Missy's blog: Murder and mystery and music

This weekend we had the birthday parties. I took mom to Jaleo in Bethesda on Thursday night.

We had tapas. We had soup and salad. It was wonderful. It was so wonderful that mom got at least 3 people from her work to go there this week too.

Eating out as a vegetarian is sometimes pretty limiting but this place...

No limitations!

Great variety and beautifully done.

My new work schedule means that I am working evenings on Friday and spending the morning with the kids. Mom has had to pick up an extra day of work to keep her health insurance so now she is working Fridays and many weekends.

I am loving spending time with the kids.

Note: I am loving spending time with the kids now. After Megan was born I was so overwhelmed. It was brutally hard adjusting to two. I wanted to give them both all the attention they deserve and also all the attention that would make me feel like a good mother. It was pretty much impossible. I had this feeling that if I could get over some invisible hump it would all even out. I know part of this was sleep deprivation and all of the extra attention that Megan needed with her medical stuff and all of the extra attention I wanted to give Kiernan while he was adjusting to being not 'the center of the universe'. I dreaded being alone with them. Not because they were difficult but because I was miserable with my parenting. As Megan got older and Kiernan adjusted it got naturally easier but I think the biggest thing is that I have finally relaxed enough to enjoy what I have and not constantly criticize myself for what I am not doing...most of the time.

Mostly I want to do big things like museum trips and adventures but this time we just hung out at home and worked on getting rid of stuff in anticipation of moving.

Only one spill while skateboarding.

Our big project was painting the piano. Kiernan has a music book that color codes each note on the staff. Originally there was a strip of paper that fitted over the keyboard but over time it was torn and eventually we threw it away.

We painted the right colors and wrote the A-G's and then Kiernan played row row row your boat and twinkle twinkle little star. He was quite pleased with himself and has been playing songs ever since.

After nap time and lunch we went to the library discovery room.

Megan stacked and banged things.

Kiernan was a grocer.

I love those discovery rooms. We checked out books as well. It was great to see the kids being so excited about the library. My bookwormishness is either inherited or learned but either way they both go crazy for story times.

The rest of the weekend was pretty cold and we spent time under covers or running around in the very Kansas like wind.