When Dad's Away...

...Mama will play!

This was a great weekend. Like a truly awesome weekend. I don't usually have those when my husband is away and I have to fly solo...but that's the beauty of co-parenting! My friend and I laugh about how we "co-parent." She has a boy and a girl around the ages of our kids, so we always end up doing a ton of stuff together, but it hits a whole new level when the guys are gone. Our friendship is at at the level where we are comfortable correcting each others' children, we don't keep tabs on who has spent what because it evens out in the end, and there's not even a little bit of judgement going on. It's liberating to have a great "mom" friend who is a person you know you would have been friends with before having kids. The kids just add in a different dimension to the crazy, and they make things lots of fun. Like this weekend, for example.

 Friday morning started off like this. This is maybe the second cup of coffee I have consumed in 2015. I can't drink it due to my IC pain, so I normally stay far away from it. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

 Last week was not the easiest week of motherhood. Bobby decided to have some kind of bizarre sleep regression, and I was trying re-sleep-train him. The first couple of nights resulted in screaming matches at his baby gate. At one point, he got himself worked up into puking. I cleaned up and made sure he was okay, and then I put him back into his bed and told him good night. More screaming. I put on head phones and watched the Bruce Jenner Interview with Diane Sawyer (always late to the game). I noticed that he only cried about half-way through it that time. Progress! 

So you can see why I would need to mainline caffeine.

 After we got our wits about us, I took the kiddos to the gym with me. I'm truly excited about this new gym and getting into a good routine, but I'm almost just as excited about the child care that they offer. That's huge. And much appreciated. I dropped them off and exercised over-did it for a full hour. Afterward, the babies were happy, and I was feeling great, so we made a grocery run (I literally go to the store 3x a week. Is that abnormal?), where Bobby did the sweetest thing I've ever seen him do to Vivi. He willingly shared one of his m&ms with her. The bar is set pretty low there.The rest of Friday included play time and dinner, and then off to bed so we could rest up for the weekend.

 Saturday morning, my friend and I took all our kids out to eat brunch in Destin, which was ballsy in itself. Brunch is not a meal small children can understand. My kids were famished by the time the meal came, and they killed it; her kids had snacked before, so they didn't eat much at the restaurant. We made the executive decision that babes and brunches don't mix. They get an open invite to breakfast and lunch, but brunch for the under-5-set is no bueno. After naps, the kids and I joined a big group of girlfriends from the squadron out at a community pool over here. I'm not one for public pools, so I had to knock back a couple of drinks before I could talk myself into getting in. We had a great time. Alex got me this inflatable swan float for Mother's Day, because I made a comment once that "that swan is the only way I'll get in the pool." So he Manchestered me, and now I'm the proud parent owner of a big ass swan. And I tell you what, if you want kids to love you at a pool, bring a big ass swan. That'll do it. My kids were surprisingly not as into it as I had expected. The rest of the afternoon and evening included eating and then running every last bit of energy off.

 And then there the matter of getting the beast home. Hey, you know how you fit a big ass swan in a Buick? No, I'm actually asking.

 We started Sunday morning off bright and early with friends at the pool in our backyard. If you were curious, yes, Ms. Swan made the trip in one piece. It was a beautiful, hot day--perfect weather for a little pool party. Popsicles were had, Music blared, and the sun shone all day long. But I think my favorite part of the day is that all three of us (women) wore bikinis shamelessly. We've been in better shape, sure, but we decided to get over ourselves and just have fun with our kids and our girlfriends. And that was SO liberating and nice. Our biggest goal of the day was to wear our kids out so they sleep really well. I think we won that. Those kids played so hard. Mine were in bed by 7:30, which has not ever happened in the history of our family.

I hope you had a great weekend! This week we are looking forward to gym time, playing, baking, and all kinds of fun stuff. Oh, also, it's now officially Birthday Week! Woo. Hoo. It's almost like my kids don't care. Whatever.

Have a great week!xoxo