Weekend recap

This morning I grabbed my bill for Leif's preschool out of my mail envelope. I glanced at the total a little shocked. They usually don't make mistakes. In fact, I am usually shocked at how precise they get the bills.

Why then was my bill $400 more than I was anticipating?

I sat in the car going over it with a fine toothed comb until I came to the offending charge.

Nevermind I thought.

Skadi, June 16th-30th.

YAY! My daughter is really starting soon! They expect me to pay them!

Not only that but I revelled a little in the 10% sibling discount that each child received.

Last Friday I stopped by the director's office to remind her that we would only be at Skadi's current daycare for another two weeks.

"I know," she sighed, "though I don't think we are going to let this happen. [Her teacher] and I have agreed that we don't think you can take her away from us,"

The director is good at putting on a front. She is a super nice woman, but I am not kidding myself that they aren't counting the days as well. From the number of times I walk into her office complaining about little things, to Skadi screaming at the teachers most days. They aren't going to miss us. I don't expect there to be tears shed over our departure this time around.

Saturday we had the usual morning activities. Swimming and then a trip to Costco. Skadi loves her swimming class, far more than Leif did at this age. I can barely hold on to her when they release the balls all around her and her little body flails to grab balls and she climbs over the other babies to get to the basket to put them in. Her teacher did the ball routine four times as compared to the usual two only because Skadi was such a little riot to watch. She would be pleased to retrieve balls through the whole swim lesson.

We made a trip to Costco afterwards, pre-empting the planned trip to Farmer's Market when our friends told us it was a lot of fun if you want asparagus. We like asparagus... but there is only so much asparagus one family needs. Instead we went and spent way too much money at Costco.

After putting all the food away we decided on a new goal... aside from fresh fruits, veggies and milk, we are not buying anything at the grocery store. Our pantry and freezer have reached frightening stages. That stage where you just aren't even sure what is in there anymore so you just buy new. Yeah, that stage. The goal in the next three weeks is to empty it.

(Just glad I got two bags of my new favorite chips at Costco the other day!)

Saturday afternoon was a lot of playing in the backyard by Leif, a lot of cleaning and organizing the house by me, sleeping by Skadi, and working on stuff by AB. Then AB and Leif installed the new carseat in AB's car. That took a fair amount of time actually. The seat is a one size fits all type of thing that is substantially smaller than his Regent in my car. We bought it for AB's car so he can haul both kids on the rare occasion he does so, but mostly for travel because traveling with the Britax Regent might just be near impossible. We purchased a Graco Nautilus. I had intended to find and buy the seat a few months ago but apparently it is one of the hot new seats that everyone wants (goes from 30-100 lbs), and it was back ordered nearly everywhere.

Of course the installation of this seat prompted some lamenting from my husband that I have been fearing was coming.

"I need a new car, I cannot install these seats properly without LATCH," he said.

And no joke. We both worked on it with our little sidekick barking out commands on the side, "here let me sit in it and see if it works", "let's put a cup in the cup holder and see if it helps!" (You were right Pam, Leif loves the cup holder.)

We keep pushing back the actual purchase of a new car. We know what we want. My car is paid off this month. We can stick to our rule of not buying a new car until the other is paid off. But making that actual step is seeming painful right now.

I fear a minivan (Toyota Sienna) is in my future. I envision a love-hate relationship since I was one of those women who swore I would never own a minivan.

AB is looking over taking the reigns on my 4Runner. But I am not sure I am ready to surrender it. All over the news is talk about people scrambling to get rid of their SUVs thanks to high gas prices. I suppose maybe it's that I don't drive that much (I fill up every other week), or that I am lucky enough that while I don't like gas prices right now I can still afford them, or that I just plain like my 4Runner. More than like... I love my 4Runner.

Ah well... I am sure I will enjoy the amenities of a minivan as well.