Wow, two weeks went by without a WSDW post! It was kind of nice to take a little bit of a break from the blog, but it’s really crazy how fast the days go by even without “working”! With my days completely off, I was still pretty tired running errands, filling my little toddler’s days jam-packed with fun summer activities, sending out my resume and taking calls to get feelers out there for prospective jobs. It’s really surprising how even without my deadlines for blog writing, I was still very busy. Being a stay at home mom is really tiring! It’s one of those things where you can appreciate the exhaustion the other type of mom goes through – either Mom A works all day and is tired from work, cooks dinner, puts baby down to bed, packs up baby bag and meals for day care/babysitter, then passes out. On the other hand, Mom B at home gets up when baby wakes up (or earlier) and from start to finish it’s: meals, cleaning the kitchen/house, picking up after toddler, running errands to the grocery store and Target of course, meal planning, activities, driving in traffic, bedtime routine, laundry. Both are a lot of work and mom doesn’t get much time to herself. Yeesh, that was tiring just thinking about it.

With my little break from blogging and after I wrote last Saturday’s post about high-risk pregnancies, I realized how much I missed having a “purpose” after Jia went to bed. I guess it made me appreciate the work I put into my own posts. I feel like I’m doing something good, aside from raising my little girl. Doing the research and writing up informative posts is kinda energizing – as long as I’m not entirely pooped, that is. 

Anyway, continuing on… 

We’ve been going to a lot of water parks, splash zones, and playgrounds that have a sprinkler area for the kiddos. During the week, I am constantly trying to plan something that is a big summery outdoorsy activity and on the weekends, this weather + her age forces us to get creative and motivated to get out of the house. Thank goodness, because sometimes I feel that if it weren’t for Jia being my excuse for us to get out of the house, Jeff would say he would rather sit inside and watch TV forever.

Outdoor water activities make for great hours spent to hopefully tire out an energetic toddler. Of course, Jia’s been waking up at 6/6:30 AM these days (sleeping 10.5-11 hours instead of her “old days” 12 hours straight) so tiring her out doesn’t really extend the night time for us or her. I haven’t been very good at being one of those moms who scours the internet to see what free activities there are in the area and we don’t get the paper, so I feel really out of the loop. After meeting a mom at the nearby playground who lives nearby, I learned of so many new places I should be taking Jia. Local story time at a nearby library, new rec centers being built with pools and rubberized playgrounds, etc. So in the past 7 days, we have gone to our regular playground that now has the sprinkler zone turned on (gotta love post-Memorial Day!) or a pool 4 days. That’s a lot! Plus, Monday we went to Chinquapin Recreation Center’s soft playroom which was $5 per half-hour and stayed for 1 hour (found out about this one from that mom). Apparently there’s another free splash zone/water park out in Alexandria, so I’ll have to google that one! Last weekend Jeff wanted to go to the batting cages, so he found Upton Hill Rec Center which had batting cages AND a splash zone in the pool area. That was so much fun, but it was $8.25 per adult. 

Whew, ok. So this is what’s been going on in Jia-world:

• So long, farewell! When we say goodbye to someone, she really waves to them and says “Byeeeee”
• She follows through when I say:
  • Take off your socks!
  • Let’s go upstairs!
  • Let’s go to the bathroom!
  • Where’s Daddy? (she looks around and walks into the bedroom looking around)
  • Where’s your rabbit/lion/froggie/remote? (she looks around and walks around til she finds it)
  • Come give me a hug!
  • Give me a kiss!
  • Give Koko (Kona) a kiss!
• Body parts she points out when asked:
  • Eyes
  • Nose
  • Ears
  • Head
  • Belly
  • Butt
  • Knees
  • Feet
  • Toes
  • Hands
  • Mommy’s boobies
• Points out the color red and yellow when asked, SOMETIMES blue
• Kisses the doggies
• When I put on her sock puppet, she gets really excited and tries to feed it items she finds. Then she leans forward to kiss the sock puppet on the mouth. 
• HOT! She knows when we take food out of the microwave it’s hot, so she blows on it after seeing us blow on her food
• Sees her bubbles container and says “BUBBLES?!” and isn’t happy til we start blowing them for her. 
• Should’ve been born a pisces like her mama. This kid loves the water. At the sprinkler/water zone at the playground, she used to cautiously touch the fountain/sprinklers and would walk up to them and get wet, peer into the contraption and get splashed in the face, but now she does what every other older kid does – she tries to sit her butt down onto the sprinkler! Haha it’s hilarious watching her slowly lower her butt onto it. Either that or she tries to step on all of them. 
• She loves going down the slides but still wants me to hold her hands, even when we’re in the soft play room. It’s ok she’s cautious, I’m sure when we have a second kid they’re going to be the one running head first into walls….

Picture time!