Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for summer
A textbook Sunday
There’s Indian Summer, and then there’s 70° in November. Today, it was sunny and 70° outside. No, I’m not kidding…it really was that warm! Grandma Judy, Grandpa Scott, Brett, and Kelli came down to spend the day with us, and it was a really great day. The kids played with Brett & Kelli so much, and they had a blast. They played downstairs, out in the front yard, downstairs again, out in the back yard, and back downstairs some more. Let me tell you that basement was trashed! I swear they had gotten out every single toy we have down there and none of them seemed to find their way home. But it didn’t matter. Just by looking at it I could tell that it was awesome. I think my favorite thing they had done was to set up our blocks to make a sort of wall in the corner. Ben told me that he was a puppy, and that was his cage. His sleeping bag was in there, and an empty bucket was, too. He said that was his blanket and his food. It cracked me up.
“Were Kelli and Brett your owners?” I asked him.
“Yes, he said, “They took care of me!” He had a huge smile on his face.
I love that he is starting to interact with kids more and he’s joining in with imaginative play. He’s getting so grown up, and I seem to notice more and more changes in him daily. What a mixed feeling that is.
I’m calling this a textbook Sunday because we literally got to do everything I hold near and dear about Sundays. We went to church as a family, we came home and went straight outside to ride bikes, more family arrived and we ate dinner together, we played outside with our neighborhood friends, and we generally had an awesome time just being together. It really reminded me of my childhood Sundays, and I have to say I absolutely loved it. For the first time in a very long time, I dread going to bed tonight!
We should have named her Sandy
I’m pretty sure that Emma is addicted to sand. The girl absolutely loves playing in our sandbox, but that’s not really a problem. The trouble comes when sand starts getting into places it just doesn’t belong. Tonight was a sticky humid night, and while we were playing outside with our friends, Ems was laying in the sandbox…both on her tummy and on her back at different times. She was sweaty to begin with, so consequently she was covered in sand. Her scalp literally looked like the beach. Ugh. And for some reason, she likes putting her fingers into her mouth when they’re covered in sand. Seriously, Emma? I’m not even going to talk about how much sand came out of her diaper when we stripped down to get into the bathtub. Ick.
Words cannot describe how much sand was in our tub at the end of baths tonight. I swear I had to rinse that girl’s hair for several minutes straight, and I’m still not sure that I got everything out. I’m so glad we have the sandbox. Sure, it makes for a holy mess at the end of the night, but that little girl truly loves it…which makes all the mess worth it.
Bonnie!
Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal were playing at Ravinia last night, and Rod & Nance and Dave & I were there. 
We went very early, so we got great seats. If you’ve never been to Ravinia, you may not be familiar with the setup. There is a pavillion in front of the state, but a majority of the grounds are lawn seats, and that’s where the real fun is. We packed a big variety of crackers, cheese, fruit, sandwiches, and of course plenty of wine and beer. The Swartzies had borrowed a little table from friends, and we even had a tablecloth and candlelight. It was an awesome spread.
The night could not have been better. The concert was so good, the weather, although it got a bit chilly after dark, was beautiful, and the company was awesome. We’ve decided that we definitely need to make a trip to Ravinia an annual event.
Home again
Ben and Emma are home again…yay! I went up to Mendota to meet the fam at Grandma Jane’s. Grandma Judy, Aunt Nanny, Ryan, Curtis and Brett all came, and we had fun visiting Gram. She doesn’t really seem to know where she is most of the time, but she always knows who we are. They all got there before me, and Gram was a little confuse at who the little kids were, but as soon as I got there she put it all together and it made sense in her head. It’s amazing to see how her mind works these days.
Anyway, it’s so good to have the kids home again. The house is just more alive with them in it. Tomorrow we’ll all be back in our old school year routine and I’m afraid it will kind of be like the summer came and went with the blink of an eye. Let’s hope not!!
The last day of summer
Today is my official “last day of summer”. Although I’ve been working all week, school actually starts for us teachers on Monday, so now there’s no turning back. I decided to work very little today, since I have worked really hard the whole week. So instead, I’m getting a pedicure this afternoon. Sure, it’s kind of self-indulgent and frivolous, but I don’t get them very often anymore, so I think starting school again is the perfect reason to give myself a treat.
It’s hard to do this kind of thing without feeling guilty anymore. I remember back in my single days in Naperville I would get pedicures all the time. It was no problem for me to spend that money on myself. Now, it’s almost impossible for me to justify such a thing. Dave’s always telling me to do nice things for myself, but I just have a difficult time doing so. I constantly think about things we coud be doing for the kids with that money. I suppose it’s something that every parent goes through. I mean, the expression “mother’s guilt” didn’t come from nowhere, right? I don’t want to be a martyr, but I do want to do everything I can for my kids. Now I just have to find the balance between doing for them and doing for me. One would think that I would have found it in 4 years, but it doesn’t seem that it’s happened yet. Soon, I’m sure…
Pool day
The temperature finally hit summer today, reaching a high of 94°. We decided that it was the perfect day to head to State Farm pool. We were right…it was absolutely perfect there. The pool opens at 10 a.m. and I think we got there about 10:02. There were already people there, though, so we knew it was going to be a busy one for the pool. We had been there a very short time when we saw our great neighborhood friends Maxon and Elijah come in (with their mom Leslie, of course!) We were all very excited to see each other.
We played and swam all morning. We even rode the lazy river for the first time. Of course, Emma, who was riding with Dave, only wanted to know where I was the entire time. That girl…it seems if I’m out of sight all she wants is me. But regardless, we had a lot of fun. We grabbed a quick lunch at the snack bar, and since the kids were so good at lunch, we decided to stay a bit longer and swim some more.
By the time we left at about 12:45, the place was packed. There were cars driving around the parking lot looking for spots, and the overflow lot was filling up fast. Both of our kids were so tired that we had to work pretty hard to keep them awake on the way home. But it was an awesome day. I hope we can get in some more pool days before it closes on Labor Day!
The new pool
Like pretty much everything in our lives, we describe places based on what Ben calls them. Today we went to “the new pool” with our friends Ali & AJ. The new pool is at Anderson Park, one of the park district pools here in town. We’ve never been to either of the park district pools since State Farm Pool is so nice and free for us. But our friends aren’t State Farm connected, so off to Anderson we went.
I have to say that this pool is awesome for toddlers. At its deepest, the baby pool is only about 22″. It was awesome for Ben, because he never felt overwhelmed by the water depth, and he could go anywhere in the pool by himself. And even Emma could wander around without me being too nervous. 
Emma and AJ spent a lot of time filling up their buckets and painting the concrete. There were two little sprinklers that worked perfectly for them to fill their buckets. They went back and forth and back and forth, and stayed very 
busy while having a lot of fun. Meanwhile, Ben and Ali were having fun on the submarine slide. The submarine is in the middle of the pool, and there are steps up both sides and a slide out the back. The must have gone down that thing about a million times!
By the time we left at 11:00 or so, all the kids were exhausted and Addie and I were both facing meltdowns. We had a such a great time, and we’re lucky to have such good friends.
The big garage sale, day 2
Today was a very different sale day. First of all, the weather totally changed overnight and it was freezing today! Ok, freezing may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it was chilly sitting out there. It was overcast, breezy, and it started to spit rain a couple times. That definitely had a bit of an effect on the crowd, I’m sure, but I certainly can’t complain. While it was not a steady stream of people all day, they were on a mission, and we had a lot of buyers come through. I was so excited to sell the rocker, and I did so very early on this morning. In fact, almost all of the big things sold, and a lot of the little things (including some things that I thought would never sell) went, too.
The biggest disappointment to me is how many clothes we have left. I really thought that baby clothes would go better than they did. Man, some of the clothes we still have are in fantastic shape! It really surprised me, to be honest. At this point we’re not really sure what we’re going to do with all these clothes we have left. We definitely have some things to go to Good Will, and obviously we could take all of the clothes there, but I’m just not sure if we’re ready to part with all of them that easily. I guess I just need to give myself a little time to decide what I’m going to do. I’m sure that Dave and I will begin to box things up in the morning, and hopefully I’ll have a better idea then.
Oh, I haven’t even mentioned the money yet! We made a killing!! Well, maybe not a killing to some, but let’s just say we surpassed my goal of $500 profit with ease. Sure it was a ton of work, but seriously…having our house cleared out of a whole lotta stuff and getting a wad of cash for it all? Totally worth it!
The big garage sale, day 1
So today was the opening day of the big sale. I got everything out into the garage, but I’m telling you there was not a single solitary empty spot on any of the eight huge tables I had in there. In addition to the garage being full, I had at least 15-20 things out on the driveway, as well. Needless to say I was hoping for a huge turnout.
Grandma Judy came down to help with the kids and the sale. Thank goodness she was here, because there was no way I could have done it being the only adult here. The kids were all excited for the sale and were very interested in people coming to buy things from us. However, we had a box marked “FREE” with a bunch of little toys in it. There were mostly things in it that the kids had gotten in Happy Meals from McDonald’s. You get the idea…it was a box full of junk that I was sick of picking up in our house. When we were collecting all of these things, Ben was all about getting rid of them. But then, the morning of the sale, he freaked. He didn’t want anyone to have anything in that box, and he “just wanted to take it all back inside!!!” It wasn’t even that the stuff was free…he didn’t even know that part. It was just suddenly harder for him to part with his “treasures” than he thought. After several minutes of trying to convince him that we weren’t keeping any of that crap, he spent some time on the couch crying. Eventually, he got over it and for the rest of the day he was all about people getting things out of the box. Go figure.
All in all, it was a great sale day. We had a lot of traffic in and out all day. I had a few people negotiating prices, but not too many, so that wasn’t too annoying. There is still a lot of stuff to get rid of tomorrow, so I hope that we have just as many come through. I still need to get rid of the rocking chair…that’s the one big thing I really don’t want to have after the sale is done. Keep your fingers crossed that we’ll get rid of more tomorrow!!
The fair!
Tonight the McLean County Fair began. Now, it’s difficult for me, having been raised near the Sandwich Fair (i.e. the greatest fair ever), to go to another county fair and not be critical. But this fair cannot even be put into the same category as the Sandwich Fair. I would say that it’s more comparable to the Mendota Fair, but not even quite as good as that one. But it’s here, it’s a buck to get in, and it’s still a fair, so we packed up and headed out there tonight.
We took Ben last year and he loved all the rides and the animals. He remembered going, so he was very excited. Emma, as usual, was just willing to go bye-bye, even though she pretty much had no idea where we were going or what we’d be doing. We really thought that she’d love it, too. We started at the rides, and sadly Emma was a little too short for most of them. Neither Dave or I had even considered that! Luckily, though, several of the carnies let her get on their rides, anyway. Gotta love the carnies! 
They drove trucks,
and then drove cars.
Next was the ferris wheel and merry-go-round.
After we had some classic fair food for dinner, we headed to see some animals and climb on some tractors. Both of those things were popular with the kids, but neither one could touch the thrill of one of the exhibit buildings. In it were a giant combine you could climb into and baby pigs you could pet. Daddy climbed up into the combine with the kids and it seemed like they all enjoyed it. 
But the baby pigs were absolutely the hit of the night. You could see the pure joy on both of the kids’ faces while they were petting those things. Periodically Emma would let out a little squeal not unlike those of the pigs themselves. Ben had no fear of the little guys at all, and he was as into it as Ems was. It was awesome. Before we left each activity the kids got a giant sticker to wear announcing their participation. Of course I tried to get a good picture of both of them wearing the stickers, and this was the best I got:
We then went to see the 
baby chicks, and Emma loved them, too. Ben wasn’t as thrilled with this building. Sadly, I think he may share a little bit of his mother’s fear of birds. Of course, it could have had something to do with the fact that the building they were in was right next to the rides, too. We hit a coupe more of those before we headed for the car. We piled in two tired, dirty, and happy kids and headed for home.
As much as I like to make fun of the little fair, it really is the perfect size for toddlers. I don’t know if they could handle Sandwich…and we don’t know if we’ll even try it with them. Yet.
