Park Hop Date

Good Thursday morning!

The Gallery Pics are of The Pups. Copper and Sparkle have become quite the experts at ignoring me and my camera when they so choose. It's very annoying. Photo sessions with them now have to include some sort of fresh meat. Come to think of it, that might work with Austin and Josh, too!

RANDOMNESS - Austin has recently started attending X-Box basketball tournaments with several of his friends. He loves it. However, because of work schedules (some of which do not end until 10:30 at night), the tournaments usually begin around 11:00 p.m. and last until the wee hours of the morning.

It's not a bad activity. It's just a very, very late activity. The first night he participated, Mike and I just told him we wanted a call when he left his friend's house and we would still be awake when he arrived home since it is less than five minutes away. (We didn't want to wake up at 6:30 a.m. and find he had never made it home because of an accident or something.)

Fair enough. However, being the Mother Unit, I put a kink in the plan the first night. I set the clock at 3:30 a.m. You know... in the event he forgot to call. (Bad Mother Unit. Bad!)

Before the 3:30 alarm, we were awakened at 1:45 a.m. by Josh. Since Josh was having friends over for the night to play X-Box, too, we had failed to fill him in on his brother's whereabouts.

"Do you realize it's 1:45, and Austin isn't home yet?" he hissed.

I explained the situation. Satisfied, he left to join his friends.

At 3:30 a.m., the alarm went off. I crawled out of bed and checked the driveway. No truck. That was fine. He hadn't called. The tournament was still going strong, so I went back to bed.

"Do you think it would be okay if I sent him a text, or is that too "hovering?" I asked a comatose Mikie.

"Go ahead," he mumbled.

I grabbed his phone, because I had NO idea where mine was and sent the message. "How's it going?"

He responded, "I lost, but the tournament isn't over yet."

I typed, "Sorry. So when do you think you'll be leaving?" I accidentally sent that message to one of Mike's co-workers at 3:35 a.m. Once I realized what I had done, I sent the message to Austin and hoped, hoped, hoped Mike's co-worker kept his phone on vibrate during the night and hadn't been awakened by a weird message.

Austin answered, "Around 4:30, I guess."

Okay. So I re-set the the clock for 4:45 a.m., and crawled back into bed for another hour's beauty rest.

At 4:30 a.m., I received a call from Austin. He was on his way. Mike and I fell asleep almost immediately. At 4:40 a.m., I was awakened by a 6'4" boy/man leaning over my bed telling me about his night... every tiny detail.

"Go away. I'm glad you're home, but go away," I moaned.

He obliged, but not before telling me, "There's another tournament tomorrow night. I can't wait."

Mikie got out of bed to reset the clock for 5:30, and plopped back on his pillow with a heavy, heavy sigh. Only 45 minutes until time to get ready for work.

At 6:45, I rolled over, called my walking buddy and cancelled walking for the morning. I felt like I had been hit by a truck.

At 7:00, Mike kissed me on my head and left for work. As he walked into the den, I heard him say, "What on earth are y'all doing up so early?" Teenage boys easily sleep until 10:00 in the morning. EASILY! But Josh and his crew were up with the sun and finishing their own tournament of sorts.

Mike looked back at me as I started crawling out of bed. "Tomorrow night, we're going to tweak this thing a little." I nodded in agreement.

The last two tournaments, Austin has called and walked in the door five minutes later. If I'm not mistaken, that was the original plan... and it works brilliantly.

I'm telling you... Being a Mother Unit isn't always the glamorous job you might think. You can tell by the dark, dark circles under our eyes.

And Mikie would probably tell you being a Father Unit doesn't have a lot of perks either... especially when the Mother Unit he's married to is a "worrier."

You understand, don't you? We're the Parental Units of teenagers... and just like Parental Units of newborns, we're just trying to survive on two to three hours of sleep each night! And it's beginning to show!

Blog Linkage - I have only one link to share today. I promised a "hilarious" link, and I'm pretty sure this one will not disappoint.

Go to www.coalcreekfarm.com. Read AND watch the post entitled "Yes, I'm dancing in my kitchen... again," dated July 19. This woman is such a free spirit. I watched it once and laughed at her. I watched it twice and laughed at her kids. Enjoy!

Park Hop Date

Plan a date with one of your little ones to park hop. Pick two, three or four parks within 30 to 40 minutes from your house. Try to pick parks your child has never visited.

When you arrive at your first park, plan to stay 30 minutes. Ask your child what he/she wants to do first (swing, merry-go-round, climbing wall, feed the ducks, etc.). At the end of 30 minutes, race to the car, jump in and drive to the next park.

Upon arriving at the next park, take a moment to look things over. Again ask your child what he/she wants to do first, and play, play, play fast and furious for 30 minutes.

Repeat the process!

Be sure to pack a small cooler with water bottles and a few snacks for the travel time from park to park.

This would not be a short and quick date, but it would be fun, memorable and exciting. It would also give you a great deal of talking time with your child... and that's what a good date is all about, isn't it?

Have a fantastic Thursday. Friday's post will be brief and to the point. (Yeah. Like that's ever happened.) Well, as of right now, it will be brief. By tomorrow, it could be the longest post ever written!

Take care, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Sincerely,

The Enchanting Belinda