The Real Housewife of Atlanta

Ahh...so this marks my first full week as a stay at home mom. And I survived. There were many ups and many downs and I'm not so sure I'd sign up for this for the long run, BUT I am cherishing the time because I know it's unlikely I'll have another opportunity like this again.

We have done a lot over the past week. Scot got home early last Friday, so we took Ava to a place called Monkey Joe's. Wow - this place was unbelievable. It was full of huge inflatable slides and bouncers and Ava RAN for 2 hours straight. This one was her favorite:

Reese watched with wide eyes and thought playing on the floor was just as fun.

We'll definitely be going back. When we were driving around looking for it, we passed by a Kindercare daycare center, so I hopped in to check it out. It was really nice, so I will get the girls registered to start on June 1st, when I go back to work. I had called 2 other centers while we were still in MN, but upon arriving I found out that one was going to be closing. My mom and I took the girls to the other one to check it out, but I wasn't really crazy about it. So, it's nice to have that taken care of.

On Saturday we went to the base for Family Day - Ava had a ball playing on more inflatables and a nice playground and checking out some of the other activities. She even got to put out a fire!


Sunday was a lazy day - Scot headed out to Starbucks in the morning to study (for some reason it is hard to concentrate in our apartment...) And we got Ava her first bike! Princess of course. It didn't take her long to get the hang of it and she's been riding around our parking lot almost every day.


Scot's schedule has been all over the place - this past week he has gone in to the base at either 8am, 10am, or 2pm for training and is typically there for 6-8 hours. When he's not there, he is studying. There is A LOT to learn. Not only is he shifting from the right seat to the left seat, the C-130s they use here are an older model than he is used to flying in MN, so he has to learn those differences too. Doesn't really seem fair! But he is handling it all very well - it is still a lot easier than his initial pilot training was.

The girls and I tried out some different activities this week - we checked out a free storytime/music class that is held on Tuesday & Friday mornings at the local community center. Both times I was disappointed with Ava's behavior - usually she is really interested and well-behaved at those kinds of things, but not this one. It might be the sheer size - both times we went there were probably 30+ moms with 1 or 2 kids each, so it was fairly overwhelming. Reese loved watching all of the kids dance around but Ava didn't participate and instead spent all of her time pushing my buttons. I think we'll try a traditional library storytime next week and see how that goes. On Wednesday, we went to a preschool program at a local garden - the description said we'd have an adventure and create a ladybug garden. Well, Ava painted a rock and the teachers attempted some lame activities while the paint dried. Oh well...

It rained quite a bit this week, so it was a little more challenging to keep Ava entertained. Thursday was beautiful, though, so I got brave and decided to take the girls to the pool by myself. And this was actually a success (well, by my rock bottom standards anyway). I'm not sure all of the college students who were sunning themselves in a zenlike oasis were thrilled to see me walk in with my jumbo stroller and a 3 year old, but that is beside the point. By the way, what college students live in a nice complex like this? They deserve a little hardship - my kids might as well be it. But really, Ava and Reese were both very well-behaved. Ava is doing really well with her water wings and Reese was mostly content to just lay around poolside. So I alternated between going in the pool with Ava and getting out of the pool to entertain Reese - there was little relaxation, but there was no crying and we used up about 90 minutes of time. :-) When Scot can come with us, it will be even better.

So, that wraps up the week. Ava and I spent our Friday night watching Shrek 2 and dining on macaroni and cheese. And now Scot is on his way home at 8:30pm. We're thinking about checking out the zoo tomorrow morning...and then I'm headed to a 90 minute massage, an early Mother's Day present from my dear husband. Yay!