Four Days with the Boys

Jon was gone for four days for work this past week/weekend so that meant I had the boys solo. I have done this quite a bit over the last four years and I can't say I was super excited about it going in. The boys are a handful most days and I'm usually absolutely exhausted and counting the minutes until Jon (aka relief) gets home in the evening. That being said I'm very proud of myself because even though there were some nights of bad sleep we were able to have a lot of fun, I got caught up on my to-do list, and we made some really good strides in the potty training department. I think I just embraced that I have two wild boys and looked at our time as an adventure. Kieran went pants free most of the time. We took Dodger on a walk every day, and the boys kicked up dirt, gathered sticks and rocks, and poked at dried up poop. We played outside a lot, ate what we wanted, and had a great time making messes together. My boys are such boys!

On Thursday we hung out at home, walked Dodger,  and really focused on potty training - there were a lot of accidents, but also some really good successes and I was so proud of Kieran's eagerness to figure this thing out.

Friday Kieran and I went to Trader Joes and took a yoga class while Reed was at school. In the afternoon Reed and I painted a pumpkin teal for our front porch to let trick-or-treaters with food allergies know we have non-food treats. At one point I went out into the garage for 90 seconds and came back in to find Kieran super proud of himself sitting on the toilet, declaring "I pooped." I made pizza, the boys watched Monsters, Inc. and Reed and I had a slumber party that night. My sensitive 4 year old was pretty upset by the scene where Sully and Boo have to say goodbye forever and even two hours later started crying on the phone when he was telling Dad about it. He did great sleeping with me this time and was out from 8:45 until 7:30 the next morning.

On Saturday Kieran woke at 3:30 am and never went back to sleep. When Reed finally emerged from our room we made pancakes, went for a run (and Kieran finally fell asleep in the stroller), made a much needed Starbucks stop, made cupcakes for Tio, walked Dodger, and played with the neighbor cat. We then spent the rest of the afternoon/night celebrating Tio's Birthday with Nonna and the Ketelsens. For some reason I have no pictures of Drew's sister Tracy but she was there, along with Marty and Bueno.

Everyone woke pretty excited on Sunday because we were going to the zoo with Nonna. It was a great excursion and I'll do a separate post on it because I took a lot of pictures. Jon will have a few more trips this off season and I'm genuinely excited to spend more one-on-one time with the boys!!!