Date night and a good day

My parents watched Molly for us last night while Jim and I headed into the big city for dinner at a new {to us} restaurant, 5 Church.  The food was yummy, the atmosphere cool and the company fantastic. The best part was that Jim was home before the sun set, so I felt like we spent eons together. It was nice.

Or maybe the best part was that we were home by 10 and in bed shortly thereafter? Lame? Maybe, but there’s only so much to do uptown when one is pregnant.

We continued our great weekend today with a pretty lazy family day – a.m. cartoons, a walk to Starbucks, checked out the new playground, sold a desk on Craigslist, lunch at East Blvd Bar and Grill {Molly loved the round fries, even though she doubted us at first!}, naps all around and then banana and chocolate chip pancakes for dinner.

Molly even chose the Kevin Henkes book A Good Day for one of her bedtime stories because it was indeed a good day. How cute is that?

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“Gotcha!”

This past weekend, we traveled to Virginia to meet up with Jim’s brothers and their wives plus one nephew and another babe on the way, plus his mom, aunt, uncle and grandmother. It was nice to see everyone, especially since we won’t be traveling this holiday season due to baby #2’s arrival. There’s a picture of Molly with her cousin Wrigley that I will have to post, but I think it’s on Jim’s phone, so I’ll have to track that down.

The three of us were sharing a room and we brought blankets to create a pallet for Molly to sleep on, but as expected, she wanted none of that. She also didn’t want us to leave her when we tucked her in. You would think I would have embraced a 9 pm bedtime, but that would have only been if she had let me sleep. At one point, Jim and I were hanging on for dear life on the edges of the queen size bed while Molly sprawled horizontally across the bed.

She had a fever and what we now know is bronchitis, so her sleep was restless at best. Non-existent at worst.

On Saturday night, I thought she had fallen asleep, so I tried to slip out of the bed to get some water and visit with my brothers-and-sisters-in-law. As I was slowly sitting up, Molly slid her hand up my arm, grabbed hold of me just above the elbow and said, “Gotcha.”

I could hear the grin in her voice.

“Lay down Mom.”

And all night long, she maintained a grip on me. My arm, my shirt, even my ponytail at one point. As uncomfortable as the nights were, I loved how needed she made me feel in this time of testing boundaries and exerting independence.

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Spring Break 2012

Spring break, 2012…that phrase has a different meaning for a preschooler, although I’m pretty sure Molly had a blast!

I still had to work, so Renee and my mom helped out on the days that I taught, but Molly and I were both super excited that Jim was able to take some time off last week so we could have a fun family day! I’m not sure if Jim was more motivated by the idea of an easy, fun-filled day or by the fact that Molly and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on well, anything. I think he was secretly worried about Molly and me surviving the week!

Tuesday, we stayed in our pj’s until late that morning, then headed to Freedom Park, which is a park my parents used to take me when I was growing up. We took a bag of bread to feed the ducks and proceeded to ignore the warnings that it was against the law to feed the waterfowl. Molly was *so* excited as we were walking to the pond. She could see the geese and ducks in the water and she yelled out, “I’m coming to FEED you!” After walking her all over the park, we went to get bbq for lunch and headed back to the house for naps. Unfortunately, Jim was the only one who got a nap that day.

Seriously, who is this kid in my pictures? If I hadn’t been AT the park with them, I would have sworn Jim took pictures of a five year old instead of our two-and-a-half year old.

I can’t remember what we did the rest of that day…the no-nap situation kind of makes me lose my marbles everyday.

But on Thursday, we went to Mandy and Devin’s to dye Easter eggs and Molly thought that was so cool. Guess what color *all* of hers were?

Yep, pink.

So on Friday, we dyed some more eggs and Jim managed to break  more of them than Molly.

Saturday night, Molly attended a private party in her crib that lasted until 11 p.m. so Easter Sunday was an awesomely fun time. She bawled pretty much the entire time in the nursery at church {but later when we asked her about church, she said it was fun. Weird.}. Then we went to Beverly’s for lunch and hung out on her beautiful porch to watch the Masters. We tried without success to get Molly to take a nap, but she didn’t. Jim and I didn’t take any pictures with our camera during the day, but all the cousins had a great time together. It’s so fun to watch them interact with each other and to see Jackson and Benjamin’s reactions to the girls.

Molly and Addison had the most adorable conversation before lunch about their {matching} dresses and their boo-boos. They had their own special table at lunch which Beverly had bravely set with flowers. Addison kept touching the flowers and Molly would shout “No ma’am!” Just watching them run and hop and roll around, sometimes laughing and sometimes arguing made us think about twins. It’s like they’re siblings when they’re together. Then we chuckled and thought of my friend Julia who actually has twins and we determined we probably had no idea!

The Easter bunny was super generous to Molly and visited multiple times. Between us, the grandparents and Bev & Ben, Molly is set for spring and summer!

She’s trying to decide if she’s going to share a jelly bean with me or not…she’s such a sweet girl that she did decide to share one of her prized jelly beans.

I enjoyed the week with Molly and our extra time with Jim, too. It was nice to not have to rush out the door every day and just let our moods dictate our activities!

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