did more to develop the philosophy of Nihilism as we know it today, Kierkegaard or Nietzsche?" She took Kierkegaard, I got Nietzsche. I lost. Let's just leave it at that. She's going to watch Snow White.

1:40
I've been half-watching the movie and Julia suddenly started giggling and said, "Doc scrubbed Dopey's butt!" I looked up and asked her what she meant but she just kept giggling. I had to see what was so laughtastic, so I backed the movie up a bit to see it for myself. Sure enough, Doc was helping the dwarves get washed up and Dopey fell face-first into the tub, unbeknownst to Doc. Well good 'ol Doc just kept scrubin' and ended up giving Dopey's back end a thorough cleaning. I giggled too.

2:35
Finny is awake, gotta go get him!
He's all snuggly from still being sleepy and wants a snack. I'm going to hold off on the snack as long as possible to make sure the kids stay satiated til supper. He's being somewhat entertained right now by watching Julia dancing.



2:45
Snack.

3:15
Julia is ripping the paper off her crayons and so I told her that she should leave some on because it says the name of the color on it. She says, "Dad, you know I can't read!" I chuckled and said nothing more.

3:35
Back to the outdoors. Julia is adding to her chalked drawing on the driveway and Finn is playing in the sandbox. Actually he's still in this odd phase where he refuses to sit in the sandbox. He squats next to it and reaches in to play with the sand.

4:25
Mandy's home!

Final note: Everything is true in my live blogging, except for the debate. We pretty much tied, but I let her watch the movie anyway just so she wouldn't throw a fit. I'm good like that.