Peer Pressure

Yesterday we were off to our local community gym for our weekly round robin Early Intervention service activities for the boys. It's really just a loud chaotic toddler scream, shake, rattle, roll and throw fest and they love it, provided they're not overtired and ready for nap time. Most of my time is spent herding the boys to their designated activity before the whistle blows and we have to move them to the next activity. It's always crowded, totally free to the community kids ages 3 and under, and staffed by OT's, PT's, and Speech therapists. There are usually about 40 kids in attendance, but I think there would be more if the word gets out enough, then they might get more funding for more fun free toddler friendly activities throughout the week. This week our friend preemie Brendan and his mom Katie were going to join us, but when we got there we all discovered that schools were delayed two hours and all community services through the school system were canceled. So we went to Panera for a breakfast snack and then over to the bookstore to trash the childrens section.

It was actually a great time. Evan was flirting with Miss Katie while Cameron was testing out Brendan's Teddy Grahams and pretending to drink from plastic cups. Cameron had been eying Brendan munching on the cookies and insisted on trying one and it turns out that he really loved them even made the "Mmmm..." sound with big eyes, and took two big bites and only gagged a little bit once. So yeah, Mommy is super excited, and now we'll be stocking Honey Baked Teddy Grahams on a regular basis and trying to keep Mommy and Daddy from eating them all. And my apologies to the patrons of Panera. We stirred up quite a ruckus with three highchairs all in a row, three toddlers screaming and throwing food and plastic cups as far as their little arms could fling them. Just like all the other patrons in Panera on a Thursday morning at 10am, all three boys even pulled out their cell phones and began texting each other. The bookstore was fun too, if not a little manic with three toddlers tearing all the books off the shelves and stomping all over their window displays and story time stage, moving the furniture around like they lived there. But there was no one there to disturb or complain and all Katie and I had to do was keep them in the same space general without damaging anything including themselves. It was pretty easy and the boys had a great time.

Pics from our great day out by Katie:










Then upon getting home from our play date I discovered two things. One was that the boys REFUSED to take a much needed nap and ended up going to bed at 4pm, waking at 3:15am for a diaper change, then sleeping until 5:30am. The second thing I discovered upon returning home from our play date was that the gutters along the entire length of the house had fallen off from the 25+" of ice and snow weighing them down. It was a shock to see a monstrous metal barrier filled with huge blocks of ice upon opening the back door. Hopefully we can get the insurance to cover all our gutters on the front and back to be replaced and that there's no additional damage beyond that.