Running Erins

Ryan and I were up with the crack of birds (well, he was, so I was), so we decided to go get breakfast at Panera bread and bring it home to the girls. The older of whom was appalled to learn that I took him out in his pajamas, but hey, I wasn't wearing socks (didn't want to wake anyone opening a drawer), so it all balanced out.

Ainsley had some things to do in town, so I got a little taste of Mummy, and I still don't know how she does it, day in, day out. Erin was fine in her rocker while Ryan and I rolled the exercise ball to one another, but then he needed a diaper change just as she started fussing, so I ran up to get the materials and bring 'em back down to the lower tier, got him freshened up, then plopped him down in front of whatever show was on "Noggin" before trying for twenty minutes to get Erin to even be interested in a bottle, then she wasn't sleepy, so I rocked her in her travel chair, swing, swing, swing, then finally asleep, so I put her on a bed upstairs, then my ankle cracks and she wakes up, so swing swing some more till asleep, then back down to Ryan to see how he was doing while folding some laundry, then Erin's back awake, so back to the middle part of the house to walk and swing, but there's Tomas gone and just thrown up in the office, and

Man!

Asked Dad over to help for the afternoon, mending a fence in the backyard, shoring up a teetering treehouse, and hanging my cool ambiance lights over the hot tub, before Ryan was up and ready for a wagon walk and park jaunt. We enjoyed wine & cheese for dinner in the living room, watching "Riverdance" for fun. Both kids were mesmerized. We were barely able to get Ryan to open his mouth to chew his dinner. Before bouncing around and giving this Irish Gazelle Leaping a try. Mostly around the dogs' faces.

That tuckered him out pretty good, as I was able to reverse low-crawl out of his room relatively early, though Erin was a different cupboard of catfish. She would just not stay asleep, and seemed wide awake after I changed her diaper around 10, so I brought her downstairs to sway and watch the Nationals home opener in their new stadium (another Ryan Zimmerman walk-off home run!), then catch the news before we all went to bed, close to midnight, uh-gain.

It's just amazing how mad we get at every little noisemaker around, like the random helicopters that fly overhead, the way Bailey takes a drink that makes it sound like someone pounding a stapler in a kiddie pool, and the way we have to Indiana Jones our way down the hall, hopping around the known-squeaky floorboards. Still, when we learned that one of Ainsley's friends had delivered her second child a few days ago, are we ever so glad we're not back at that stage.