Tag: kids

Today, I Needed the Hug

Mr. Z: Daddy, will you come have lunch with me today?

Mr. Wonderful: I can’t today, I have to finish a big project. I don’t get to even stop for lunch, I eat while I work on it.

Mr. Z, sad: Soon?

Mr. Wonderful: YES!

The conversation this morning, broke my heart. I remember wanting and asking my parents to eat lunch with me at school, but they always were “too busy.” What does “too busy” even mean when it comes to our children?

This morning I left late to get run some errands, and on my way home I had to drive by a 3 car rollover accident involving a garbage truck, a sports car, and the same make, model, and color compact SUV that I drive. The SUV was the one that flipped.

I was on my way home from a 2 mile walk, sweaty and wanting to shower. Baby Hercules needed a diaper change and I didn’t bring any. After driving past this accident, and seeing “my” car, I needed to hold my babies. Remembering the conversation my two Misters had this morning out the door, I glanced at the clock, decided to forgo the shower, got lunch and showed up for lunch with Mr. Z.

We had a fun little lunch together, and he enjoyed that I surprised him with Whataburger. He also didn’t mind that I needed to hold and love on him.

It is important to me that I let my children know that they are on my “Most Important” list. I don’t want to be “too busy” to go to lunch at school with my kids. If that means, we have to sacrifice the income that me working would bring in, and we eat rice and beans multiple times a week, then that is what it looks like.

Summer 2018- Part 1

This summer we created a list of 18 things to do. I do this list so that we have something to do other than not melt in the Texas heat. We did not get to everything on the list, but here are the ones that we did!

1: Learn to ride a bike!

All decked out in safety gear to practice.

Mr. Z got a bike for Christmas last year, and getting him to learn to ride it has not been easy. We did get a few practice sessions in.

2: Ride a pony.

A mom’s group that we are in, has a summer trip out to one of the members home, where she has horses and a pony. She leads the kids around for a ride on the pony. We went, but Mr. Z was scared of the large animals and wouldn’t ride or touch it. I am hopeful, that one year he will ride the pony!

3: Vacation Bible School!

He loved the sport themed VBS.

Mr. Z did two weeks of VBS. IT WAS AMAZING, for us at least! Both were evening sessions and so we got to have time with just Baby Hercules. Mr. Z did enjoy VBS and loved having fun crafts to learn about bible stories.

4: Finish Summer Reading

Summer reading logs

Our library does the national summer reading program, but it is very different from our old library in Pullman. Most of the prizes here are coupons for discounted or free kids meals. But we do summer reading, more for the fun of making sure we read every day in the summer. This summer we read The BFG and James and the Giant Peach. Mr. Z loved them and I think reading at lunch will be a summer tradition for us.

5: One Week of NO TV!

This was one that Mr. Z was not excited for at all. But I knew we needed it. The first few days were hard, but by Wednesday, TV time wasn’t even asked for. We have also carried over no TV Sundays, from this.

6: Visit the 3 Splash Pads.

Mr. Z is great at making friends with everyone at the parks.

This one is one of my favorite things to do in the summer, plus, with Baby Hercules getting more mobile over the summer, he also enjoyed the splash pads. We have 3 splash pads at different city parks. One is our favorite and one we don’t really like, but I don’t like going to the same place every time. So I wanted to make sure we went to each one this year.

7: Find a 4-leaf Clover.

Mr. Z was unsuccessful in his search.

8: Read The BFG!

It only took us 10 days to read.

Like I said in 4, we did read it. It was so fun to read at lunch in the summer. Mr. Z just loved it and if I could, I think he would have wanted me to read it in one sitting!

9: Make Popsicles.

One of our favorite things, we have a couple different molds, and we like coming up with fun fruit and juice mixes. Mr. Z’s favorite this summer was strawberries and blueberries with orange juice.

 

Next week I’ll post the other 9 things on our 2018 Summer list.