Riley and Avery

We did manage to go to the Kite and Wind Festival, and it was too hot outside! I never thought I'd say it, but with the cold weather so recently, 80 felt really really hot. I'm such a complainer. I forgot to put sunscreen on myself, but lathered it all over the girls. They're still lily-white and I'm fried. Avery did get a little burn on her scalp, so I have to get used to having a blonde child. Oh, Riley calls sunscreen "sunset".

I know the purpose of going to the festival was to fly our kite, but after all the hoopla, once we got ready to fly it, we realize that the crossbar for the kite is awol. Then we went to the kite sales booth, but they were out of children's kites, and only had $30 kites, which didn't fly with me. Luckily, they had a balloon man there, who was very popular and we ended up waiting in line for way more than an hour for his creations. Well,I waited while Avery played in the dirt (who knew that there was a dirty girl under the dainty girly-girl facade?) and Riley played with some boys in the grass, looking for bugs and such. They managed to find a caterpillar, and Riley was trying to move it to safety with a blade of grass while another boy tried to pulverize it with a rock. I had to physically stop him from killing it. In the large group of people, I wasn't sure who his mother was, but I pulled Riley aside and said in a loud voice for the benefit of the mystery mother "You were being really helpful trying to move that caterpillar and I know that boy was trying to hurt it. No mater what any body else does, we DO NOT KILL living things in our family. That boy was HURTING that caterpillar and that is WRONG. The caterpillar is alive and it feels pain, so I'm glad that you are helpful and kind to bugs and not cruel like that boy..." blah blah blah. And the people in the balloon man line were letting their children request three or four balloon creations each (they were free) knowing that people have been waiting behind them in the sun for hours. Argh...

And the guy standing behind me was a single father (and custodial father) of a 6 year old, and he was putting the mack on me, until I conveniently mentioned Rudi in a conversation about Avery's hair color. Then he turned and put the mack on the single mother behind him. He was nice, though, and we all did pass the time in line with pleasant conversation. He did mention a lot that he was a single father...

In short, we had a lot of fun at the festival. We sat on a quilt under a tree and ate watermelon and colored. We left the house at around 9:30 am and didn't get home until a little after 4. It was the longest stretch of babywearing that I've done since my shoulder/arm thing, and although I used the mei tai, I can feel the effects. You know, I think regarding the mei tai, I really need to switch to the back carry. I'm just so comfortable with the front carry that I'm hesitant to switch. Avery may be small, but she's still almost 20#, so I think it's time. I just don't like feeling like a beginner again. And I always have performance anxiety when babywearing in public. I can get Avery in a wrap perfectly fine at home, but in public I feel like people are watching and judging me like "what is that crazy woman doing with 15 feet of fabric? Holy cow! She's throwing that baby over her shoulder!" and so on. I guess I'll just have to get over it...

Oh yeah, in the nature center Riley had an absolute blast using the binoculars and telescope and microscope. She really got into it, which pleased Rudi when I told him, because he's all into science. Avery became really attached to a raccoon pelt and really didn't want to let it go. It was kind of creepy, actually.

The amount of dirt than came off the girls during their bath was astounding. It didn't help that when they came home, they were pretending to bake and made a huge mess of a bag of old flour. Dirt and flour, yum.

I keep meaning to blog about this, and don't know if it'll really come across in writing, but: I made Riley and Avery some noodles for lunch and gave them each a bowl and fork, and Riley says "Avery's not eating her noodles!" and I say "That's okay, she probably doesn't know how" meaning that she doesn't know how to use the fork. Riley gets in Avery's face and says, in her you're retarded voice "Avery, you put it in your mouth and chew it!"

Ugh, I'm too lazy and tired and sunburnt to insert the photos into the blog, so they'll just be jumbled at the beginning. I'm sure y'all can figure out what they're about. Night night.