As expected, I ended up spending most of my paternity leave with Audrey rather than Ethan. Getting Audrey out of the house was nice because it left Amber to deal with only one kid (easy street!!). It turns out that "divide and conquer" applies as well to parenting as it does to military strategy. Since Amber is nursing, deciding which kid went with which parent was a no brainer. This arrangement was nice because it also let me bond with Audrey doing the things I usually don't get to see, since I'm at work all day. I think this also helped Audrey adjust to having competition around the house.
During the leave, Audrey and I:
- went to Gymboree fairly regularly. Audrey likes climbing on the equipment, but totally ignores the teacher and participates in group play only on a whim. Nevertheless she seems to have a good time.
- went to the library for toddler story time. We also caught two "guest speakers"--a class of Kindermusic, and a puppeteer.
- went to the Austin Children's Museum with Grandma Wood. Here she is playing drums:
Audrey liked the fish tank. I'm not sure if she'd ever seen one before. Maybe she had, but didn't pay attention the first time :)
- went shopping a lot. Sometimes it's nice just to get out of the house. Audrey helped pick out some collectable 2010-edition baseball cards for Ethan. Audrey enjoys the personal pan pizzas they have at the cafe inside Target. That's a nice segue into the next item:
- started jogging together in the evenings. I bought a jogging stroller so Audrey comes with me. She's only had a meltdown while jogging once, and man it sure was a long jog home :)
- played outside a bit. That is, before the mosquitos got bad. Lately the backyard is off-limits. Daddy would play his trumpet while Audrey plays with her pirate ship water table.
- ate donuts. Occasionally after Gymboree or the library we'd stop by our neighborhood Thai Donuts. Audrey likes ham-and-cheese kolaches and loves donut holes. Audrey also helped me deliver 2 dozen donuts to the Hospital after Ethan was discharged.
Some other stuff we did over the vacation:
- did a newborn photo shoot with Ethan and Audrey. Aunt Naomi really went the distance with this one and it seems like we spent all day at her studio taking pictures. I don't know how she got such great shots with Audrey being uncooperative and Ethan having constant 'accidents' :)
- made casts of Ethan. This was a production this time :) We did two hands, two feet, and a butt. Mommy loves the butt. Daddy feels guilty.
- bought a new laptop. Audrey and Mommy teamed up to break the DVD drive in the old laptop. Since it was getting old and cantankerous anyway, we decided to buy a new one. We ended up with a Toshiba Satellite.
- did some spring cleaning. Momma and Papa both dug through their closets and got rid of a bunch of old clothes. Papa threw out 4 garbage bags just by himself.
I think that's about it.
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