Playdate

I am going to shoot for posting daily, we'll see how it goes!  The blog has become my journal for the kiddos, so we'll know what all we are doing and their milestones as they grow.  I plan to get it printed periodically so that I'll always have it for them. 

Today we had a playdate with my cousin Kristen's children, Morgan and Dylan.  Morgan is 11 weeks younger than the twins, Dylan turned 1 in March.  The children all played really well together and had a lot of fun.  I have to say, I had a lot of fun too.  Kristen and I shared some laughs and compared notes!  It's really nice to talk to another mom who's "in the trenches" with you, with lots of little ones underfoot.  To be honest, it was nice to have someone to keep me company because a lot of days are long and you don't always talk to any adults!  It is reassuring to have it validated that everyone with lots of small children has a messy house, no time to cook, etc. etc.  I find that I am really hard on myself lots of times about this stuff, when I need to cut myself some slack.  My children don't like to nap anymore, but there are too small and curious to let me get things done while they just play.  It's hard because I only really can clean and do basic things like laundry and dishes when they are asleep, i.e. after 9 pm.  By 9 pm, I'm exhausted.  Like tonight, clothes got done, dishes are still piled up.  What do you do?  Tonight my feet hurt so I decided to get off of them.  That means tomorrow, I'm still behind.  I always have things that go undone, and I'm learning to try to have peace with that and to just let some things go completely.  I am also experimenting with some freezer cooking, so I can be ahead on that front. 

Anyway, I've gotten off track, but my point is, it was nice to have someone to share the struggles with and get ideas from each other.  I truly don't know how anyone works with children-I'm amazed.  I really am.  I could NOT, because I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water as it is.  However, these times are flying by-so I need to worry about the house less, enjoying the kiddos more. 

As for the playdate- I think we'll do them at  LEAST every other week.  Every week would be nice, but we do live about 45 minutes from each other, so we'll see.  Next time, we'll go to her house.  My favorite time of the day was seeing all four of the little ones around the kitchen table eating lunch together, it was so sweet.  Henry was the only one not eating at the table.  They are all about the same size and it was so cute.  Oh, and Dylan is just a teddy bear.  He kept wanting me to hold him, and even wriggled away from his mom so I could hold him.  That just melted my heart.  :-)  I wanted to keep him, but they wouldn't let me!  Haha! 

I hope to let Hunter join us some too, so all the cousins will be together. 

I also hope to have a little tea party with the kids, Emilynn and Hunter had one (well sort of) last week when she went to play with Hunter.  It gave me the idea to make them little cakes and give them tea to have a "real" tea party.  :-)  We'll see how that goes. 

We have some fun summer things planned for the kids, we'll see how much gets done!