Rainy Tuesday

The boys started their new schedule this week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday at Kindercare; Tuesday and Thursday with me. Sarah's with me all the time. I think I've mentioned before that I parent by fatigue. Meaning my goal is to get my kids tired so they don't have the energy to behave badly. Mostly this works well, but you have to be careful: it's really easy to shoot right past fatigue and straight into meltdown. Then it's ugly. Last week I pushed it too far and by the end of Owen's tantrum I was threatening to call the police if he didn't get into that &#@$*! car seat! Not one of my finer parenting moments, but it worked!

When I've got all three kids, we are rarely at home, I'm out with them at the playground, park or Santa Ana Zoo. I love the Santa Ana Zoo: there's a playground, train, merry-go-round, animals, and a snack bar. A totally self-contained kid paradise. I'm glad the boys love it too.

We headed out Tuesday morning to the zoo crossing our fingers that it wasn't going to rain on us. It was great day - no meltdowns. Best of all, we're there so often now that the train conductor knows us and gave us two train rides for free!

We got there a little early - I thought it opened at 9am, but no its 10. So we had to wait:


And wait:


The boys held it together and love checking in on the animals they've seen many times before:


See?


The boys were waiting for the train to pass by. I don't have pictures from the train rides. It was too hard to snap a shot and hold Sarah too.



They love the Jeep:



A really beautiful bird in the rain forest section of the zoo, called the "Scarlet Something" I really should know by now what this is called.


Sarah came too!


We got all our fun in before it started raining. Andrew had swimming lessons in the rain later in the afternoon. He thought it was hilarious! No pictures of that either, I needed both hands for keeping Owen from jumping in the pool!