Do you have a Tropical Smoothie cafe in your town? I had never heard of them, but now we have one every 5 miles, and I have seen them scattered around on our last couple of road trips. The kids LOVE it, and I am happy to go to there because I can order ahead on my app, and the salads are pretty ok. The smoothies are just a huge $8 cup of sugar, but whatever.
We snagged a quick lunch yesterday and then went to open swim again at Goldfish where I did some work for my adjunct class while the middle 3 swam. I felt terrible for not bringing Minnie, especially because she didn’t end up napping at home, because the pool was ALL BABIES.
Ben and I watched
Hockeyland on Saturday night, and we LOVED it. Dorothy and Coop fell asleep, but we were all in— with cocktails.
Minnie painted her forehead with bathtub paint, and it was pretty scary.
She wanted to go pillow shopping with me the other day (I needed new bed pillows, and I kicked my pile of either too soft or too firm pillows down to various children who were sleeping on trash pillows. Like seriously, I gathered them up and doubled them in my shams that just sit on the bed and look pretty. Shameful pillows!! Sorry, kids) because she insisted she’d find a Christmas pillow. I was skeptical, BUT SHE DID.
Minnie has prolonged her bedtime routine by a million hours because she absolutely needs to climb up on her stool and brush her teeth. Then she washes her hands. Then she moves her stool and turns out the light. Then she has to move her stool all around her room to do things like turn on a night light, adjust her sound machine, close the door, turn off the light, turn the light back on because she forgot to read a story, etc etc etc. BRUTAL. But also very cute. Which is pretty much a toddler in 5 words.
The bedtime routine hoopla is real, y'all!
ReplyDeleteI remember when a certain child needed a specific number of songs sung in a particular order and the list of requests and OCD ordering got to the point it was like 45 minutes of finely choreographed instructions from my pint-sized child.
ENOUGH, I finally had to say. And now I miss it...
Her routine BEFORE STOOL was also exhausting and involved some inexplicable somersaults on her bath towel that had to be laid out just so. In some ways the new one is less exhausting, but still a lot at the very end of the parenting day.
DeleteOh my gosh, the independent activities that you WANT to encourage but which make everything take a thousand hours omgggggg. We have a smoothie place near here (not Tropical Smoothie Cafe though) and I stopped there to pick up smoothies for myself and another volunteer earlier this fall... I was shocked by how expensive they are! I can buy an entire container of yogurt for $4.99 and an entire bag of organic fruit for $4.59 and yet TWO smoothies cost more than $20!!!! What are they putting in there?! (I am so crotchety.)
ReplyDeleteOMG I KNOW. It was $50 for the 3 kids' meals so I just ate leftover salad at home before we left because SAME.
DeleteOh yes, that is how Will is with the stool in our bathroom. He just figured out he can move the stool around. And he is obsessed with turning the lights off. And with closing everyone's door. If he comes to your house, he will find any door that isn't closed and take it upon himself to close it for you!
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge, we do not have any Tropical Smoothies but maybe I'm oblivious! I don't know if my kids would drink a smoothie. Maybe Will would? Paul is HARD NO. He oddly does not eat fruit, although allegedly they can cajole him into eating fruit at school. I had never heard of a kid not eating fruit before!
Jack hates fruit! Still! As a 14 year-old! He likes raisins and applesauce but everything else is hard no. It's a texture thing for him. He does love vegetables of all kinds, though, so it sort of balances out.
DeleteI do think it's a matter of texture for Paul, too. But I have wasted a lot of time wondering if I messed up somewhere along the way! He is just so very selective and I wonder if we should send him to OT, but so far our pediatrician doesn't feel it's necessary. But gah, it's tough to have such a selective eater!!
DeleteToddlers seem to be so particular about how things need to be done LOL ;)
ReplyDelete