A weekend...

Not sure how single parents do this! I have only been at it for 2 days, since we dropped Mark off at the airport yesterday at 6 am!! My theory is just keep busy and drink a lot of coffee, so we've been doing a lot and the kids are sleeping like champs, I on the other hand don't sleep well when Mark is gone and when I've had coffee in the afternoon!

We started our weekend by eating breakfast at "Slappy Cakes" restaurant, where you get to make your own pancakes at the table (batter is provided in a squeeze bottle), the kids wanted blueberries and chocolate chips in the pancakes. They had a great time making different shapes - Jakob made a long neck dinosaur, unfortunately he got decapitated as we flipped him, but tasted good! Sarah was told about 100 times not to touch the hot surface, she repeated that "No touch this, it's hot" about 100 times and just before we were done, she brushed her knuckles on it, well she learned, no real burn just felt "HOT Mama!!", a little ice water on it, she was good to go.

We went from there to Laurelhurst park for a walk around the pond, that is randomly growing a toxic level of blue/green algae, so we were bummed that we couldn't find tadpoles, but were privy to a crow eating a dead rat - Jakob loved that! It was disgusting, but he wanted to stay and see how the bird ate it, I could only stomach about 1 minute and then ran away - promptly running into a little wire fence, which ripped my skirt - oh yeah, looking good now! Another parent saw the whole thing and said "I can't believe you even stayed to watch it", so I felt like a brave Mom. We were promptly treated to watching a blue heron hunting tiny fish, that was really neat.

Came home, and we all napped for 2 hours. Then off to the park for the evening, dinner at New Season's - with Sarah yelling "Mac n cheese, Mac n cheese, Mac n cheese, Thanks Mama!!", nibbles of the cherry tomatoes we bought and followed by a scoop of chocolate gelato (which of course Sarah ate mostly with her hands).

This morning we took a hike thru our forest, did a little geocaching, played in the park and then ate lunch at Grand Central, one of my favorite bakeries.

Jakob rode his scooter there and then he and Sarah ran thru the grass on the way home, actually they rolled, it was so cute. Sarah was saying, "Roll wiff me Jabub, I love you Jabub!"

When we got home, the kids were tired, but not quite nap time, Jakob was whining and talking back, I asked him a few times to stop and then without looking popped him in the mouth with my hand, and heard a small sound of something hitting the floor - yep his front tooth came out! For the record the tooth was literally hanging by a thread, and it fell out without any blood or pain. I said, "Oh my gosh was that your tooth?" in complete horror of what I had done and he just started laughing, knowing I felt guilty. ARRGH! No lesson learned there, just one for me I guess. He forgot about it quickly when he remembered that the tooth fairy will visit him tonight. He looks so goofy without his tooth, but all of a sudden he looks like such a big kid now! It makes me so sad and him so happy - he was beaming when I said, "You look so big, I can't believe it."

The day ended with a 2 hour visit to the Washington Park, upon returning I asked Jakob to check on his worms in his 3 worm hotels, he did so and 1 had died - oh my gosh you've never seen a kid cry so fast and hard, poor guy. He is so sensitive with anything about animals, he walked into the kitchen with it and asked with tears in his eyes, "Is this a worm?", in fact it was and I had to tell him it was dead, that was it, he was in full tears and couldn't get control of himself. I reminded him that that worm did his job in the hotel, ate the leaves, made the soil rich for us and would have died in the ground or in a bird or a mole's mouth someday - which helped a bit but he still wanted to eat his dinner alone. When he said that, I had almost a dejavu moment, but into the future, where I saw a broken hearted teenager in the future wanting to "be alone" - ugh! He has such a big heart, I managed to think of something else to say hoping it would make him feel a bit better, "Jakob you know what I like about you the most, you care so much for animals, insects and people, that you would cry over a worm, you are such a good person." Finally a smile!

Ok, Mark, I need you home now, I can't do all of this by myself, you are the calm, cool, collected parent, that I needed for the constant Sarah redirection, the stomach to watch the bird eat the rat, the worm death, and the talking back (me knocking the tooth out), can't wait until you are home!!