5 Possible Reasons Why I Am Running 20 minutes Late

1) I was actually on time in the parking lot, but between the car and where I was supposed to be, the following might have happened: J found a flower, rock, piece of trash, bike, motorcycle, pole, hole, brightly colored sign, and bird she had to stop and investigate. This is often accompanied by happy exclamations of, "Mommy! Look! A ___!" and me backtracking however many paces I gained during her during her stop. We will usually get about 5-10 steps before the next thing that catches her fancy. It's endearing when we have no time constraints, but infinitely irritating when my baby carrier arm is fatiguing.

2) I underestimated the time it would take to force clothes and shoes on my toddler, feed and change my infant, collect water bottles, sippy cups, diapers, and changes of clothes, find my phone and keys, get blankey and whatever toy or book that needs to come with us to prevent a total meltdown, and a run to the bathroom. Sometimes all of this goes smoothly and we are punctual. Sometimes getting the shoes on takes 10 times longer than necessary because only the sparkly shoes would do and one was missing and J had to put them on herself without help. Perhaps when I tried to intervene she became a hot, snot-covered mess, requiring an elbow to the gut in order to reverse the back arching and get her strapped into the car seat. Or she put her shoes on all by herself the first time I asked in 10 seconds flat. Or the cup of milk wouldn't do because she wanted juice so she managed to soak herself, the car seat, and her brother in her toddler fury. Or she hopped in on her own with that glorious gap-toothed smile on her face. There is no way to accurately predict how much time any of these tasks will take. All of these steps are necessary for optimal happiness during our excursion. I really try to prevent my kids peeing on the property or unleashing raptor shrieks on your ears and proper preparation is key.

3) Our last activity ended too soon. We finished swimming, showering, eating, exercising, playing or napping ahead of schedule. You would think this would lead to being 15 or 20 minutes early, but you are mistaken. If everyone has been cleaned, changed, fed, shod, and collected before the optimal time, all the prior productivity becomes moot. That means the shoes will have come off again, the diaper will have been filled again, the potty requires pit stop again, M needs to eat again, and inevitably my phone will have disappeared again. I often think maybe we should just arrive 30 minutes early and save the repeats, but that isn't usually practical. If we get to church 20 minutes early, that is 20 more minutes I have to enforce proper church behavior. It is rude to show up 30 minutes early to a play date or the babysitter's. The gym only allows me 60 minutes of kids care for the infant so I can't just hop on the treadmill for a bit before the class starts. Being ahead of schedule is just as bad as being behind schedule.

4) The naps went long and I wanted to squeeze in every minute of shut eye possible. The disposition of my children (and me for that matter) is directly proportional to the amount of sleep they get. I'm pretty sure you would rather us inconvenience you by being 20 minutes late than deal with the gremlins that emerge when naps are cut short.

5) Some how an hour disappeared without me knowing it. In my sleep deprivation-induced haze, the clock hands move suddenly and stealthily. I had every intention of starting the loading process at half past the hour, but time evaporated and now it is on the hour and even a best case scenario won't get us there on time. Then comes the decision on whether or not to pursue our original plans at all. If we are an half hour late, then that only gives us 45 minutes of play time until we start losing the nap time window. If we push back naps then we won't be able to go grocery shopping until 4pm. That means we might not be done before hunger-induced tantrums ensue in the check out line over candy, always viciously placed in toddler reach. And that means dinner prep will be done to the backdrop of crying unless I provide snacks, snacks that defeat any chances of consuming more than a bite of dinner. Sorry friend, because I was 30 minutes behind at 9:30 this morning, we aren't going to make it because it will literally ruin our entire day.

So next time you see me show up only 5 or 10 minutes late, give me a pat on the back and say, "Well done!" because punctuality is just not feasible.

Bday lunch

For my bday my lovely friends came and brought lunch along with their beautiful babes! The pictures are all fuzzy since I accidentally had it on manual focus, but at least the pictures exist!

Not sure where Gunner and J were during these pictures, but the babies are cute!

Sprinkles

We don't have a pool besides what we have for the dog. Most of the time I'm happy I don't have to deal with the maintenance and drowning hazard of a pool, but now that we are hitting 110 degrees regularly, I do think a pool would be nice. Often we will go visit friends to swim, but when we are chilling out at home, we make do with the sprinklers.

Or speenkles as J calls them. There is something so special about the complete joy on her face as she runs with abandon. I can't quite capture it, but here is some of what I see.

And here is what M is doing, chillin' out in the stroller.

Nap with Dad

 May 25th

Overpriced blankets that make me ridiculously happy

So I finally got around to uploading pictures from a month ago. It's crazy to see how much bigger my little man is already. There is something so special about sleeping babies.

He is all cuddled up in my biggest baby indulgence: bamboo blankets. It's not enough to want to wickedly overpriced aden+anais swaddlers, but I wanted the organic bamboo ones to wipe up spit and get covered in poop. I fully acknowledge the silliness of it, but they helped me bond with the little guy before he was born. I would feel the blankets every time I went by them and just smiled when I thought of wrapping him up in them. It made the purchase totally justified right? I'm pretty sure I have "yuppie sucker" stamped on my forehead, but I don't really care since I still smile every time I wrap him up in them.

First Day at Church

These are a few weeks old now, but I just loved this outfit. Finally a boy I can put a sweater vest on!

It was a rare moment since he wasn't crying, eating, or sleeping so I had to be happy with the less than perfect posing. I did get these fantastic gems though. The most awkward of faces.

These shoes he wore once and now they are too small. I love them anyways.

"Dance Baby M!"

We were having a little dance party when J decided M needed to join us. My heart melted a little.

A tisket, a tastic, a flower making basket

In my head I always think of the play dough commercial in the 80's for the flower basket toy. I found it on youtube here at 1:02 if you want to hear it. My sister had that toy and like everything of hers, I was jeal-ous.

Now as an adult I've found clay flowers just don't compare to the real ones. I always felt planting flowers was a waste of money because I figured it I was paying to water a plant, I should be able to eat part of it.

This year I changed my mind.

I'd go to the nursery for veggies and I just couldn't help myself. Then I'd go to Home Depot and not be able to help myself. I also got a bunch of AZ friendly flower seeds from Madre Dos for Christmas and couldn't help myself.

But look how pretty they are (were)! Worth every penny!

After the frost hit I thought they all died so I bought more. Nope, most perked back up!

Anyone know the name of these? I forgot and they ended up being my favorite

This is a blue hybicus plant from a couple years ago. The frost wiped it out and I kept meaning to hack off the 3/4 of it that looked dead. I just kept putting it off and my laziness was rewarded when it magically turned verdant and blossomed more than it ever had. Go figure.

My new favorite thing is to let plants go to seed, just to see what they look like. Sometimes I manage to harvest the seeds too. This is cilantro gone crazy.

 Canna lilies are the prettiest flower ever to love the heat and full sun. And they are indestructible, as proven my my dog destroying them last year.

And while I took those good photos over a month ago, I had a bunch of random flowers I didn't even plant pop up. This guy looks a lot like a weed when it is small. I'm pretty sure I've been pulling them by mistake for months. Note the fuzzy stem that usually is a sign a plant is trying to hurt me.

I have no idea what this flower is either and I found it hiding in the back of the planter.

This one I'm pretty sure is blanket flower that I did plant seeds for but this is the only one that came up. Or that wasn't weeded...

I don't remember the name of this flower, but I planted them last year and found this little guy grew all on his own this season.

This gladiola looks just like my mom's garden. I didn't plant it but it is in the side of the planter that housed transplants from my mom's yard two years ago. All of the plants I took from my parents' house have been pulled out but I wonder if a seed came along with them and just found the right  condition two years later. Or perhaps a bird pooped it recently.

This is what kale looks like gone to seed, in case you wondered. There is a cute little yellow flower near the top. J likes to tear leaves off and eat them. Strange child.

This is some volunteer lettuce I had. No lettuce seeds grew where I planted them, but apparently the gravel with sprinkler overspray was the perfect spot. I let it go to seed and it has such interesting fluff.

These red ones are probably my favorite little ones. I'm pretty sure they are the red flax seeds from Madre Dos.

I love how nature just takes over despite whatever I intend for it to do.