There was a ton of stuff going on in our area over the weekend: members weekend at the Aquarium, the International Food Festival in Mystic, the annual Butterfly Pavilion in Norwich AND it was Connecticut Open House weekend.

Unfortunately, it was also one of those weekends where none of us really felt like getting off the couch. I swear our day in Brooklyn last Sunday threw the kids off all week, and there were a ton of couch naps that led to super early wake-ups that meant even more couch naps and we were all a little sleep-deprived and short-tempered. E had duty Friday which meant he didn’t get home until lunch on Saturday, so that day was mostly a wash. I tried to fit ALL THE THINGS in on Sunday and ended up with two very unhappy kids in a butterfly pavilion, begging to go home. So we did. I like family activities, I don’t like torturing my children. Even to get more photos. Clearly I got enough photos.

They refused to consider any of the food besides The Bleu Squid for grilled cheese and cupcakes.

Black Forest cupcake

Lobster roll. Lobster & a little mayo with lemon on top. As it should be.

Caroline was really, really excited to get her face painted and tried hard to sit still. Of course, she’s 2. I’m 31 and I can hardly sit still to have my make-up done at the Clinique counter at the mall (I don’t like people touching my eyes) (NO ONE likes people touching their eyes!). The patient make-up artist managed to get it done though – including a layer of glitter over the whole thing – and Caroline became Kitty Caroline. She ran all over the Oldey Mistickey Villagey meowing and stopping people in their tracks to go “Awwwwwwwww! Look at her face! She’s a kitty! Bob, Bob come look at this kitty! Isn’t she adorable?!” At this point I feel like taking my child out in public is like hanging out with one of the minor Kardashians. Krispy? Krumbly? Whatever they’re called. I should start spelling it Karoline.

It’s like E is wearing THREE hats!

Caroline met Ariel & got her autograph. She was pretty impressed. And a little skeptical.

The Butterfly Pavilion was cool, but kind of crowded. They encouraged you to let the butterflies crawl/land on you and even had sugar water to dab on your fingers. Caroline liked it. Evan was D O N E, so we didn’t stay long.

Based on my pictures, I think we can officially say summer has started here.

Sunday:

Is this a New England thing? I hadn’t ever had it before we moved here and now it’s my favorite.

Shopping helper

All 15 episodes watched in one day. Obsessed.

Monday:

Photo of the parade photographer. So meta.

Dual swinging skillz

Screw you, tree helicopters. Say hello to my little friend, the leafblower.

Tuesday:

Gas station fashion shot

No, of course I didn’t feed the kids donuts for lunch. Why would you think that?

PLEASE SWING PLEASE SWING PLEASE MOOOORE SWING!

Wednesday:

C’mon Rhode Island, maybe try repaving ONE SIDE at a time?

Checking out Inara the Anteater.

Petting a Moon Bear. Maybe if he was named for a Firefly character I’d know his name too.

Thursday:

One of the benefits of going to the gym is finally catching up on magazines

Beach babies

That “sand” is really more like dirt, but it works.

Friday:

Ducky friends! Baby duckie friends! So many duckies!

11:00 am. BLERG.

LOOK WATER I LIKE IT! – says the child who didn’t like the water 24 hours before.

Saturday:

Indoor, air-conditioned playground birthday party. Best idea ever.

PEEK A BOO

She accidentally ate the bubbles almost every time

The next week is going to be a busy one for me – TWO trips into NYC for fun blogging stuff. The weather is supposed to be a little more reasonable too (70’s instead of 90’s) so we can go back to doing other fun stuff besides hiding at the lake. Not that I really MIND hiding at the lake, I just don’t think I can afford to go through that much sunscreen every single week.

Norwich Parade:

Mystic Parade:

Patio Fun:

Being a stay at home mom is hard. It’s thankless. It’s monotonous. There’s no such thing as sick days. It involves way, way too much poop.

Right now, being a mom seems like CAKE compared to my husband’s job. Especially since the kids are at a sleep-through-the-night, put-on-their-own-shoes, can-be-entertained-with-television-if-I-need-a-break stage and E’s job has none of that. He never gets to sleep through the night, no one at work seems to be able to tie their own shoes without asking for help and even when he’s home in front of the TV he’s thinking about all the stuff he has to do tomorrow (or in 20 minutes, if work calls him in AGAIN). He probably won’t get to go on vacation with us at all this summer and he probably won’t get any real time off until 2014. He doesn’t get lunch dates and trips to the playground and lazy days at home when he’s so tired he can’t keep his eyes open. So even though he gets paid in actual dollars and people (in theory) value his work and give him awards and tell him “great job”, I wouldn’t trade places with him for a second. Well, maybe for a second, but only because he really deserves a break. Although putting me in charge of a nuclear reactor for even a second would be a terrible, terrible mistake.

There have been plenty of times in the past 5 years where the scales went the other way and I was practically homicidal with rage over how I did ALL THE WORK and ALL THE CHILDCARE and ALL THE CLEANING and he was “busy” spending 8 hours rearranging office furniture with a 2 hour lunch thrown in the middle. He’s wasn’t slacking off, he just wasn’t at a very demanding command. But this job he does now? Makes up for every second of relaxation he ever had. If he worked for a civilian company they’d be paying him bazillions of dollars in overtime (or perhaps they’d be in jail for inhumane work conditions) but since it’s the military they can demand all of his time and give him nothing but a terrible headache and a family that missed him.

You know it’s bad when I consider a letter writing campaign to President Obama asking if maybe he can issue a presidential order giving E just ONE weekend off to visit us on vacation. And then I realized even if I was that crazy, E probably wouldn’t take the weekend off, since he’d be screwing over whoever had to fill in for him and might miss something important. He’s a good guy.

Anyways, here’s some photos of the kids and I doing fun stuff over the weekend. The plan is to keep them so busy they don’t notice Mommy is tired and Daddy is gone. Fire trucks are really good for that. So are surprise fairs at the high school with free bounce houses and balloon animals and rubber duckies. It was pretty awesome. Fun fact! It was in the parking lot for my OB’s office and right outside the building where both kids were born.

Tiny speck on the left is Caroline, running to check out the helicopter on her own. I figured a Safety Fair was probably a safe place to let her run around.

She LOVES people in costume.

I hope this is the very last time he is ever in an ambulance.

Learning about ice rescue techniques. Evan said “It’s like a pool noodle!” and the guy was like “Well…yeah. Basically. But we probably paid more.”

Apparently she also loves animatronic cars with voices.

SPRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

Sunday:

E models the latest in fashion: a ginger-shaped hat

BOOM! MOE’S!

Bubble rocket launcher in action

Monday:

He gets an A+ in relaxing

Special Monday treats: shopping alone, Sbux, and driving the new car

I don’t feel the need to explain my art to you

Tuesday:

I make the EXACT same face when anyone tries to wake me up in the morning

Yarn store visiting

Monkey see, monkey do

Wednesday:

Inside fishes first!

Bacon, tomato, caramelized onions, blue cheese, mozzarella on sourdough

Peek a boo at the Seaport

Thursday:

Hat

These cookies are full of LIES (and regular sandwich cookie cream, not taffy)

This one’s for sale and only 2 blocks away. Be my neighbor!!

Friday:

The queen on her throne

Feeding ducks

I have no idea what this is

Saturday:

Trendsetter

Bluff Point

Rainbow sprinkles = MIND BLOWN

Our spring-like weather looks like it’s here to stay but since this is New England I’m not taking anything for granted. We’ll be repeating this week with extra locations (zoo, beach, etc etc etc) thrown in for the next two months. More baths + later bedtimes are going to cut into my blog-writing time, but I’m OK with that. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to remember we can live our lives even if I don’t write about every second of it online.