Killing Time

Today, in an effort to make the time without Daddy fly by quickly, we had a fun-filled day. Starting at 9:30am, we went with my friend, Laurie, and her sons, Avery, Carson, and Emmett to the library and the zoo. The library was having their kick-off for the summer reading program, and we all went and signed up and then watched an Eric Herman concert. My girls have seen him perform at the library before, so I knew they would enjoy it. Phaedra was pretty tired and wanted to leave, but Eleanor seemed to have fun. She was so excited to hear him sing the Elephant song. As soon as he got on stage, she was trying to shout out to him to request it. Luckily, it was the second or third song he sang, and she was so thrilled.

After that, we all piled into Laurie’s van and headed to the zoo. I loved not having to deal with Portland driving! Thanks, Laurie for offering to let us ride along. I had checked the weather, and today looked like the only day that wouldn’t be rainy. The one thing I didn’t realize was that it was $2 Tuesday at the zoo, so it was quite crowded. We still had a great time, though. We started out with a picnic and then went wherever the kids wanted to go. Our main goal as per the kids’ request: see the crocodile. We did see the crocodile and a whole lot more. I didn’t take a ton of pictures of the animals because I think pictures of my kids are more fun. Here are the pictures I got:

While we ate lunch, they were working on training some of their birds for performances. They very briefly brought out a bald eagle. I didn’t get a picture of it, but it looked SO huge on the trainer’s arm.

A little later, they were working with this parrot. A trainer would walk it out to a pedestal set up in the audience, it would climb up and immediately fly back to the stage. Then, it did something like climb some stairs, but I didn’t have a very good view of that. Then the trainer would walk it out to the perch to do it all again.

Taking flight.Flying back to the stage. Don’t you love how I got the rafters and absolutely nothing else in focus? I thought you would :)The kids had fun banging on the drums. This is Avery.

Phaedra begged for the drums but didn’t want to bang on them. So, she stood next to one and gave this look. I think she was tired.

Then we went to the Predators exhibit where Eleanor made friends with a lion cub statue. She sat there for several minutes, petting it.

Phaedra was in and out of the stroller almost the whole time (in as often as I could convince her and out as often as she could convince me).

There’s this jeep the kids play on that looks like it’s driving right into the cheetah pen, and I don’t know if Eleanor has ever had a chance to “drive” it until today.

We were getting pretty tired after the predators. I think I get worn out a lot quicker in the big crowds because 1. it takes so much longer to get around and 2. I get over stimulated from constantly trying to count heads and keep children in view. Phaedra was wanting me to hold her, which made pushing the stroller nearly impossible. Eleanor had been enjoying riding in the front of the stroller, and I had to tell her to give Phaedra a turn. I thought Phae might relax a bit more in the front, and I thought it could contain her a bit better than the back of the stroller, although that didn’t hold true.

By the time we were by the giraffes, I could tell the kids were getting moody, so we took a fruit snack break. Mmmmmm.

My best attempt at a group shot. Emmett, Eleanor, Laurie, Carson, Phaedra, Avery. As you can see, Eleanor decided she preferred being with Laurie, so Laurie had to push her around. Then again, maybe you can’t see. Eleanor is in there somewhere.

There she is! She was kind of hiding back there.

Phaedra had missed getting to talk to her daddy this morning before we left, so I let her talk to him a bit when he called us while we were looking at the bats.

Carson, who had lost his seat to Eleanor, was not interested in riding in my stroller. But, the first chance he got when Eleanor left her seat (which, I should say, was after she had quite a lengthy turn), he reclaimed his spot. We had a minor meltdown from Eleanor because she wanted to be with Laurie (and mostly she was tired). I won’t go into how it makes me feel that Eleanor always seems to want whichever adult is NOT me at any given time. Maybe she just thinks she stands a better chance of having attention because she won’t be competing with Phae. Anyways, after walking alongside Laurie for a while, she decided to submit to sitting on my stroller.

Eleanor has wanted to go see the Lorikeets the last several times we have gone to the zoo, but they have been closed. This time, I was even tempted to buy her some of the juice to feed the birds. But the staff had a mess to clean up which caused us to have to enter through the exit and I didn’t see an opportunity to buy the juice. As soon as we got inside, Eleanor started begging to feed them. She asked Laurie first (of course). I thought about going out to see if they were still selling it, but then I looked at a few other kids who were trying to feed the birds with no luck. The large crowds had left the birds all fed up so they weren’t even slightly interested in the food. Eleanor begged the juice cup off of some little boy who had grown bored with trying to get the birds’ attention (embarrassing moment for me –my little mooch). She tried for several minutes, holding the cup out toward the birds and talking to them so sweetly. She even told me she could hear their tummies growling. After a while, with a little coaxing from me (we were ready to go), she gave up on it, but left the cup on a part of the fence, telling me the birds would find it and drink it when they were hungry. I told her they would be very thankful she had left it for them.

Back in the car, admiring her lion stamp on her hand.

Phaedra didn’t nap all day, and I totally expected her to fall asleep even in spite of being in a different car than usual. She didn’t. I don’t know if it was a second (third? fourth?) wind, being in a different car, or hunger, but she was awake and noisy the whole way home. Emmett had fallen asleep in the stroller, but we tried to keep him asleep when transferring him to the car. That didn’t work. So, the drive home left us with two older boys who quickly fell asleep, Eleanor, who fell asleep a little while after them, and two little ones wide awake.

We grabbed some drive-thru dinner on the way home, and Laurie dropped the girls and me off a little before 7pm. I had to wake up Eleanor for dinner. Phaedra was more than ready when bedtime came around. Eleanor did okay going to bed, but she has gotten out of bed twice. She’s been in there quietly, but I think she had a hard time falling asleep. Everything is quiet now. I think they both are sleeping. Here’s hoping.

I accomplished my goal for the day. I killed time and wore out the kids while trying not to wear myself out more than them. I do wish I had someone here to rub my feet or my shoulders now that they’re asleep, but I suppose I can’t have everything. I’m glad the kids had fun today and the day went by quickly. Maybe I’ll get up and find something chocolate to eat.

As we were eating our Wendy’s dollar-menu dinner, I got a text from Grant saying he was riding to dinner in a limo. I immediately called him to get some more details. Apparently, a group of them were going to dinner at the same place, and there was a limo outside their hotel. They negotiated with the driver until it ended up being cheaper for them to pitch in to pay for the limo than it would have been to take a taxi. I found myself wishing I had gone to dinner someplace a little nicer than Wendy’s. As I hung up the phone to go wipe ranch dressing out of my oldest daughter’s hair, I felt a wave of jealousy come over me. Being a mother really isn’t all that glamorous. But then my kids cooperated (for the most part) at getting ready for bed, and as I sang them a song, I watched Phaedra’s eyes roll around in her head as her eyelids drooped and opened, over and over while I held her in my arms. Right then, I knew that I would have been so jealous not to have that moment with my sweet girls. I can’t wait for my husband to come home. I’m sure he misses his girls.