That being said, Having a two year old and a four year old under foot certainly makes you feel old and young again at the same time.

We’ve basically been celebrating all weekend, which is fine, as Mary Vic got to run around all weekend singing happy birthday and making birthday cards.

It’s been a good weekend. There has been so much going on, it’s hard to hit all the high points. The pool opened at Polk Place, so we spent several hours over there during the weekend. It was nice to be able to walk down there, but I have to say, it needs a bit more warming before that water is going to be really good. The kids pool was a bit chilly. The Main pool was downright cold. IF you jumped in, and stayed in, you’d be ok. You couldn’t ease in however… You’d never make it all the way. The kids, of course, were completely oblivious to the temperature. We need about a week of 85+ to get it nicer.

Papa has spent the last few months re-working our grill, and that hard work finally came to a close. Wrestling with mail order grill fulfillment has been the order of the day, complete with multiple shipments and broken grids. The supplier obviously isn’t used to drop shipments, as their packaging was completely inadequate for UPS (or Fedex for that matter). If I can’t ship servers that have been packed well without having UPS take pleasure in disassembly via tow motor and other abuses, there is no way the grids were going to make it with a single piece of Bubble wrap.

But it all came together in the end, and we cooked some burgers and hot dogs to start it up with. I managed to sear a temperature probe wire across my index finger and thumb. The wire braid over the sensor wire conducts heats ALL too well. That sucked pretty badly, but it was pretty much alright the next morning. Neither Mary or William would have anything to do with the cooking…. If they weren’t picky over everything right now, I’d take it personally. We did some trimming of the trees and bushes earlier in the day, which also allowed us to find that we have another family at the house…

They are hard to see, but there are a couple of grey little heads right at her feet. I don’t believe that she was overly happy about our discovery of them.

Mary was able to finally get a Rose bush. We waited until it was slightly cooler and less humid to plant it, but it was done. Mary dug some of the hole herself, and replaced almost ALL of the dirt herself. She was VERY proud of her gardening skills, complete with her own wheelbarrow and tools.

Papa picked up some crickets, so we had to find time to go and retrieve the smallest fishes capable of actually bitting the hook. More than a few hits on the lure and hook weren’t large enough to even think about getting the hook in their mouth. Mary and William didn’t care. I think they enjoyed the smallness of the fish, and the ability to torment them while hanging on the hook.

Monday was a bit of a washout in the afternoon, so no pool, but we did have a Birthday party. Mary acted as the officiator of presents, and William acted as the official Cake icing removal expert. Jeff has the pictures from that, so maybe they’ll come later.

The Grandparents looked after Mary and William while Jeff and I went to dinner and a movie (Indy 4). One of the high lights of the meal was the server coming by to check on us after our food was brought out. We went to a place that we had been going to since I moved to Tennessee. They have been revamping their service, definitely trying to push into the ‘upper level’ of service and food. For the most part they succeed, but it doesn’t feel the same for us anymore. The waitress was fresh from training, VERY nice, but unfortunately, we are definitely in the south. I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but in order to place our expectations in line, the phrasing of her inquiry into the preparation of our meal was toward the exemplary. “Is everything with YALL’s dinner excellent?” was the question. The dichotomy of the word choice was wonderful. And while the dinner was good, I can’t say that it was Excellent. It used to be. I want it to be. Heck, I proposed to Jeff in this place. We used to think very highly of it. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s also not as good as we remembered. They want to play in the bigger leagues, but they just aren’t there, and frankly, their metamorphosis hasn’t been the best for them in my opinion. Trying to be everything to everyone rarely works well. We’ll probably try there again in a while…. as I said, it’s not BAD, just expensive and not as good as it used to be. And we’ve got great memories there.

Indy 4 was entertaining. Suspension of Disbelief was a bit harder to come by with this movie as opposed to Raiders or Indy 3, but it was eventually fun enough that you stopped thinking about how insanely bad the realism isn’t.

Of course, one of the best gifts I could have had for my Birthday was William’s followup examination from his femur break and subsequent Spica cast. He did super well in the Xray room (for the FIRST time), and the Xray’s came out wonderfully. You can barely tell where the break occurred now on either angle, and he’s set for a followup in Six months. Unless something really drastic happens, we won’t even need to xray then. Dr. Martus was pleased with his recovery. Seeing that nearly clean Xray, especially in comparison to the previously broken shots was a wonderful gift. It’s amazing how well the body heals at this age. Dr. Martus told us in the beginning that they don’t try to match the ends of a break together, but just get them in the general area and pointing in the same direction. It’s strange to hear when they tell you that, but it does look like it’s true. He says that there isn’t much point in a followup xray after this, as it will look identical to the other bone.

Of course, that has to be peppered with a little additional ‘lookout’. Because the bone is going to heal faster and grow to match the other, it’s possible that the accelerated growth will cause the OTHER leg to be a little shorter. Of course, it’s also likely that over the next 20 years the two bones will leapfrog each other, eventually closing the gap to nothing, or effectively nothing.

Whew. That’s enough for now.

What? Prom on this page? No, we will have none of that for the next decade+.

But Mary saw all of the girls in their dresses ready to go to the Dance. This was probably one of the few things that didn’t need to happen, as the moment we got home, HER princess dress came out. And Daddy was required to get the Camera out. However, her moment in the lime light was interrupted due to Mommy putting William in his prince outfit.

Retaliation came quickly and pointedly from the 4 year old, however…. She pulled the secret weapon out.

Color matching CowGIRL boots.

You don’t see Princesses in those often.

Pictures here

Off to the pond. MaryVic walked and carried the crickets part of the way. No worms this time! We still have my willow stick fishing pool though.

Poppa set her up and she caught a fish 95% of the time.

William watched from the sidelines at first.

He tried to free the crickets and then poked at them with the clippers.

One of Greg’s teeny tiny catches. More than big enough for the kids.

William takes a turn with Daddy.

And catches a fish!

It takes Momma a few tries to catch him a fish in a coordinated effort with Poppa and MaryVic.

The smallest catch of the day.

Let’s do it again!

First, some pictures of William getting out of his chair.

The first step is saying hello! Momma: Say hello William! William: Hi GranMomma!!

He tried to put his foot down for a few seconds but then pulled it back up.

Came down on his knees.

And he’s down to attack Momma.

We went to Toddler Time on Monday which was on one of his favorites, trains aka Things That Go! We were all able to sit on the floor for the first time. I kept him very close to keep anyone else from stepping on him. He and Mary colored trains for the craft.

We spent sometime at the library. MaryVic was disappointed that it was not in my office but happy to take the ‘secret’ (staff) elevator on the way out of the building. Since they were good while I worked, I offered to take them for milkshakes. MaryVic saw the ‘Big M’ though and that’s where we wound up. She did love the playground there.

She would climb up here and wave at us.

Where’s sister?

I had a nice salad actually but neither of them ate their Happy Meal. They were each happy with the toys but MaryVic had promised to eat her lunch if we stopped here so the ‘Big M’ is not on the list for future stop. They did taste the nuggets but I guess since it wasn’t the Tyson low fat nuggets… William did drink his chocolate milk.

Naptime then off to Pinkerton Park. We played in the sandboxes, ran over the bridge in Tinkerbell’s Castle, did some swinging, sliding, and played in general. MaryVic ran from one playground unit to the other. I was so busy chasing and carrying William that I only took a few pictures of him.

Pouting because Momma won’t carry him up the stairs to the slide. Just try to do it yourself little guy.

Okay. He couldn’t make it up the first step though so I took him to a different slide where there were no other children. It was wider so we could slide down together.

This train unit is pretty well-worn but loved.

Tuesday was a bit gloomy, overcast but warm. We went to the zoo early. A hidden source of fun is the stall doors in the ladies restroom. William had a ball as this door kept swinging open and he would shove it away.

The navigator consults the map.

Might as well be comfortable.

Meerkats are always popular.

Despite the warm weather, MaryVic loves the Unknown World exhibit so we go inside to see the fish, spiders, snakes, lizards, and creepy crawlies. Strollers are not allowed and William wanted down. These fish are near the end of the exhibit so I sat him down. He stood there and watched the fish. MaryVic took a turn keeping people from getting too close.

A zoo keeper was there feeding the fish and the lizards, frogs, and other critters that live in the tanks. I’ve always been so focused on the fish that I had not noticed the topside reptiles.

Snacktime!

And we are off to see the animals. Usually MaryVic wants to go to the playground. Walking around to the animals was fine with me though. There were 6 school buses in the parking lot so I knew the playground would be a madhouse.

Where are the alligators?

The Red Panda. The kids would all shriek as it passed by the window.

Watching it. Take a picture of it when it goes past me, Momma!

Momma tries…

William may have spent too much time looking at frogs.

There are the cats, Momma! Clouded leopards.

And the koi.

But I want to throw money in! First you have to have some and second it makes the water bad for the fish. Pleassse!

The cut through at the Bamboo exhibit is open now and it does look like the renovations will be nice. There is a new family restroom building. You still do have to pass the Critter Encounters exhibit. We went in with strict admonishments not to touch anything. ‘Momma, she’s petting it!!!’ Fine, you can brush the goat… They do have disinfectant gel right outside the exhibit.

William fell asleep on the way home. After nap / quiet time, I mentioned going to the pond and fishing. This entailed getting the wire, bobbin and a hook with very helpful children. We had to dig for worms and guess who got to bait the hook? She had some fun though talking non-stop the whole time. I lured the little fishes up with some bread. They ate the first worm off the hook but never touched the second worm although they looked at it a lot. Patience and being still long enough for a fish to bite is not a her thing yet. It wasn’t like fishing with Poppa and Daddy where the fish bite every 10 seconds.

It was fun despite not catching a fish and they enjoyed the outing. Two poles are really needed though. William kept trying to wiggle away from me to get at it and fish too.

Recovery notes: William passed out last night and has slept a little better on Monday and Tuesday nights. I gave him some prescription pain medicine Monday and yesterday he got regular tylenol at bedtime. Yesterday was more of a rest day with Mom carrying him around the zoo, riding in the car and wagon. He didn’t get much floor time until in the evening. After nap on Tuesday but before the fishing expedition, he was fussy. I asked him if he wanted a warm bath and he said yes (‘uh-huh’). We did that before heading out to the pond so he is still feeling achy.

High note: He put his left foot down on the bed while getting in his pull-up last night. He has not been putting his feet down. I was holding most of his weight but it is progress for him to have the confidence to put it down. He did keep the right foot up. He is crawling around pretty well. He crawled around a good bit Tuesday night chasing a battery operated Thomas the Tank Engine. It moves slowly enough that he can catch it.

I’m going to call the county recreation center today about membership. My co-workers told me that it has a heated pool so that would be great for him and entertaining for both of them. They have both been fussing about the pool house whenever we walk past it.