We took the girls to Exploration Place today; Jenn's work had a "bring your families and enjoy" type day. A quick recap of our adventure.
Our journey begins around 10:00 this morning. Girls got up nice and early today (7:00), and were showing signs of being tired. Lunch at Exploration Place was scheduled to begin at 12:30. We hadn't really formulated a battle plan regarding nap time, mostly because it's sort of a dicey proposition as of late. The girls are getting to the point where they don't think they need an afternoon nap, which honestly has been their creed since about 9 months, but now have the fortitude and will to see their plans through, typically to the dismay of whomever is around. Most of the time the nap happens eventually, but gone are the days when you could bank on that 11-1 break.
On an ordinary day, lolling heads at 10:00 would have garnered some interest from Mommy and Daddy, but we would have waited for the rally. Today, however, we were on the clock, and when the window of opportunity, however slight, presented itself, we went for it. In retrospect a novice mistake, as play had been relatively subdued all morning; we hadn't even ventured downstairs. The girls spent an hour laughing at our folly in their cribs, and then it was time to "wake up" and get ready.
We arrived at our destination without incident, took a quick lunch, and went about our adventure. I'm not quite sure what I was worried about, what scenario I envisioned, that would lead me to believe a 2 year old child could ever be bored/fussy/angry in such a place. "Here, being who is evolutionarily designed to drink in information, go be bored in this giant room filled with sights and sounds you've never experienced before". We could have spent 10 hours there and they probably still would have been going strong. Some favorites:
- Sharks in the Megalodon exhibit. Sharks being a familiar nemesis of Dora, of course.
- The K'Nex exhibit. I'm not sure how much K'Nex pays for that exhibit, but I know they make it back 10 fold in product sales.
- A castle, built into several rooms, which, with the number of kids running around, actually gives a pretty accurate re-creation of siege warfare, I imagine.
And we didn't even get much into the second wing of the place, though it did seem like that was more "older kid" stuff. A lot of people I know have had a "Meh, whatever" opinion of Exploration Place, and I can see where some of it would get a been there, done that reaction after a couple visits (especially with older kids), but the Vogts Clan had a blast.
Aside from that adventure, things are finally getting back to normal, though both Mommy and Daddy are dealing the the last remnants of colds. The girls are better though, back on schedule for the most part, and continuing to amaze. Full sentences are commonplace, and some of the conversations they have between themselves are starting to make sense to foreign ears as well. Just tonight, Megan warned Kayla not to take her chair while she went to fetch something from her room. Which of course Kayla immediately did, but still. As always, I try not to underestimate what they're capable of, something days like today help with considerably.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Sickness and Schedules
After the girls were first born, Jenn obviously was home with them for a while, and I actually took over after that for about 3 weeks, give or take, mostly because I get more vacation than I can use, and I could. This took us to around Jan '09 without needing any kind of daycare. Jenn's mom Ruth took over for us at that point; she'd walk over in the morning, and take care of them until I got home at around 5 or so. Which was awesome of course - daycare showing up at your house - but couldn't last forever, as we knew. Seems like I'm remembering she took care of them until about 9 or 10 months old, until they eventually became too heavy and too active for her to keep up with 5 days a week, and still keep her sanity. So, we started looking for daycare options.
While we looked, we briefly toyed with the idea of me becoming a stay-at-home dad. We weren't sure what our daycare costs were going to be, and whether they might threaten to make my take home pay redundant. As it turned out, the answer to that question was "No", but for several days I was seriously considering the possibility, what it would mean for my life, whether I'd have been able to handle it, etc. I'm sure that overall it would have been great, but honesty compels me to admit that there are times when I could not imagine having to take care of the girls by myself 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Times like this weekend, for example.
Kayla and Megan are sick. A cold ravaged the house a few weeks back that the girls mostly recovered from, save for an occasional cough. It was never serious enough for us to worry, we know by now that the answer from the doctor would have been "Push fluids, watch her appetite, let us know if there's a fever or it gets worse". Late Friday and this weekend, however, the cough started getting worse, and we started seeing all the classic "I don't feel good" symptoms. We had Megan in on Saturday as she was the first to start a fever, and had the worse bark. They told us it was probably viral, but gave us an antibiotic just in case it was "clinical bronchitis", which seems to be one of those medical terms that translates into "Eh, we're not really sure". Kayla we had in yesterday, same diagnosis/result (although the over-eager PA did try a breathing treatment as well).
You come to appreciate how much kids depend on their routines. This is something every parenting source in the world will mention, but doesn't really sink in until you've experienced the consequences first hand. Even at 2+, it seems to snowball. A little stuffiness leads to a missed nap. A missed nap leads to a cranky afternoon. A cranky afternoon leads to an even crankier evening, at which point they become overtired and fight sleep more than usual. Rinse and repeat for 3 days, and your result is Megan still awake at 9pm tonight, sitting on Mommy's lap watching House in the living room.
Jenn stayed home with both girls today. It was up and down most of the day it sounds like, but when I got home, it's like a balloon popped. Within about 10 minutes Megan was in an inconsolable mood. She wanted Daddy to hold, then Mommy. She wanted juice, then sent it away when offered. She wanted to sit and snuggle to watch Dora, but why would I expect her to want to sit in that chair? Megan's ability to keep herself awake is legendary, but she really took it to another level tonight. At one point she crawled down from Jenn and wanted to go play with some blocks. She got as far as the block bucket, put her hands in to fetch some....and that's where the effort stalled. In retrospect we maybe should have just let her stay there, she probably would have fallen asleep right there, hands still half-clutching the blocks.
We finally got her down around 9:30, which of course means she'll be 2 hours in the hole to start out with today. There's some concern of ear infection, but they tend to wake up feeling OK, I think we'll probably have to try daycare today. Schedule, how we have missed you.
While we looked, we briefly toyed with the idea of me becoming a stay-at-home dad. We weren't sure what our daycare costs were going to be, and whether they might threaten to make my take home pay redundant. As it turned out, the answer to that question was "No", but for several days I was seriously considering the possibility, what it would mean for my life, whether I'd have been able to handle it, etc. I'm sure that overall it would have been great, but honesty compels me to admit that there are times when I could not imagine having to take care of the girls by myself 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Times like this weekend, for example.
Kayla and Megan are sick. A cold ravaged the house a few weeks back that the girls mostly recovered from, save for an occasional cough. It was never serious enough for us to worry, we know by now that the answer from the doctor would have been "Push fluids, watch her appetite, let us know if there's a fever or it gets worse". Late Friday and this weekend, however, the cough started getting worse, and we started seeing all the classic "I don't feel good" symptoms. We had Megan in on Saturday as she was the first to start a fever, and had the worse bark. They told us it was probably viral, but gave us an antibiotic just in case it was "clinical bronchitis", which seems to be one of those medical terms that translates into "Eh, we're not really sure". Kayla we had in yesterday, same diagnosis/result (although the over-eager PA did try a breathing treatment as well).
You come to appreciate how much kids depend on their routines. This is something every parenting source in the world will mention, but doesn't really sink in until you've experienced the consequences first hand. Even at 2+, it seems to snowball. A little stuffiness leads to a missed nap. A missed nap leads to a cranky afternoon. A cranky afternoon leads to an even crankier evening, at which point they become overtired and fight sleep more than usual. Rinse and repeat for 3 days, and your result is Megan still awake at 9pm tonight, sitting on Mommy's lap watching House in the living room.
Jenn stayed home with both girls today. It was up and down most of the day it sounds like, but when I got home, it's like a balloon popped. Within about 10 minutes Megan was in an inconsolable mood. She wanted Daddy to hold, then Mommy. She wanted juice, then sent it away when offered. She wanted to sit and snuggle to watch Dora, but why would I expect her to want to sit in that chair? Megan's ability to keep herself awake is legendary, but she really took it to another level tonight. At one point she crawled down from Jenn and wanted to go play with some blocks. She got as far as the block bucket, put her hands in to fetch some....and that's where the effort stalled. In retrospect we maybe should have just let her stay there, she probably would have fallen asleep right there, hands still half-clutching the blocks.
We finally got her down around 9:30, which of course means she'll be 2 hours in the hole to start out with today. There's some concern of ear infection, but they tend to wake up feeling OK, I think we'll probably have to try daycare today. Schedule, how we have missed you.
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