Tales of a Fulltime Mom: Wild Kratts!

A few weeks ago I came across a notice on my Facebook that Wild Kratts Live was coming to Lakeland. If you don't know what Wild Kratts is, well, you must not have a small child. They are two brothers, Christ and Martin Kratt, who created a kid's show about animals. It's half "regular" and half cartoon. Brady absolutely loves it and has learned so much from it and really, I contribute his love of animals to this show. I had been wanting to go to this show for a long time but one never came close enough...until now.

Lakeland is about an hour drive southwest from here and although an hour isn't that far, it's far enough that I didn't want to drive there just for the show at 6 pm and drive back. So I decided to make a day of it. I had bought a Groupon some time back for the Children's Museum they have in downtown Lakeland so I figured that would be a good stop and then I found this really great park on Trip Advisor and added that as a second stop. I didn't tell the kids where we were going because a) I wanted to surprise them but also b) I didn't want to hear Calleigh complain about Wild Kratts. I think she gets sick of watching repeats of it (Brady will watch the same shows over and over again) and so she acts like she doesn't like the show.

The first stop was the museum - - we arrived about 10:30. Although it was spread over three floors, it definitely is much smaller than say, the Science Center. I'm sure Brady and Colby could have played there for hours but Calleigh and to a smaller degree, Aubree, are starting to outgrow this kind of stuff. Kind of sad but such is life! They still enjoy it but they like to be in each section for about five minutes and then they're ready to move on. After a couple of hours, it was time to move on to some lunch. I am so glad McDonald's has all day breakfast now so that we can go there for lunch. Otherwise there isn't much to eat there besides french fries.

These crutches were their favorite part. "It would be so cool to have a broken leg and need these!"

Shopping at Publix

Calleigh was content to sit and play some songs.

Curious George play area.

Love the face!

Oh how I love going places on school days.

Next it was on to Common Ground park. This seriously is probably the nicest playground/park I've ever been to. It's huge! The City of Lakeland has done an amazing job. Colby fell asleep on the way there and I made the kids sit in the car for about 40 minutes to let him snooze. They were frothing at the bit to get out but I knew they would have several hours there so I didn't feel too bad. About 30 minutes after we got out, Jennifer and Vasti arrived with their brood (minus London who stayed home with Bruce). Our homeschool group was back together again! The kids had a ton of fun running around all over the place. Definitely got their exercise in for the day. They all played together but sometimes little groups would branch off. Evan spent a lot of time with Brady and I have to say Evan is such a nice kid. He's seven compared to Brady's four but it doesn't seem to matter to Evan. When we got in the car and I was buckling Brady in he says very seriously to me, "Evan is my friend." Then he goes on to say "I have Evan, Camden, and Kohlden. Those are my friends." From the back seat, Aubree yells "I'm your friend too." So Brady adds Aubree and says "I have four friends. And hey, I'm four!!!" It was just cute. As if those are the ONLY friends he has or something. But anyway, he wanted to sit next to Evan for the rest of the day, of course.

Before any of the kids tried these, for some reason I got the bright idea to try them first. I jumped up on the first one and took a step to the next one, not realizing that all the other ones were on springs and moved. I was this CLOSE to wiping out big time but I somehow saved myself from total embarrassment.

For a mere $2k, you too can have this cool swing in your backyard.

This sliding hill was definitely one of the highlights.

One downside of a playground and a two year old is that they aren't quite old enough to be given free rein. I had to follow Colby EVERYWHERE and it got to be very tiring especially when I would see Jennifer and Vasti just sitting, relaxing, and chit chatting. Finally I remembered that I had some cars in the van and for the last 40 minutes, I got to just sit while Colby played in the sand.

We grabbed a quick supper at Crispers before heading to the main event. As I suspected, Calleigh wasn't exactly thrilled to hear it was Wild Kratts but apparently she changed her mind since I have heard she was talking positively about the show after the fact. It was a fairly small venue and I'd guess there were several thousand people there. The show was great for a kid! It is really just the Kratt brothers for the whole show. I had found out earlier in the day while reading a review that there weren't actually any live animals in the show which was a little disappointing but I don't think the kids noticed or cared. Brady pretty much had an open mouthed gape the entire time. Colby sat on my lap and was engaged the whole time as well. All in all it was a success. Good thing we didn't need a refreshment or try to purchase a memento though because the lines were huge.

Evan Brady (yes, that's his middle name) and Brady

Aubree and Brady were so excited from the show that the next day I had to go on Amazon for them so they could page through and make a list of things they wanted to get.

Moving back to earlier in the week, Sunday was a big day for the girls because they got their reward for completing their first year of piano lessons. Now, I'm sure there are people who don't believe in giving their kid a reward for things like this but clearly we aren't in that camp. In the early going of lessons, Calleigh was complaining a lot and wanted to quit so I decided to bribe her with the allure of a new American Girl doll at the end of the first year. And it worked. If the payoff is that they keep playing, I'm good with it. Yes, I know American Girl dolls are expensive but they retain their value so well and they are such good quality. They can either pass them down to their kids one day or we can sell them when the girls get older and get back most of our money, or even make money, if we some of the dolls are retired. A few weeks ago I found a McKenna doll at a yard sale. I didn't buy it because it was $50 and the girls would rather have a new one in a package. A little later, I looked on eBay and found it was selling for $175 and even more now when I check! I found the contact info for the yard sale and sent the lady a message that I wanted to buy it if she still had it. She did and I did. I haven't sold it yet but I will be soon. Of course, the girls wanted to know if I was going to tell the lady that I could sell it for a lot more money. Obviously that was NOT my plan but then I started feeling guilty. I didn't do anything morally wrong, right?

Aubree got Samantha and Calleigh got Lea who is the doll of the year.

Oh, speaking of instruments, when Brady saw all this hoopla over the dolls because of the girls playing the piano, he announces to me that "When I grow up, I want to play the drum." Big pause. "But don't worry, Mom. Not the electric one." Ha!

This week was tough for sleep for some of us. Colby woke up a few night with a stuffy nose. Duncan had a cough that woke him up (and me up) really early a few mornings. Calleigh had one of her vomiting spells on Tuesday morning. I think I've mentioned it on here before. About every four to six weeks, she'll wake up about 5 am-ish and come down and say her belly hurts. Usually within about 10 or 15 minutes after that, she'll start throwing up. Sometimes it will only be once and then sometimes it will be three or four times. Once she's finally done, she'll feel fine and it's a completely normal day. There are no other symptoms. It's really quite odd but I haven't given it that much thought because it really hasn't affected anything. I had noticed that it has become slightly more frequent as opposed to every six to eight weeks and the last few times she's also wanted to take a shower, apparently liking the warmth. Later in the day on Tuesday when we went to art, Jennifer tells me that she's figured out what Calleigh has because her friend's future daughter-in-law has the same thing. It's called cyclic or cyclical vomiting. Basically it's a disorder where you vomit for no apparent reason. It's often accompanied by other symptoms like headache and lethargy which fortunately she hasn't experienced, yet. It says that it often develops between the ages of three to seven and that the affected person will throw up typically at the same time of day each time (check and check). This also stood out to me: "Some sufferers will often want to bathe in warm or cool water." Check. There is no known cause but some studies seem to think it has to do with migraines and is more prevalent in people with a family history of migraines. Check. Although to be fair, while my mom and I both suffer from bad headaches, I don't know if they're specifically migraines. I have no idea if this is what she has but it sure sounds like it. I will need to obviously discuss this with her pediatrician at her next visit. We shall see. It sounds like the only was to say it is this is to undergo a bunch of testing to rule out other stuff. That doesn't sound like much fun.

Some other pictures..

Excuse the demon eyes here. Last Saturday night we went out with the Bergherms and Isidros to RusTeak in College Park while the grandparents babysat. The food was excellent!

We spotted this game at Target so, of course, we had to get it after playing it the week before at Family Fun Night. So the grandparents got to play it while they were babysitting! The kids could barely wait for us to leave the driveway so they could bring it out.

"How am I supposed to get the lid on?!" This seemed to be very perplexing for Colby.

We realized that Brady could now help with putting the silverware away out of the dishwasher. He took the job on with great relish and in fact, emptied the whole dishwasher (with some help) as a surprise for the girls the first time. I thought it was so kindhearted of him until he said "Now I'm going to get more money than them!!"

We are wrapping up our "trip" to Norway for school. Apparently Norway is known for an art form called Rosemaling. I decided to let the kids have a go at it.

This is not it but they had fun.

This REALLY isn't it.

The girls forbid him from coming in their room so he took his bedding and slept near the bathroom door at least.

Week 6 of ice skating. That's Brady in front doing some cones. I seem to have a blurry spot on my phone.

Our next missionary book for school. We were so excited to see "Bristol" (England) since that is where Elaine is from.

Adventurers. They had snacks out for the kids to talk about healthy eating (not sure why the cupcake was there then!) and I was worried there would be a big problem but fortunately they had an extra for Colby.

This is how my guest room looks right now. Trying to go through all the clothes that Colby has outgrown. Some will be sold at the consignment sale and many are going to Goodwill.

Six bags for Goodwill so far.

Aubree has two loose teeth! She's very excited despite the face. We knew it would take awhile to get to this point since she was 11 months old when she got her first tooth. She'll be seven in three months. Comparatively, Calleigh lost her first one at age five (nearly six).