My Little Packing Helper

And I wonder why nothing seems to be actually getting into the suitcases...

Pre-Vacation Blues

There are several challenges in having children - one of the biggest I have discovered so far is traveling with them. On Friday the Erim clan is heading west to go skiing for a week and so here I am the week before having to pack.

We avoid air travel as much as possible. The first reason being now that Quinn is over two for us to even contemplate going anywhere by plane the price tag starts at $1,000 and only goes up from there. Ouch. Our second reason is, well you know, we love our dogs and so attempt to take them on most of our vacations which requires us to drive. We are the crazy people that would rather drive 14 hours through the night down to Palm Beach to board a plane to the Bahamas than take the 2 hour flight there from Nashville. The third reason is packing. When we drive anywhere I can always throw the extra diapers and an extra bag of toys into the car last minute and no one cares if we have overweight bags or 13 of them, for that matter. And finally, the biggest reason is the whole airline process itself. In driving we schlep the kids into the car in 5 minutes and load the bags and go - the process of getting to the airport of getting all of us and all our crap into the terminal, checked-in, through security and on to the plane without losing a child or a bag is daunting to say the least.

But since our dogs can't ski and since driving to Denver would take like 3 days each way we will be heading to the airport on Friday. Pray for us.

So here I sit procrastinating because the LAST thing I want to do is pack. I can pack myself in about 20 minutes - packing kids on the other hand takes preparation, thought and a whole lot of creativity. We are staying in CO for a week so I have got to pack enough toys to entertain them so they won't destroy a condo but said toys have to be small and compact enough to fit in an overhead bin. I have spent the afternoon inspecting all of our toys seeing if they fit the bill - compact, fun, not too many parts to lose so I am not spending my last day hunting for the lost puzzle piece instead of skiing. I have narrowed the list to the semi-finalists and tonight will have to play puzzle master to see how to get them all into the airline imposed baggage limits. Next I have to think of the plane ride. One of our other caveats in flying is attempting to fly at night (ie bedtime). That way the kids get on the plane, we put them in their jammies and they fall asleep and we then can enjoy the overpriced liquor. However, we couldn't get a night flight out so our 3 hour plane flight is going to be in prime play time. Our seatmates are going to love us!

To top this off I have to do all this packing by myself - Raif is on a business trip til thursday so I have no one to bounce my ideas off or help me sit on a suitcase to shut it. So if any of you have any great plane or packing ideas let me know and hopefully this will all be worth it once we get there.

Well, At Least They Are Honest....

Raif was playing with the kids outside and came in for a minute and when he went outside again he found both of them crying and holding plastic golf clubs...
Raif: What happened?
Quinn: Greyson hit me in the head
Greyson: Quinn hit me on the hand.
Raif: Did you do this on purpose or was it an accident?
Quinn: On purpose
Greyson: On purpose

Happy Valentine's Day

OK, I will be the first to admit that I am a holiday geek. I love holidays and attempt as much as possible to OD on them, much to my husband's dismay. I've got decorations for every holiday and try to craft everything we do around whatever day it is. So here was our Valentine's Day...

We started off with heart shaped pancakes (or at least they were suppose to be. Raif let me sleep in this morning (thanks babe) but he assured me that the pancakes were done as instructed). Then they, of course, wore their coordinating "Daddy's Little Cupcake" and "Wild For Mommy" t-shirts. Our afternoon snack consisted of making heart shaped Jell-O jigglers.

For dinner we had champagne (or sparkling water, depending on who you asked) in wine glasses as well as pink milk and spare ribs with BBQ sauce (the theme being red if you hadn't guessed by now)

Then we had pink frosted cupcakes for dessert and topped the night off with a pink bath and Valentine books.

OK, I am a dork but I think they had fun..... Now on to St. Patrick's Day.

All Dressed Up

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to have guessed that when Greyson got dressed up for school Quinn had to wear her party dress. But at least I got to take some adorable pictures of them together looking very chic.

Looking Good Billy Ray....

Friday was Greyson's school's annual 'Grandparent Tea'. All the kids get dressed up and invite their grandparents or other special people in their lives to school for a party. For most parents 'dress-up' means put on the nicest thing you have in your closet - for the Erims it means going out and buying your son a SWEET suit (sigh). But in the end it was probably worth it because he was the HIT of the school - from kids to teacher to parents everyone commented on how cool he looked. He definitely made the day. Here are some pictures of my little man.
My little guy getting ready to leave for school.
Showing off his new shoes to his buddy Yohannes.
Greyson and his girlfriend Olivia.

As always Raif took a ton of pictures - too many to post but if you have a chance you can view the rest at his smugmug account.
http://sailrace.smugmug.com/gallery/7349139_qhKoq#473028327_ujiig

The Best Laid Plans..... (and how they inevitably fail)

Because Raif takes Greyson to school every morning he doesn't get home until 6:30 each night - which is when I am putting dinner on the table. Which also means that between 5:30 and 6:30 each night I am attempting to cook dinner by myself and keep two children entertained without killing each other or me. Of course they are always interested in what I am doing and want to help and make themselves permanent fixtures in the kitchen. 9 times out of 10 I have to tell them to keep out because of knives or ovens etc. But last week I had a BRILLIANT idea. I was going to make polenta pizzas for dinner. I even went so far as to get out cookie cutters so they could make different shapes and then put sauce on them and cheese. Masterful. Something they could help me with - totally kid friendly. I am sure at this point you can imagine what happened next. "Hey Greyson - Quinn do you want to help Mommy make dinner??" "No Mommy we are going upstairs to play - you can make dinner by yourself tonight." Sweet. Well I had a super swell time making them all by myself - thank you very much.

I know it won't last...

But this weekend was our first, beautiful, warm spring day. We took advantage and played outside both days and Raif even managed to chop down a few trees in the backyard with a fascinated audience. Here are a couple of pictures of our weekend.

Confessions of a Lazy Mother

I am having second child-itis. With your first child (at least with me) I was all about the firsts and was all gung-ho to potty train Greyson. With Quinn I was still excited about the all the first things but with potty training - eh. All the books tell you to seize with gusto those first signs of potty training willingness but Quinn's eagerness came on the heels of Greyson's potty training marathon and the thought of starting it all over again was about as appealing as a root canal. I have been pushing it off and off with excuse after excuse - you can't potty train during Christmas or when people are visiting etc. etc. But starting today I am pledging to hit the potty training full force. She has actually been very interested in going to the potty and I will confess sometimes she has asked to go potty and I would say - No I think you would rather go in your diaper, wouldn't you" I know, I know... It is just that life with her in a diaper is sooo much easier. The thought of taking even a semi-long car trip with two toddler bladders does not appeal to me at all. But I have run out of excuses so potty training - here we come......

Love, True Love...

For the longest time at school Greyson was a bit of a loner. He would rather play by himself than with the other kids. Awhile or so ago that changed and Greyson got a BFF - Yohannes. That is all he would talk about at home when I asked him about school - Yohannes this and Yohannes that. A week or so ago a new name started popping up in our dinnertime conversations - Olivia. This week I asked his teachers about it and yep - Greyson's got a girlfriend. Apparently, they always have to 'nap' together getting the cots farthest away from the door (I suspect because they think no one will catch them). They don't nap but rather spend the time whispering to each other. What's even funnier (and a bit odd if I do say so myself) is that for this last week Greyson has been taking his socks off and putting them under Olivia's cot each afternoon. I can't begin to understand the why of that one - perhaps a preschool love notion that just escapes me. If you ask Greyson if Olivia is his girlfriend he will tell you yes and get this big smile on his face. I personally think that she is by far the prettiest girl in class but maybe I am just a little biased. I will have to see if I can get a picture of the two of them and put it up.

Not talking rocket science here...

I went shopping today and stopped by our local parent-teacher store to pick up some games and such for the kids. I got this little book of table top games which I thought would be great time consumers for restaurants. Anyway, they are assorted matching games - match the Big A to the little a and match the 3 clowns to the number 3 - that sort of thing. But here is the thing - each game came with a "Parent Answer Key" Seriously people - a "Parent Answer Key." If you can't match your capital letters with your lower case letters than you need to stop focusing on your kid and get some serious help for yourself.

Like a Fine Wine..

Hopefully I am getting better with age.

Saturday was my birthday and I had a wonderful day full of surprises. Saturday morning I heard a knock on the door and found my parents standing on the other side and offering their free babysitting services. That night Raif took me out to a hip new restaurant in East Nashville called Alium, then out to Sambuca for drinks with friends. Finally he surprised me by renting a room in this new trendy downtown hotel, Hotel Indigo. We got an adult night to ourselves and got to sleep in together - something that hasn't happened in forever. He is a pretty good husband so I suppose I will keep him - at least for another year. Thanks Raif - I love you!!