Keeping Busy

Little Compton is gorgeous. Definitely the place to be.....IN THE SUMMER!!!! Winter? Not so much. The population drops by about 2/3's (resulting in approximately 10 people living there vs. 30) and it is cold and wet and, in case I haven't mentioned it, a bit "out there." That said, it is a challenge to find things to do to keep a 3 year old and a 20 month old busy on the weekends. But, we have managed.

A few weeks ago, we went to the Winter Festival in Newport. Holy Bouncy House Hell. Wow. Picture a ballroom at the Marriott filled with literally 10-15 bouncy houses and approximately 5,000 children. Holy crap.

Regardless, Avery is now big enough to go in the bouncy houses by herself and to deal with all of the other "bigger kids" running around, so she had a blast.

Al? Well, Al had a blast too, but given that he is too small and would get smooshed by the bigger kids, Mama had to be in the bouncy house with him. It was fun....for the first minute. After that, I was starting to get hot and sweaty and annoyed with all of the kids who can't seem to wait their turn in line and would just run Al right over if I let them. Much to their dismay, my butt was just large enough to shove them out of the way if they caused too much trouble. They didn't mess with Al after that.

The only issue that we had was that Al is currently at the age where he has a hard time with transition. And, by transition, I mean leaving the bouncy house to go and do something else. So, basically, every time we exited, I had to deal with a kicking, screaming 20 month old. He was THAT kid. It was awesome. Once he calmed down, we managed to get each kid the world's fastest face painting (not kidding - the rainbow? one sponge with 6?? colors on it). As you can see, not even the large, green shamrock on Al's head could cheer him up after being removed from the bouncy houses...

Avery also got a chance to touch a real alligator



and to watch some crazy scientist guy do science tricks.

Last weekend, it had snowed on Saturday night but was then in the low 40's on Sunday, we got a chance to get outside. Yet again, poor Al was stuck in his sister's clothes.

This time, it was because his snow pants and boots were left at daycare on Friday. The way I see it, he can have the "why in the hell am I wearing pink again?" discussion with Grammy and Grampy, as they are the ones who picked him up on Friday. Anyway - not only was it warm, but the snow was also perfect for building a snowman...named, Melissa.






Clearly we are not well trained snowman builders because, this was Melissa approximately 10 mins after she was built.

And, not only did Melissa die a sudden death, but as it turns out, Melissa was also toxic, as I made her mouth with raisins and her eye balls with hershey kisses - both of which will poison Deacon. That said, after Melissa's collapse, I was stuck crawling around trying to find every last raisin and chocolate chip so that Deacon couldn't eat them. I think that he did manage to find one, but he is still alive and well, so I'm not too concerned. Never boring!

This weekend, we start gymnastics up again, which will be a nice way to get out of the house on Saturdays up through May and then hopefully we will be back in playground and beach weather. This time around with gymnastics proves to be even more exciting, as Al is officially participating. Lord help me with the "transition"with that one!