The End of My Love Affair with Pug Meet ups... temporarily

Tyler is taking economics right now which means I too am taking econ. As a sort of weekly date night we sit down and watch the instructor's webcast. I take notes and he takes his quiz. Anyway, the reason I bring this up (yes I have a point) is because we learned the way the consumer figures out the worth of something is not only by how much it costs, whether it be in money, time, or resources, but also in the loss of what you could have used those things for. 

Last weekend was a major pug meet up in LA that we did not end up going to. I was super bummed and vowed that I would go to the pug meet up that would be held the following weekend by another smaller and more local pug group. 

As it turned out there was also a butterfly festival happening at the same time. It was being put on by the library and would have educational booths, kid games, and a monarch butterfly release. Throughout the week I asked Ted if he would prefer a pug party or a butterfly party and he consistently voted for pugs (that's ma boy). 

When Saturday came we still had Ted's rollerskating class. This would mean that by the time his class ended and we picked up Ruby, we would not get to the pug party until it was almost over. Would it be worth it? I debated between just heading to the butterfly festival or making the trek to the meet up. In the end, pugs won. We ran home, loaded up Ruby and drove the 25 min to the dog park. 

As we predicted, by the time we got there a lot of the people were saying their goodbyes. A few pugs remained so we hung out for a bit. Ted enjoyed kicking up dirt and running with the dogs. Ruby stayed within arm's reach at all times because she is terrified of everything new and different. Tyler sat outside the fence eating nachos from the snack shack of a nearby little league game. 

It seemed like most of the other pug parents were mingling... I am terrible at small talk and mingling... ugh... so I just roamed around and looked at the pugs. We saw a pug I follow on Instagram which was pretty fun. His name is Simon and he is blind and just a sweet little guy. Here is his Instagram.  

When Tyler finished eating he came in the park. After a few minutes he suggested we go home. The group was ending and oh yeah I looked down and someone had peed on me! *shudder* Unfortunately anyone who knows me can understand that this just tipped me over the edge. I was through with pug meet ups! I announced to Tyler that I did not want to go to them anymore. I did not want to waste anymore time. We could have gone to the butterfly festival which was closer and more educational for Ted and a dog peed on me! I have to drag Tyler to these events so I also feel bad that I made him drive out with me for the last few minutes of the meet up.

We drove by the apartment and dropped off Ruby. I snagged a pair of clean pants and we headed to the last hour of the butterfly festival. Without griping too much and without going into too much detail lets just say it too was a big meh. Even the butterfly release was a let down. Kids got to put their name into a bowl for a drawing of who would get to release the butterflies. We entered Ted but he did not stand a chance when other parents were putting their kid's names in multiple times! The lady literally was drawing repeat names over and over. 

After all this I was feeling low and defeated. There is only a short time each week that we as a family can get out and do activities during the day so I try to make sure the activities are worthwhile. We pulled up to our apartment and began to unbuckle the kids. Tyler was releasing Ted from his carseat when Ted said, "Dada I had fun at the pug party." Aww... so with those words we will probably attempt another pug meet up trip. Tyler suggested I go with a purpose, like bring my camera and make a movie. We will see. 

Also on the agenda this weekend was Tidus's big YouTube filming. Tidus was one of the babies chosen to be featured in a video from What's Up Moms  They are doing a project that focuses on all the different stages of development from birth to 1 year and they asked for videos of people's kids. They also asked if any local people would be willing to let them come film their baby. I sent in a video of Tidus and said we are local. 

A producer from the channel came and spent about an hour filming Tidus in his natural habitat. He played with toys, crawled around, looked at books, ate some snacks and pushed his little walking cart across the floor. He was a fantastic baby actor. I will take some of the credit. I had spent the entire morning ensuring everything would be perfect. Tyler took half a day off work so he could get Ruby and Ted out of the apartment. I also timed Tidus' nap, eating and snuggling so that when the girl arrived he would be in his best mood. Also a little prayer goes a long way :) 

The only bummer is that I completely forgot to snap a picture of the girl while she was filming Tidus. What a cute photo op for his baby book that would have made. I was really wrapped up in the moment which is just fine. Sometimes we just have to enjoy the experience and not worry so much about documenting it... right? 

I love the What's Up Moms channel. I have been watching it for a few years and lots of the projects, recipes, and decorations in my home come from these awesome moms. So it was such a huge honor and fun experience to get to be a part of their channel. I am not sure when the video will air. I am supposed to get a notification... but quite honestly I watch everyone of their videos. I don't think I would miss it. 

And lastly, here is a cute picture of Ted with a dog puppet. This is his first time using a hand puppet and being able to make the mouth move while saying "bark" it was so stinking cute! 

Answers to prayers

Today is Tuesday which means story time. Lately the half hour walk to the library has become a half hour power walk in order to get there on time. When I say "on time" I actually mean early because if you get there on time you are actually late because you will not be able to get a seat... understand? Story time seems to be getting more and more crowded and rambunctious each week. With the coming summer break I wager it will be a mad house.

Last week almost broke me. Parents were letting their children run crazy the entire time. Yes, children need to wiggle and move but come on people, keep your kid within arms reach. One little girl came over and sat by Ted during story time. Her mom was on the complete opposite side of the room (remember the room is packed with people). Ted had brought a hot wheels car with him and when he was not looking she grabbed it. Of course when he realized what had happened he quickly took it back. Then the girl started crying. I took the car and suggested we put it away until after we leave. The little girl ran crying back to her mom. sigh.... It is not the kids that get to me but the parents.... So after all that I was thinking man I do not know if all this effort is worth it. But Ted loves it and he does not notice the other crazy kids. If he has noticed them he has not picked up any of their crazy traits so that is good.

Fast forward to this week's story time. I was half a block away from home booking it to the library. Every 20 feet I would recheck my watch to see how many minutes had passed and how many minutes I had to get there. A thought crept into my mind. Why am I doing this? It is exhausting speed walking 30 minutes and up a giant hill. Feeling the bad attitude begin I decided to say a prayer to myself as we walked. I prayed mostly just for help to have a good attitude and enjoy the simplicity of spending time with my two sons.

And a wonderful thing happened, I did! I know 100% it was an answer to my prayer that Ted, Tidus, and I had a fantastic morning out. Nothing on the outside really changed. The hyper hoppy kiddos were still present, we still waited in a long line to sit in a full theater, and I was still me. But I know it was Heavenly Father helping me to notice all the great things of the day. Ted was the most well behaved I have ever seen him! Or maybe I was just given grace to notice what an amazing couple of kids I have.

Tidus wore shoes for the very first time today! Shout out to Robeez baby shoes. I bought these cute little booties used for Ted and he wore them for a very long time. And now Tidus is wearing them. They are pretty well worn but they are still hanging in there! He was so cute! Ted could not get over the fact that Tidus was wearing shoes. He loved it. 

Central Park has a trail with work out markers all along the way. The path has little green signs with instructions on what exercise to do at each stopping point. Today I thought Ted and I could have some fun trying them out. 

Ted attempting to jump up and touch the bar. You can't tell from this angle but the bar is close to twice his height. 

 Pushups

 Random climbing along the outside of the bridge. Don't worry the bridge does not actually go over anything. It is more just there to keep the path level.

 Jumping over the bar. I love that Ted sticks his tongue out when he is concentrating. He does it when he skates too. This is totally a Tyler trait.

 Poll Squats

 Calf Stretches

Ted in Skating Class

I finally got around to actually taking some pictures during Ted's roller skating class. He is still doing so well in class. This was a big week for him. At the end of each class the kids practice rolling down a pretty good size hill. The parents go ahead of the children and the little skaters roll down the hill working on balance and bravery I guess. This week Ted went down the entire big hill all by himself and did not fall! What a stud! At the end of class the teacher commented to us how Ted is doing so well. 

I do try to practice with Ted somewhere during the week. Mostly it is just Ted putting on his skates and getting the mail with me while we also take Ruby out to go potty. Hooray for another fun week of roller skating. Also another victory was at the end on this class Ted was not completely exhausted so maybe he is building up his endurance too. 

Ted at the beginning of class doing his stretches. 

 This week all the kids lined up and practiced using their breaks. Tyler and I trade off who helps Ted.

 Here is Tyler demonstrating the proper position for using a heal break :) 

 While Tyler worked with Ted, Tidus and I hung out in the shade. Tidus spent the entire time trying to crawl around and eat things off the ground. 

 Our cute little skater boy. 

Slime Bubbles with Daddy

Taking pictures of our activities is just part of the fun. From start to finish with slime bubbles I had taken 249 pictures! Can anyone appreciate how difficult it is to whittle down the number of pictures to a more reasonable amount? Please keep this in mind when noting how many pictures are in this post. 

So here is our experience with slime bubbles. 

It began with Ted, Tidus, Ruby and me out on the porch with our supplies. Tyler was inside getting ready to do his homework and adamant that he would not be participating at all because he had work to do. 

We got this idea from the What's Up Moms YouTube channel. They tend to make their projects seem easier than they are in real life and past experience tells me I am really inept at making slime. All it takes is glue and liquid starch. Why is it so stinking difficult for me? 

With our first attempt we used blue food coloring and what I came up with was something similar to the alien entrails that ended up on the face of the border patrol officer at the beginning of Men In Black. We even have our own Frank the Pug. 

Luckily I bought two bottles of glue in anticipation of my initial failure. While all this was going on Tyler was just inside the door yelling out some slimy solutions. Apparently I was not doing what he wanted so he came out and took over. For round two Ted chose yellow. In retrospect this was a gross color for slime because now it looked more like something from a nasty cold. 

 Tyler says slime is like bread dough. You have to knead it for quite a while. This would have been a nice tip to learn from the video. Finally daddy was able to get the slime to the correct consistency and we were ready to make bubbles. You just insert a straw and blow.

xZ

After a while the kids were filthy from the dirty porch and had pretty much left to play with their toys. Tyler continued playing with the slime long after everyone else was done. 

Both kids were hosed off in the tub after this and Tyler followed with the slime still in hand. 

I forget to mention Ted was terrified of the slime after a bubble popped and then stuck to him giving the impression it was chasing after him. Tyler, ever the jokester, got the evil idea to sneak up on Ted while he played in the tub and hover a bubble over his head. This was absolutely terrifying to Ted... as it would probably be to anyone. 

As you can see Tyler felt a little remorse (and a reprimanding from his wife) so he took some time to get Ted once again comfortable with the slime and Ted grew to love it... kind of.  

And the grand prize for the biggest slime nerd goes to TYLER. Seriously what a goof. He ended his slime playing by forming it over his hand to look like a slime monster and chasing us around. Eww!

Ted writes his letters!!!

Hanging out in the morning is a nice was to ease into the day. That being said, at this point I have already started the laundry, done the dishes, made the beds, walked and fed the dog and got everyone (including myself) clothed and ready for the day. But once all these things are taken care of I like to attempt to hang out in the toy room with the kids and take some time to play before breakfast. Plus, waiting until a little later in the morning to eat means Ted will actually eat his food without my having to say, "Take another bite please," over and over. 

Although I try to think of games both kids can play together, most often I am going back and forth between kids playing age appropriate activities. Tidus and I were looking at a board book and Ted was playing with his doodle pad while sitting on the beanbag chair in the corner. I looked over when he asked, "Look, what is this?" Gesturing to his drawing I realized he was not asking me what it was but more quizzing to see if I knew what letter he created (just like his parents quiz him all the time). 

"Wow you drew an S!" This was the very first time Ted has ever written a letter all by himself without my prompting and without a line to trace. Rushing to get my phone I told him to stay right there and don't touch anything I need a picture! Ted is from the generation that understands the importance of getting pictures of EVERYTHING so he knew to wait until I came back. Little did I realize this would not be a one time event! He erased the S and then drew another. He then erased that S and drew another! For this I needed a video! As I got my phone on video mode he began to draw a C! Yay go Ted! 

There are plenty of teaching moments when you have kids and they are all well and good, but the fun moments are when you see that your little one was actually learning! Those are the best :) 

You will notice in the video that Ted sometimes calls letters by their sound. This is because we started out learning letters by what sound they make instead of their name. 

What do you do for fun?

So what do you guys like to do for fun? 

I get this question a lot. What do you like to do for fun? And when you are in a relationship it can mean, what do you and your significant other like to do for fun? I have no idea...

Precious and rare free time is spent watching YouTube, cleaning the home, or blogging ;). When I was doing my internship as a senior in college I worked with a girl who was my age and married. She said her favorite thing to do with her husband was watch TV and make fun of people.

Without even trying, Tyler and I have taken up a new activity....


ROLLER SKATING! Whaaa??? 

Let's back up a bit. Ted is getting so good at skating in his class. I am completely bragging when I say he was probably the second best skater next to a little girl who is closer to 5 and has been taking classes for a while now. I only held his hand once in class and he was leading the pack in all the activities. 

In the beginning of class the teacher told all the kids to warm up by skating to a far wall and back. Ted finished the task and came back to the shade to sit down and wait until everyone else was done. The instructor saw him and asked, "Don't feel like skating today?" I told her he had already skated down and back. With shock in her voice she confessed that she must not have seen him. It seems as though Ted was slipping under her radar quite a bit with all the different activities but he won't for long. He is proving to be quite the skating stud. 

This class we learned about breaking and crossing one skate over the other when taking a turn. Crossing skates was pretty hard for Ted since they are so huge on him. At the park where class is held there is also a basketball court. The kids skated to the court and practiced skating on the lines in circles. 

To my mom: skating on the lines in a circle totally made me think of you :) 

Ted got a kick out of the teacher showing the little people how it is done. She whizzed around the circle crossing one skate over the other as she took the turns and showed what skating can really look like. I was so happy she did this because it was a visual to Ted of how fun skating can be. He loved it. 

Now back to Tyler and me. When I signed Ted up for skating classes Tyler mentioned we should buy skates too so we can skate around with Ted. I wrote off the idea because I figured Ted would not be going that fast anyway and it would be more beneficial to him to be in shoes so I could catch him. But all this skating exposure has reawakened the skating bug in me. This past weekend we went to the skating rink and I picked out some roller skates. I opted for these over blades because they are more fun. Tyler was more into rollerblading growing up so we went to the sports store across the street from the skating rink to look for blades for him. After a few laps around the bike section in a pair of inlines he decided he liked the feel of skates over blades so it was back to the rink to get him a pair. 

Thank goodness for a stroller! It is much easier to skate around the city while pushing a sturdy baby buggy. The Opfar family has taken a couple trips around the neighborhoods in our new skates (Ted either rides in the stroller or rides his bike for now). It is a blast and we finally have something we can tell people that we like to do :) 

Oh, we also both have yoga mats we bought a few months back when I started taking a pilates class from a girl I go to church with so I guess we do that together too. Hahaha. We are a yoga/pilates and roller skating couple... who would have thought? 

Funny Californian story...

As we were checking out at the sporting goods store I was hanging out with Ted who was holding his sand pale and shovel. A worker asked if we had just come from the beach. I replied no, Ted just likes carrying around his bucket. The worker began to talk to Ted about how summer is coming and he can go to the beach all the time isn't that exciting? It will be all sunny and warm in the summer!

What???? She does realize it is sunny 99.99% of the time here right? hahaha Oh I love it.