As I was within a mile of the day care yesterday, the wind picked up and it started pouring. Perfect timing, right? Then, the traffic light at the intersection of the day care went out. I pulled into the day care parking lot and noticed that the lights were off at the day care too. I was happy I just got there - nothing like the boys hanging out somewhere with no power for an extended period of time. It wasn't until I was on the way home that it dawned on me that if power wasn't restored by this morning, they wouldn't be going to day care today. And while I already planned to take the day off, it would definitely throw off my plans. So, the OCD person I am, logged on to DTE's website and noticed that 1600 people were out of power in that area of town and there was no restoration estimate. And knowing that 20,000+ people were already out of power from the day before, I had a feeling that DTE wasn't going to rush right over to fix the power in that area when some people were going on over a day without power. This is what I get for planning to take off of work today, right? Karma sure is a bitch!
I woke up this morning to work out (before the boys woke up) and looked on DTE's website again and saw that power still hadn't been restored. Our day care had also posted on Facebook that they would be closed today. Okay, time to re-plan today's events. Some plans and errands just had to wait, but some of them I could hopefully do with the boys without much problem. They are awesome with errands like Target, so we could still do that, and I scheduled a 30,000 mile maintenance at the dealership (unfortunately the appointment was at 12:45, a mere 15 minutes before their normal nap time), and I didn't see a way around that. I usually make Saturday appointments, but between both Troy and I, either one of us has plans for the next couple Saturday's.
Off to Target this morning. They were way excited to pick up some big boy underwear for our adventures in potty training that start next week (in case you are wondering, Ellis picked trains [Thomas] and Logan picked Cars). Then we stopped at the library for them to play. I figured if I kept them busy and let them play as much as possible, they would be okay sitting in a waiting room for 1 or more hours at the dealership. Then it was time to head to the dealership. I'm not gonna lie. I was not excited about taking them. A) How would they deal with not napping? (they've dealt with no nap before but only when they are having so much fun that they are so wired that they don't even realize they might be tired and I doubted that sitting in a waiting room would be "so much fun") B) Is it possible to keep them entertained in a small space for an hour or more? After all, if there is any sort of tantrum, we can't just pick our stuff up and leave!
I also learned today how attached Logan is to my car. After I drove into the dealership, someone came to drive it down the main aisle to get it out of the way of the entrance and Logan started screaming! "Mommy's car, mommy's car!!" He must have thought someone was stealing it or something. And try as I might, he didn't understand that it was okay for that person to take it. I walked just around the corner of the service area and showed him that mommy's car was still here and everything was alright. This is the moment I wondered if I should just get out of dodge and reschedule my appointment. Thankfully, I was able to distract him with some lunch (I purposely brought lunch with us as something else to distract them with and make time go by faster). PHEW!
This morning as I tried to think of what I could bring to keep them busy, I dug in my huge bag of busy bag activities that I've had for a year or two now. Most of them were from swaps I did with friends that have older kids, so at the time many of them weren't something the boys could do yet so I put them in the closet until they were ready for them. And to be honest, I've kind of forgotten about them so I hadn't pulled them out yet. I wasn't sure how they would respond to these new activities, but it was worth a shot.
And I am so glad I thought about them for today. For almost 1.5 hours, the boys completed most of the new activities I brought, in addition to a few things I knew they would like doing. A few people that were in and out of the waiting room commented on how good they were (we were sitting by the coffee machine so many people, especially the elderly people, felt the need to strike up conversation with us). So, although I always feel like I'm taking too much when I pack for any trip longer than just going to the store, I am especially thankful I packed so much this time.
Here's a sneak peek of what the boys did:
Time to color
Color/size puff ball matching
Number practice (an oldie but goodie!)
Pattern matching (and alphabet practice underneath)
And some good ole' book reading
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| I think he was making a horse sound here although it looks like he is taking a dump! |
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| A potty-training book - like my subliminal message to him of what's to come next week? |
So, although I didn't get everything done that I hoped (nor any free time to relax - since of course we didn't get home until 2:30 and they had absolutely no desire to nap at this point), I would have to say that today was a success! Plan ahead and prepare for more than you think you'll need and you'll be all set.
And in case you are wondering, yes I did pack the iPad (desperate times call for desperate measures and I just didn't know how desperate I would become), but that is the one thing the kids didn't play with - which I am totally cool with! And I'm very excited to see how the boys do with the activities I planned for the summer. I want to keep up with doing some "learning-of-some-sort" activities this summer to keep them progressing with everything they've done at preschool these past few months, so this was just affirmation to me that they are a whole heck of a lot more willing to do things like this than they were last year at this time!
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