Side Note: I'm getting close to being caught up with family news!! Woo hoo!
Yes, this year I celebrated my 40th Birthday, and, yes, it fell on Father’s Day… I thought about having a party, like I used to, but it’s really just too busy for me to be motivated to throw myself a party. With vacation, swimming, work and other events and happenings there is no good time to have a party. Friends have talked about throwing me a party, thanks for that, but still too busy – there’s no good time for it until August!
But the weekend was more or less fun… Grandma, Grandpa, Kelsey and Evan made it up after the swim meet on Saturday and we went to dinner at Benihana. It was a great dinner, good show. I enjoyed it very much.
Sunday we were heading out to Mimi’s to breakfast… It’s NEVER a good idea to go out on Father’s Day. While I love going out, this time it was not my idea and we paid the price for it. I called ahead and they do not do reservations or call-ahead on holidays. We showed up to a 45 minute wait for a party of 7! We took a walk and when we came back we found a shady spot and hanged out there. We couldn’t really hear them announce who they were seating so I jokingly said we probably missed the announcement and we decided to move closer. I went in to check on Steve, party of 7 and I was told they were getting the table ready for Steve and it should be no more than 10 minutes. A couple of minutes later they called Steve party of 3 --- not a big deal it hadn’t been 10 minutes, it wasn’t us. We hear them call other large parties… Now it’s been 15 minutes, overall it had been over an hour. My dad, Mr. Impatient, is getting antsy. I check with the hostess and I’m told they called for us over 20 minutes ago… WHAT!!! That’s right, they called for us while we were waiting in the shade and then I checked in I was told the status of Steve, party of 3… Noooo! They made us a priority seating but it still took another 15 minutes to get a table. Total wait time, about 1 hour, 30 minutes. Mr. Impatient was not happy, grumbling, etc… Since it was partly our fault for not being in a position to hear who they were seating I was more understanding, but it was annoying that I heard a few different groups talk about reservations being made. Grrrr… To top things off service was not the best, but it was Father’s Day so it was busy – again, this is to be expected. They forgot my breakfast, I was patiently waiting for the waitress but my dad reached his limit. He got up and found the waitress and made sure she knew I was missing my food. Happy Father’s Day!
After breakfast we enjoyed time at home, opened up Father’s Day presents, went swimming, had a great dinner, opened up b-day presents and then everyone went home. It was a nice weekend, but I don’t enjoy Christian’s behavior around his cousin, Evan. It’s not Evan’s fault, Christian just loses it. He forgets the rules and how to behave. I really have to ride him about the choices his making. Plain and simple, it sucks. So in that respect it made this a very difficult weekend. Christian even forgot to wish me a Happy Father’s Day and a Happy Birthday Day. I even tried to pass hints about saying something to me, and it didn’t click. About 30 minutes later I think he realized it (or Grandma or someone else whispered it to him) and he finally said Happy Father’s Day… And then a couple of minutes after that he finally said Happy Birthday… Thanks Bud!
You take the good, you take the bad and there you have it – The Facts of Life!!
So as far I knew Christian has been doing really well in his new daycare (Brighton – I love it and so does he)… He really enjoys it there, gets along with everyone. They have a map of a mountain in the classroom with various trails on it… The one you want to stay is of course the Right path. I don’t know if that’s what it is really called, but Christian did refer to it as the right path so they’ve talked about it in class that way. The other trails are, obviously, not the right path J
On Wednesday Christian told me he was working on earning a Pokemon book by climbing the mountain and that he was allowed to put it into his cubby until he got up to the top of the mountain to reserve the prize they would get for reaching the top.
Then on Thursday he said he earned his book, he had reached the top of the mountain, he was working his way back up to the top hoping to earn a second prize and he had the book but no one could take their prizes home until Friday.
On Friday things took a turn for the worse. When I picked him up to bring him to swim practice his teacher asked to talk with me outside… uh oh. As it turns out he has not had the best behavior but no teachers have been catching him and the students didn’t tell until a couple of days later. Apparently he had choked another kid at one point and then at the aquatic center a couple of days earlier he had held a kid underwater. I’m not sure what else had happened, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t believe it. So I was steaming while at swim practice, talked it over with a few parents about what kind of punishment to give him… He has a birthday party and sleepover to go this weekend, do I take it away? Another parent talked me out of it, saying I should tell him I thought about taking it away, but decided on something else instead. What I decided on was the usual – losing Video Games and TV privileges for the night, possibly longer – which was a big deal for both of us if it went onto Saturday morning as that DS is golden at swim meets!
After swimming he returns to daycare and then I pick him up at the end of the day. His book is in his cubby and one of his teachers was finishing up in the room so with her there I put Christian on the spot --- I asked him if he really earned the book from the prize pot like he said… With the teacher there he had no choice and but to come clean! Yes, the little $!@# was lying to me about doing so good he was earning a prize early and all that… COMPLETE BS!!!! UGH! I’m so mad/frustrated/pissed off that I barely talk to him in the car ~ all the time I’m thinking about how to punish him for this.
Well, I calmed down a bit, took his DS/TV/Video Games away for the whole weekend and took away the birthday party and forced him to take a nap instead – but I did not take away the sleepover. I probably should have taken away the sleepover too, but it was his first one and it was his best friend and it was a birthday sleepover… So I let him go still. He was sad to miss the swim portion of the birthday party which is good, he was sad to lose video games/TV for the weekend… Hopefully he learned a bit from it. We’ll see…
Oh, and get this… Why did he lie about the book??? Who knows! He said he was going to trade some Pokemon cards to get the book from another kid in his group at daycare. Maybe he thought I would say no?? I don’t know --- but I’m saying no now that he lied about it all!!
As we all know Christian wears his emotions on his sleeve – you’ll know what he’s feeling and he can be very dramatic about it… The negative emotions I’m not good at, I admit it… But the other side can be a lot of fun as he'll get into the things he really enjoys and let's you know by his actions that he's enjoying. Such is the experience when watching certain movies with Christian.
Tron (the original) was such a movie. When Christian saw Tron for the first time he got into the light cycle and tank chase. He scooted to the edge of couch, would bob up and down wanting to jump out of his seat and he would cheer for Flynn and Tron “Go go go” or “No no no” depending on what was going on and who was on screen --- I want to get it on video on of these days as it is funny how he can get into it…
Secretariat was another such movie that we recently watched. While I needed to explain to him what the Triple Crown was, he obviously knows what racing means. It was great how Secretariat would start in the rear of the pack and movie forward length by length, horse by horse… It gave plenty of opportunities for Christian to get excited and cheer on Secretariat! Lots of fun to watch the movie and Christian at the same time
After packing up the condo and starting the trek home the plan was to stop off at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk so the kids could go on rides and have an exciting day by their standards. This time the forecast was on the money – they called for sunny skies and it was a great day to be in Santa Cruz!
Christian is a daredevil but every now and then you see his cautious side come out. He claimed to want to try certain things, but I wouldn’t let him try the more extreme rides – he has plenty of time to grow into them. Of course, I’m not a fan of rides myself but I’m not letting that keep him off of them. I want him to enjoy them so I’m glad Ken, Kelsey and Evan were going on rides and would take him along.
He did not want to go on the Pirate Ride, but with Ken, Kelsey and Evan going, and the reassurance that this Pirate Ride just swings back and forth and does not go upside-down he gave it a whirl. Everything started smooth and he was having a ball with it… And then it got to the high point on either side of the ride and report from Kelsey is that’s when Christian started chanting “Don’t be scared, don’t be scared, don’t be scared” over and over to himself. Apparently it worked as he got through the ride without tears and came off wanting to do it again!
He went on all of the roller coasters there, various track rides where the cars spin quickly around in a circle and then they go backwards around the circle. We walked from one side of the park to the other, stopping at our cars in the middle for a lunch break, riding rides and having fun. It was another great day…
When we were all done at the park (including a few extra rides on the Pirate Ship) we trekked back home. It was another great vacation.
If interested in staying at Pajaro Dunes we can recommend Pelican 63 (http://www.bestpajarodunes.com). It’s a nice place, near the beach, has almost everything you need. It worked out well.
Today was all about taking it easy at the beach at Pajaro Dunes, relaxing and having fun. It was a bit windy and, of course, one of the items I forgot was our kite --- however like the past couple of days the forecast was completely wrong and it was sunny outside! As for that kite --- it wasn’t missed. We had all of the sand toys and the ocean and beach were simply amazing! We spent hours down at the beach, in the water and in the sand. When we returned to the condo for lunch everyone jumped in the bath to get cleaned up. After lunch we returned to the beach but instead of sitting there playing we went for a walk down the beach, collecting shells and playing in the water.
After the walk we returned to the condo, played games, ate dinner and enjoyed each others company.
The day started off with Eggs Benedict:
And then we relaxed a bit:
Finally, we went to the beach... First, the boys got all nice and clean by swimming...
Oh, look, SAND!!!!
Sand in places we don't want to talk about!!! Time to get cleaned up again...
