Exhausting Week

In my last post, I might've mentioned that I was expecting to have a great ol' relaxing week just chilling with Sophia and my brother at my parents house while they were away. 
HA!!
Relaxing was pretty much the farthest thing from how the week went.  The fact that it has been over a week and I am just now getting to blog may indicate just how busy the week actually was....quite the opposite from relaxing.  I had such a different picture in my head of how the week would play out...and while I won't go as far to say that it sucked...I will say that it surely sucked the life out of me.  I could easily sleep for a week in the wake of my....well, let's just say "fun" week at my parents house. 

I actually started it out the way I intended it to...Sophia and I woke up and ate our breakfast last Friday morning (after I had already been up much earlier to make sure Dillon got off for school...he seemed to barely make it) and then went for a walk around the neighborhood...which is quite hilly....the temperature was nice, but I was almost dying.  I am out of shape.  And somewhere along the way we lost a little red plastic Elmo out of her stroller....not my fault, I was trying to breathe, no way I could make sure her toys stayed in the stroller.  Belle did make it back with us though.  Also, the pollen count seemed like it was in the low millions, so I wasn't sure how many days in a row my sinuses would be able to handle such walks (let alone my burning quads).  Aaaand that was the only day we went on a walk around the neighborhood.  By the time I got Soph into a nap and got myself into a shower, Dillon was home from school.  Michael came over after he was done with work, we met my aunt and uncle at the church fish fry, Dillon went to stay with some friends and by then it was pretty much bed time.  Day one down and to tell the truth I was tired already. 

The whole weekend was a busy blur.  We had the surprise of getting to see my sister and bro-in-law and nephew as they were passing through to meet my parents in DC for a short time (just met them at Chick-fil-a) Saturday morning and that was fun....Sophia loves any chance she gets to see Cooper-Dooper.  Then we had to get back to my parents house, get our stuff, get back to our house, get her in a very quick nap, then get her up to get her to her third swimming lesson.  It wasn't her best, I will say that.  I was excited to learn that one of the baby's in the class is French!!  And since I am reading a book about French parenting and all....yeah, I didn't say anything about it to her parents, haha.  But I listened to them give her some commands in French and was soooo tempted to ask them stuff that I have been learning from my book.  But I never will, I am just not outgoing like that.  It's still cool to actually sort of know a French family though.  More like barely know them, but whatever.  Dinner after that and we were all pretty much so tired and I am not sure any of us stayed awake past nine that night, even Dillon was beat.  I barely even remember Sunday, but it consisted of trying to repack Sophia and I for the week and getting her to nap and getting Dillon over to church on time and getting back to the house.  And the weekend was literally over. 

Staying at the house was, for me, what was so tiring.  We have a small house.  My parents have a large house.  We have done a good deal of baby proofing (makes sense, we have the baby).  My parents have some outlet covers on most of the plugs (but they don't have a baby there 24/7 so baby proofing everything really wouldn't make sense).  Every moment that Sophia was awake, she was getting into something that that she really wasn't supposed to.  I pretty much had her closed between the living room and kitchen (it was the best I could do with no gates). Basically there were a million things for her to get into and make a mess out of and hurt herself on and touch and grab.  Sure, I had two bags of her own toys to play with right in the middle of the room.  But what fun is that??  Let's find a basket of caramels that I had no idea were even there and unwrap them (which I had no idea she had the skill to unwrap them) and then lick them and throw them on the floor when Mommy catches you!  And it was like this all.  week.  long.  Another fun thing was grabbing the phone off the dock and pushing as many numbers as she could before I could grab it out of her hand....and as soon as I would advance on her she would throw it.  Pretty much anything that she knew she wasn't supposed to have, as soon as she realized I was going to take it, she would toss it.  Fun.  Running away from Mommy was better for her there too because she had so much more room to run.  I would mention a diaper change and she would take off.  In our house I can catch her in a few steps, but at my parents house I pretty much need my running shoes to chase her and it's cute at first, but super annoying after an entire week of it. 

We did squeeze in a few outings during the week, only adding to my exhaustion.  Monday morning, I figured since I was skipping the walk around neighborhood, walking while shopping would do instead.  After breakfast we got dressed and did a quick walk around the Avenues at Webb Gin for some shopping.  The pollen was SO gross.  It was all over the bottom of the stroller and all over my flip flops.  After that I decided that chasing her around the house was probably exercise enough and we wouldn't be doing anymore outdoor walking.  That afternoon though, Dillon and Sophia and I did make a trip to Target....but we very quickly walked in from the car.
Wednesday we actually had a very fun play date with my friend Jennifer and her niece Alexa.  We met at Alexander park, which is very close to my parents house.  Sophia was so excited to go to the park with her friend....we have had the girls get together before and they are so cute together.  They are only a couple months apart and get along really well.  The weather was nice....of course the pollen count was like 85 million but it seems like its going to be like that for a while...the babies seemed fine with it.  I took a few pictures...it was impossible to 1) get them both in the same frame at the same time and 2) get them to look at the camera....so I sort of took what I could and then gave up so they could just have fun, haha.  They totally did.  I am looking forward to another play date for these girls!!

After the park we were sooo tired.  Soph took a good nap.  Dillon got home pretty shortly after we got home.  I think I pretty much just read for a while.  I probably had to straighten up the kitchen.  I had to do that a lot during the week.  Somehow the kitchen and the living room got super messy like 5 seconds after I would clean them up every single time I turned around.  Thursday was when my parents were getting home...but it was later in the day.  I tried my hardest to put the house back in order...but by the time they got back it was pretty messy I think.  I was just too tired to clean it all up for the 5 millionth time.  I think by that point it was just the toys that stay at their house, but still.  We went to a nice dinner and then, finally, were back in our own, much smaller home.  Which Sophia promptly messed up with her toys as soon as we woke up yesterday morning.  Oh well. 

I guess that even though my week didn't quite go the way I thought, and even though it wasn't quite the relaxing, fun-filled week that I was expecting, it was still nice to have a week away from the norm.  I know Sophia enjoyed herself, even if she did hear 'no, no' a hundred times a day (more than usual, haha).  I always enjoy getting to spend time with my brother, I know that once he goes to college I won't get to see him as often as I do now, and I'm glad that Sophia gets to spend time with her uncle.  I still need to sleep for like a week to recover....but I'm sure this week won't be so tiring....but maybe a little extra activity is good for me!!