My hat has always gone off to all the stay at home moms out there. I've always said I could never be one, and I stand by that. Having said that, I probably could have made it Bella's first year but then I would have had to get out. Things were different with me when she came to us.
I'm saying this because Monday was MLK holiday so the kids and I had a day off. From the time my sweet little bear woke up until she finally fell asleep that night, we played. We played a lot. My goal was not only spend the day doing fun things but also prove to my child we didn't have to leave the house and spend money to have fun. I won that battle but mercy that child wore me out. Christopher was around in the morning but left to go to his girlfriend's mom's birthday party. Lucky guy.
We started out with a Frozen board game cousin Stephanie gave her for her birthday. We played that for a bit and then I had the crazy idea to play Uno. Y'all, I had to learn how to play all over again. Laugh it up but I'm not kidding. It had been that long. So as I'm reading and learning I'm also teaching Bella. I also learned they added some new cards to the game which helped me to win a match later and completely tick my son off at the same time. Chris wasn't up for the first round but came in the room as we were coming to an end. He helped Bella along when she got stuck. Second round, Chris played. One of the new cards is a "swap hands" card which I acquired one of the three times my daughter slapped down a Draw Two card to me. Chris is giggling because he's steadily slapping cards down just moving along through the game nicely and promptly calls Uno when the time comes. Bella plays a card that allows me to actually play and I promptly slapped down my "swap hands" card and give Christopher my cards and take his one. Oh y'all. You would have thought the world had just ended.
Chris: what?!!? What are you doing?
Me: Read the card buddy, give me your cards.
Chris: No way, I'm not giving you anything, I'm going out. That card is stupid, its new and its stupid.
Me: No, its an awesome card that I'm playing right now. Gimme, gimme. (laughing)
Needless to say, that was the end of the Uno run that morning and the end of Christopher playing games with us that day. Lordy mercy, he was upset.
Bella and I then played a Shopkins game she got for Christmas and then broke for lunch. One of our favorite things to do while cooking, baking or even playing games is to listen to Country Gold on the satellite. We're sitting at the table eating lunch listening to music....
Me: Bella, do you know who sings this song?
B: (thinking for a bit) No ma'am.
M: Johnny Cash
B: Who's he?
M: One of the greatest country/western singers that ever lived
B: (turns her head quickly back towards me) More than George Strait???!!!!!
Me: (laughing) That's my girl!!!!
I laughed so hard. Girl knows who George Strait is and knows her momma loves him.
After lunch we pulled out Qwirkle which we got for Christmas. I learned about this game from my friend
Steffani who plays with her daughter Ella. So I'm reading and learning and teaching and we finally get started when Daddy and Lena stop by. They love playing games with us so they sat down to visit for a bit and try to help me navigate through some of my questions about the game. I'm still not clear on a couple things but it was a fun game. We didn't even make it to the end of a round because the resident 7-year old declared she was tired of playing and needed a break. It was around this time Bella decided we needed to go for a walk since it was so pretty outside so we ventured down the street and ended up making a loop by her school and came on back home to play chicken foot. Now this she loved. I have a set of Double 12s and Double 15s. We made it through two rounds of chicken foot before she was done with that and it was on to coloring!! Y'all, I love to color! Seriously, it relaxes me.
The book I was coloring is full of doodling pages, coloring, blank pages for drawing, etc. I gave it to Bella for Christmas. One of the weekends she and Christopher were at their dads, I pulled this out and started on the page you see above. She's colored on a few pages as well. We colored for well over an hour and then I was done. I was getting lazy at that point so I had to quit plus I needed to start supper. I wanted to eat early, clean up and then go walking and work my way to an easy jog. That didn't work out because the resident 16 year old wanted to go run with his buddy at 7:30. I could have probably gone when he got home but I didn't for these reasons...
~I had lost my enthusiasm by then;
~It was after 8:30 when he returned;
~I still needed to polish my nails; and
~I had just hung up the phone with a friend.
And y'all, I was tired. Playing games with Bella all day plum wore me out and by the end of the day, I was getting pretty snappy. But...it was a fun day and Bella agreed! We will have more days like that just not so close together. One of my mommy flaws. I can only take so much.
Y'all have a good one!
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