That's why they call it a long weekend

Four long days at home together, and we emerge victorious. (At least I hope we'll emerge, since we now all have colds.) I'm really not complaining about having four days to spend with my family, I'm just not sure I've got the stamina to make it fun for everyone.

Day 1, we headed to My Gym for Emily's weekly class. She had a blast sliding into the ball pit and jumping on the trampoline. Andy and I had a date of sorts in the afternoon and enjoyed lunch at Coastal Flats and a meal-prep session at Let's Dish. I feel slightly guilty about paying someone else to do the shopping and cut up the vegetables for me, but having quick, tasty meals on-hand is well-worth it. I like being able to alter the recipes--a little more cheese, a little less onion--unlike grocery-store prepared foods.

Day 2, we hosted a pizza-making playdate (complete with tickle-torture pictured here). The girls couldn't have cared less about eating the pizzas they created, but we had fun. Emily flips into "show-off mode" any time a friend comes by. The nice side effect to this is that she plays with toys she's ignored for months.

Day 3, we headed out for a special breakfast and then back to My Gym for a make-up class. Since we had been there a few days before, the class was the same more-or-less. Emily seemed to LOVE that, presumably because she could predict what was going to happen next. She has gotten really brazen lately, and was even telling the coaches what steps they had missed in the routine when they did things a little differently than the coaches from two days before. Everyone seemed to take it all in stride. That evening, I had a play date of my own and met a friend at the ice rink. It had been four years and a baby since I had been to the rink, eight years since I had skated nearly every day. It felt great to get back on the ice and discover that I could still do a spin or two (barely).

Day 4, just when we thought we had this stay-at-home thing under control, Emily managed to go through the house like a tornado, undoing all the cleaning we had done before the Day 2 playdate. And she talked. Non-stop. All day. She tends to provide color commentary for everything she does and repeats herself constantly: "Me-may changing Bertha, Bertha stinky, Me-may get diaper for Bertha, Me-may making lunch for babies, Me-may make lunch, Me-may changing Bertha . . . " Most of the time it is cute to see what is going through her head. Today it was simply too much. Maybe because we were trying to watch the inauguration coverage, maybe because we were feeling slightly trapped because of said inauguration's road closures, maybe because we were all a bit under the weather. I feel slightly guilty admitting that I'm ready for a quiet day at the office.