Mimi

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Mini Mimi & Related Babysitting Adventures

That's what I've decided to call RHG's new, huge (10 lb 4 oz!) daughter: Mini Mimi.  Isn't that just clever.  I didn't ask RHG's permission before assigning this nickname to her already nicknamed daughter (real name Miriam, nickname Mimi), but I liked it too much to ask permission. Due to Mini Mimi's arrival, we had the G kids from Sunday afternoon through this morning.  All things considered, it was quite easy.  The G kids were easy; it's more a matter of how Avery's going to handle the additional beings in the house.  She was just off a weekend without us, so this go around was a bit tougher than usual for Avery. All in all, I survived in one piece and have energy to spare.  Always a good thing.  Monday was my crowning achievement since I was on my own for a vast majority of the day with the three kids. I managed to:

1.  Get the kids to preschool orientation on-time (and we didn't even need to be on-time - damn it! wasted effort!) with D's help
2. Take the kids to the mall to get Avery's glasses adjusted
3. Take the kids to the grocery store to get food.  This was when I discovered they don't really make carts to carry three kids.  My original thought was to have the girls ride in the back of the cart together and have Nolan ride in the front, however, then where would I put the actual food?  So then I had the girls ride in the race car shopping cart and I had Nolan help me push the cart.  This actually worked fairly well.  
4. Take the kids home and get all three down for a quiet time simultaneously.
5. Take Elise & Nolan to the hospital - Elise for big sister time and Nolan to go home with his grandpa.  Then I took Avery to her first private swimming lesson. 
6. After swimming, I picked up Nolan from his grandpa's house, drove to the hospital, took Nolan and Avery up to see RHG, Jay and Mimi, then left with the three kids to go home. 
7. Cooked and served dinner to the kids.
8. Put all three kids to bed before 7:30 and before D got home. 

All this is a great reminder as to why I love, oh so love, to have just one child! 

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New iMac

This is the first moment I've had to really play around with my new computer. There's not a whole lot new to play with since it's just a newer, better version of my old computer, but it's fun to get things organized nonetheless.

I just discovered the new text replacement/substitution feature with Lion (the latest Mac operating system).  It basically replaces my need for the TextExpander application that I bought a few years ago, but not completely since I can't seem to get it to work with Firefox.  Annoying.  Might be user error, but still annoying.

I'm trying to make the conversion to Google Chrome as my browser rather than Safari.  So far, it's not too painful.  I found that Blogger still doesn't work the way I want it to in Chrome. Oh the irony.  (Google owns Chrome and Google owns Blogger, but Blogger works better in Firefox for me).  Normally I could let this go, but it's too annoying, so that's why I'm using Firefox for the sole purpose of blogging. This is all very fascinating, isn't it?  I do have my reasons for documenting this stuff in my blog, but I will spare you the details. Right now I'm discovering something is seriously messed up with Blogger, at least the way I typically use it.  My formatting is all jacked up.  Will have to change formats I think.

D didn't know that I use the number pad and the page down and page up buttons a lot, so he opted for the smaller keyboard for the computer.  This is making things a bit more challenging.  I didn't realize how often I used those things.  I also have only the backspace button, rather than delete and backspace.  This is my biggest stumble at the moment.

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Mom

My mom arrives for a 2-week visit tomorrow!  Avery is quite excited.  I haven't actually talked about this visit much, so when I told her today that Nain was coming she about flipped out.  Tonight as I was putting her to bed, she explained what tomorrow would be like.  It involved a lot of Nain playing with her: "And then Nain will play with me in my room, and then Nain will play with me and my cash register ..."

We are planning to look at the house we have a bid on that is still dragging on and on, but we're also looking at a number of other houses in various neighborhoods.  I'm glad Mom will be able to see the house we put the bid on before it goes forward (if we even get it), but I'm also glad she didn't fly out to see it originally.  I would have been so annoyed if she'd paid the money for a flight to see it and then to have it still sitting here undecided when she was scheduled to come for a visit anyway!  

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Crafty

I have grand plans, grand plans I say!, for some fabric boxes for a new table I bought for our great room (kitchen/living room).  I bought fabric.  I bought the boxes.  Now I just need to do something with it.  I have energy and I have motivation, but I'm lacking a bit in time right now.  This is a new feeling for me since usually it's the exact opposite for me.

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Swimming, Gymnastics, Dance, and Soccer

At the moment, I'm at risk of being one of those over-scheduling parents.  Not because I believe I need to keep Avery busy, but because, well, it just sort of happened.  I'm working on getting all of Avery's activities for the fall lined up and ready to go.

She's all set for dance classes through the end of the year.

She's taking private swimming classes for the next two weeks. I'm going to see if I can get her signed up for semi-private lessons when we return from Mexico in late October.  The swimming lessons are less for her enjoyment and more because I really want her to learn to swim.  It'll just make Mexico trips easier.

She's signed up for soccer on Monday mornings before school starts for the day.  This one was a bonus.  I had been looking for a soccer class for her to take once school starts, but I couldn't find one that worked with our schedule.  When we went to preschool orientation, we found there's a program that comes to the school on Monday mornings to do soccer with the 3-5 yo kids who are interested in it. It's an additional fee to the soccer program, but I'm happy to pay that as it's reasonable and another opportunity for her to get some exercise. 

Finally, I'm registering Avery for a session of gymnastics at a new dance & gym center opened recently.  The gymnastics teacher is the same one who started out with Avery and Elise in their current class at the community center.  There was some sort of falling out and Teacher Jackie is no longer with the community center (there's a new community center director and a lot of the staff has left as a result, so it's not just Teacher Jackie who had been there for 29 YEARS!)  I love Teacher Jackie as does Avery, so since Teacher Jackie will be at this new center, we're going to head on over there to give classes a whirl.  Technically, the class is for 4-6yos, but Avery has permission to give the class a try for a few weeks on a trial basis.

It also occurred to me today that Avery might really enjoy karate or tae-kwon-do or one of those types of things.  She likes to kick and talk about fighting and loves to watch pirate shows. Right now, she has two days with no activities other than school, but I've not yet scheduled swimming.  I will keep at least one day open for rest and playdates, so maybe this is a potential 2012 activity.