FFW #5

Last weekend was hard. In fact, I think calling it a weekend is a bit generous. But since the theme this season is “Fall Football Weekend” – here we go…

Friday morning we had an early meeting to discuss a 3 p.m. client presentation. I quickly realized we were not even close to ready, which turned into 7 hours in a conference room editing the draft, followed by a 2 hour presentation in the same conference room. Not fun.

Saturday was my second all-day working session, so I arrived at the Marriott at 7:15 a.m. and left at 5:15 p.m. A lot of work and being “on” for hours upon end. Exhausting.

L.J. spent Saturday with Grandma and Aunt Ashley. I breathed a huge sigh of relief at the end of the day when Grandma called me to say that he had been an absolute delight and they had the best day with him. He didn’t quite make it through gymnastics class, but of course he sat politely in his high chair for the entirety of a restaurant lunch and contentedly sat in the buggy for an errand afterward. Insert eye-rolling because that model behavior only happens for grandparents.

Sunday morning Mike left at 6 a.m. and didn’t get home until 9 p.m. So I had my third full day of being “on” – this time with a toddler who wasn’t feeling well and had used up most of his good graces the day before. He threw such a fit after Mike left that around 8 a.m. I finally gave up and acquiesced to his demand request that we go “bye-bye” and we just drove around for awhile.

A bit later I was trying to think of something fun we could do indoors. Aha! We’d drive up to Alpharetta and check out the train table at Barnes & Noble and take a ride on the carousel at the mall. Yeah, well, guess who drove all the way up there and realized my wallet was in my work bag, not my purse? Stellar. At least, fortunately, I realized this while dropping off donations at Goodwill and not when we were in full-view of the carousel.

For our third outing of the day, I took L.J. to a local indoor playground. That was fun! There were plenty of things he could do, and there was enough separation that he didn’t get run over by the bigger kids. He had a good time wandering around and checking things out. The ball pit was his favorite!

He also climbed up the big inflatable slide all by himself and slid down. I was so proud of him!! But, I think the bigger kids unnerved him because he wouldn’t go up again.

We had a disastrous grocery store trip after the playground. It was a good thing I had L.J. in my arms because I was going to smack the next person who told me how cute L.J. was and how big he was and wasn’t it sweet that he wanted mommy to carry him?! No, no it was not. He weighs 32 pounds, was grouchy as hell and trying to carry him and push the giant cart at the same time was NOT fun.

Anywho, we survived the rest of the afternoon, complete with a late nap. I made a new recipe for dinner, a chicken and noodles dish that I thought L.J. would love. I put a plate on his tray and looked at him expectantly. He took one look at his dish, handed the plate back to me and asked for pizza.

And that about sums the weekend up…