Now THAT is tired

So Mondays are the kiddo's busiest day for the summer. She has "farm school" in the morning as well as a PT session, then gymnastics for an hour in the late afternoon. Usually we don't do anything strenuous in between farm school and gymnastics - maybe a trip to the library (which is right up the road from the YMCA, Mommy likes to conserve gas in these days of $70+ tank fill-ups) but usually we just chill at home until it's time to head off to the Y.

Not so today, however. My BFF (who is also the kiddo's godmother) is on vacation this week and came into town to meet up with the kiddo and me for a trip to the zoo after farm school. Now, our local zoo isn't exactly laid out in a pedestrian-friendly way. I've been to other zoos that are more friendly to the walkers, what with being laid out in a loop so you can do the whole zoo and tada, you're back where you started and can head home. Our zoo? More of a long, wiggly line than a loop. Basically you walk alllllll the way down to the farthest point of the line, 'cause that's where the elephants (and now baboons) are and how can you skip the elephants??, then you have to hike your way alllllll the way back up the path (now uphill in a couple of places to boot) to get to the parking lot. I'm not complaining much here, just saying, it's a lot of walking, especially for a kiddo. I declined to lug the wagon out of the back of the van for her, so she walked it all. (She weighs almost 36 pounds these days, so Mommy doesn't carry her for any distance anymore. Occasionally she gets a shoulder ride from Daddy, but he wasn't with us.) We followed the zoo up with a trip to Friendly's where much ice cream was consumed (*urp*) by all, then home for a briefer-than-usual relaxing and resting period before we were off to the library and gymnastics.

The kiddo was her usual insanely energetic self for gymnastics - I don't think she was still for more than 10 seconds at any given point over the hour. By the time we got home, she was wiped.

(How wiped was she?)

She was so wiped that she fell asleep in the shower.

Yes, asleep. In the shower.

She climbed rather laboriously into the shower after the world's most sluggish brushing of teeth. I left the bathroom for maybe 90 seconds to go collect her jammies (which were, of course, under the beanbag chair in the living room) and get her some fresh undies. When I returned to the bathroom, I pulled back the curtain and grabbed the shampoo bottle and this is when I noticed that she was out cold. Sitting on the floor of the shower, knees bent and head down on them, asleep. Scared the living daylights out of her when I woke her up, too. She wasn't even under the water, but it scared me a little to know that she could actually fall asleep that quickly in such a spot.

Needless to say, we had the world's fastest shower, though she rallied valiantly to stay awake through one of her new library books before falling asleep again. It was literally one of those "asleep before her head hit the pillow" moments, too. She didn't even stay awake long enough to request a lullaby...

Sweet dreams, sleepy kid!

Spring Break, preschool-style

Today is the last day of the kiddo's Spring Break (all the area schools have the same week off for break, I do believe). Our week off started out with the kiddo suffering from the stomach bug that has been going around, so not exactly the best start, what with the barfing and all. However, by midweek she was back in form and we could take advantage of the ridiculously gorgeous weather we've been having. (Seriously, highs in the 70s to upper 80s is unheard of 'round here - the year before last we were still having SNOW this same week!) We hit the playground at our favorite park a few times, did the zoo with some friends, visited our favorite local farm (where the week old lambs were giving me major flashbacks), played in the yard, did some actual yardwork - Hubby and the kiddo even got all the deck furniture scrubbed down and set up, so we had lunch outside yesterday afternoon - and capped off the week with our first trip to the gardening store, where we purchased many seeds, all from the kiddo's carefully written and illustrated list. This afternoon, we started many, many seeds... sunflowers, pumpkins, watermelons, cukes, green beans, sugar snap peas, corn, romaine lettuce and spinach. With any luck, this warm weather will hold and we'll have seedlings ready to go into the ground in a month to six weeks... The kiddo also spent a day at her best friends' house while I drove down to Meadville, PA, and spent the day with one of my oldest friends (as in longest-time - we've been friends since freshman year of high school, so 23 years and counting!) and her brand-spankin'-new baby girl, who was born 5 weeks early just like the kiddo was back in the day. It was strange to be holding such a peanut of a babe and to think that there was a time when the kiddo herself was even smaller than that! Baby Josie is cute as a button and I had a great time getting my newborn baby fix in and visiting with my friend and her husband.

Tomorrow morning, we return to business as usual. The kiddo is back to school and I'm heading back to the gym, which hopefully won't be too crowded now that break week is over and the weather is nice. We have been getting up pretty much at our usual time over the past week, so there shouldn't be any grumpy kids or moms here in the morning, but we will have to get out of our jammies a bit earlier than we have been!

Oh, and on the birthday party front, thanks for the suggestions! I discovered last week that we *do* know some people who live in the same town as the park we love and who are willing to make the reservation for us, so that will save us some serious cash. That puts the "renting a park pavilion" plan at the top of the current list, but the downside there is that if it rains, we're kinda screwed. So far, there's only been one rainy birthday so I'm a bit afraid we'll be tempting fate by scheduling a mostly-outdoors party. Stay tuned for further developments.......