Play Planet

 My favorite thing to do is watch my kids run around somewhere and having fun. It brings me indescribable joy, for real. Taking them to a new place to explore is great, but just watching them run around the park on a random warm, winter day will do it, too. We recently visited Play Planet in Parkersburg, which is a huge indoor playground, similar to the ones at Burger King and The Center for Children and Families, only way bigger. I mentioned it to Quinn one day, and I wasn't sure he would want to go. He has told me he's too big for Playgroup (although, he has since changed his mind), so it seemed like it could be a bust. He insisted he wanted to check it out, though, so we made the trip. I'm glad we did because they ran around and played for over two and a half hours! Quinn seemed content to explore on his own, but Ash's separation anxiety got him upset when he couldn't keep up with Quinn. Quinn was pretty good about including him after I made him aware, and I was proud of him for that. He is a very good big brother...most of the time. 

Well worth the $12/kid!

Ash's developmental leap has him clinging to me and feeling emotions much more intensely. I'm struggling with his constant need to question my every move, especially because, more often than not, I tell him where I'm going. "Hey Ash, I'm going upstairs for a minute, okay?" "Okay." Two minutes later, as he comes up the stairs, "Mom? Are you up here?" "Yes. Just like I told you I would be." Ugh. I think it has a lot to do with his growing imagination. He often tells me about dreams he has involving "bad guys," and he even cried when we went to get into the car to go to school this week, which he hasn't done since the first week. He usually loves going to school. We talked it out, though, and he was fine by the time we got there. He just made me promise to be the first there for pickup, which I did. 

Quinn doesn't struggle with that anymore, but he just typically doesn't like going anywhere. At least not until we get there. I saw a meme that describes him perfectly: 

"Don't invite me places. I was born by caesarean. I didn't want to come out then and I certainly don't want to now." 

Beanie Cole Turned 4!

 

Beanie Cole, aka Bean, aka Ash, aka Asher turned 4! His birthday did not go as planned when his early morning vomiting ruined our plans for the trampoline park. That had to be put on hold, and the fate of his party planned for the following evening was undecided. Finding a convenient time for it was already a hassle because of a basketball tournament, so I really didn’t want to reschedule it. His stomach bug was short lived, and he never spiked a fever, so we went ahead with the plan, but I made sure to let everyone know about the risk. As far as I know, no one else became sick, thankfully. 

That poor kid was so bummed we couldn’t go to the trampoline park on his birthday, but he did get to open his gifts from us. He said he really liked everything he got, so that was good. 

Brain rot toys are some of his fave. I don’t understand them, but he likes them. 

Later, he had fun playing with Brother in a fort they made in the kitchen

All of that fun wore him out, though, and he took a rare afternoon nap. 

I spent the entire next day preparing for the party, sanitizing all commonly touched surfaces and our bathrooms. Ash wanted me to get food from Pizza Hut for his party, and I made his cake according to his specifications—a yellow cake with white icing, chocolate sprinkles, and Ronaldo 😂. It wasn’t the prettiest, but it was delicious!

He makes the best reaction faces 

We did finally make it to the trampoline park the next weekend, but after all of the anticipation, the experience wasn’t what we hoped for. Ash’s separation anxiety has recently escalated, and he struggled to go off on his own, even with Quinn by his side. Philip and I jumped with them on his birthday celebration last year, but when we went to the one at the beach, they didn’t really care that we were there, so I figured they would be fine jumping by themselves, while we just watched and followed them around. That was true for Quinn. He had a fantastic time. Ash made it for about half of our 90 minute session before having a meltdown. I was hoping he would take a break to calm down and then rejoin the fun, but he dint really recover for more than a few minutes. We, collectively, decided he was done, and let Quinn go until he tired of it, too. Ash said he was hungry, but I don’t think that was his only problem. I actually considered buying a ticket for myself to jump with him, but then I didn’t think that would help and would be a waste of money. He seemed fine after we left. 

We hit the food court at the mall after the trampoline park, and then the Photo Booth on the way out 

🍕🍟🍪📸. 

I’m hoping this phase doesn’t last much longer because my patience is growing very thin. He’s not a super whiny kid, so I try to just breathe through it, but his sudden need to be stuck up my butt again can get overwhelming. The night before his trampoline park adventure, we attended the K Pop Demon Hunters themed dance at The Center for Children and Families. I asked the boys if they wanted to go, Quinn said no, Ash said yes. Quinn changed his mind after some convincing, and he had a great time! He found a pack of boys to play alien invasion with, while Ash clung to my leg like a leech. It wasn’t long ago when Quinn was attached to me like a third appendage. I credit school with giving him the ability to separate from me easily. Hopefully Ash will gain those same skills once he starts Pre-K in the fall. 

It was “comfy clothes” day at school for Quinn that day, so he wanted to wear his soft flannel pants. I could tell he was nervous about wearing them because he asked me more than once that morning if I thought other kids would be wearing pajamas. I told him they would, most kids like doing that. He rarely wants to participate in theme days though. Monkey see, monkey do, so Ash ended up wearing his that day, too ❤️🖤

Life Lesson: don't buy a mattress online

I’ve been waking up with lower back pain for several years at this point, but it was finding the receipt that confirmed our mattress is 13 years old that put an itch into my brain about wanting to get a new one. Philip did some research (as he does), we took sleep surveys about our positional needs (we’re both mainly side sleepers), and decided to go with a Helix based on their rave reviews. We anxiously awaited the shipping updates, and it only took about a week for two giant boxes to arrive on our porch. One had the mattress and the other had the topper, each rolled up and vacuum sealed inside. Before we could set them up, we had to do some rearranging. The boys were sleeping on twin sized floor beds, side by side, with an approximate six inch gap between, which seemed to be my designated spot 🙄. After measuring, I discovered that our king didn’t take up anymore room than the two of theirs, and it remedied the crack problem, so I was happy to relocate our old bed to Ash’s room. Three or four nights a week I would end up in there when one of them (mostly Ash) would wake me up, so at least this way I would have an actual spot to lay that didn’t involve sleeping on a cold ass metal bed rail. 

After we got our old bed situated in Ash’s room, Philip unleashed our new mattress in our room. We decided to downsize with our new bed, because now that we aren’t sharing it with two other little people, we often felt like we were sleeping miles away from each other. We decided to go with a queen, which meant we also had to buy a new bed frame and bed clothes. You may remember me saying before that we had a duvet cover instead of a traditional comforter, and while it may be considered to be more luxurious, I hated changing that duvet cover with a passion. The idea of a new mattress was exciting enough, but unburdening myself from that chore was equally thrilling! Of course, with Snowmagedon on the way at the end of January, none of these things arrived at the same time, so we only had a mattress for the first couple of days. 

Once out of the package and given sufficient time to fluff, the Helix Sunset, their softest mattress available, seemed comfortable enough, but one night was enough to prove otherwise. The next morning, we both agreed sleeping on that mattress was akin to sleeping on a slab of concrete. We could’ve just moved our kitchen table upstairs and had a similar slumbering experience. Helix has a 100 day satisfaction or your money back guarantee, BUT they require you to keep it at least 30 days before they’ll start a return. So, for 30 days, we were just counting down, wishing we would’ve saved ourselves some money and just bought a sheet of plywood, which is surely softer than that insanely expensive POS mattress 😂. I already struggle with sleep, if anything at all wakes me up (someone coughs, ice slides on the roof, that godforsaken train blows the damn whistle at 2 am 🤬), I can’t go back to sleep. The firmness only intensified that issue because I was waking up due to being uncomfortable. I actually only made it three entire nights on it. I’m so thankful our old mattress is in the room right next to ours, because it may contribute to my back pain, but at least it’s comfortable! I prefer not to sleep with the kids but even that was better than suffering on the Helix mattress. Philip wears his watch to bed, which tracks his sleep score, and while sleeping on that mattress, it plummeted from a norm of 90's into the 70's! So we didn't just imagine this issue, there is technology to back up our claims 😂. 

The Helix mattress is the most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever slept in, and we used to travel a lot pre-kids. I’ve encountered many mattresses and I can’t remember hating one more 😂. Every morning, Philip and I agreed that it was not getting any better and having the requirement to keep it for 30 days is bullshit. 

the amount of times I've come upstairs to find this sleeping in our new bed is ridiculous

Philip had his first ever out of state work trip and he went to Texas for 3 days. The snow pushed our bed frame arrival back until the day after he left. If there's one thing I'm terrible at, it's following 2D directions to create 3D objects, so constructing most things in our house is a task left for Philip. I was anxious to get the new bed all put together, despite the fact that I already hated the mattress, so I gave it a go. My book club group chat was doing a photo an hour challenge, so I jokingly told them I'm not allowed to put furniture together whenever I sent my hourly update with the bed rails included. I sent Philip a photo, too, whenever I finished, and the he said, "Good job. Did you have to redo any of it?" 😅. The answer was, yes, one piece 😂😂. 

Speaking of photos, my husband and I couldn't be more different in that regard. He traveled to a place he has never been and joined people he's only met online (he works remote), and he took 2 videos and 13 photos, 7 of which were various views from the plane to show the boys, who haven't flown yet. I, on the other hand, stayed home and took 18 videos and 44 photos, 11 of which were of my brother's cat 😂. He was being super funny getting inside of the tote I took to their house with me. Now, the book club hourly photo challenge certainly increased my count, and most of the photos didn't make the keep pile, but still. 

This is Wickett. He's a box thief.

Even though I took my tote back, he wasn't deterred from finding himself a new seat

This is why I took 18 videos. They had a blast breaking jumping over the masking tape line

Fortunately, it didn’t take us long to do what we should’ve done to begin with, which was go to an actual store and try out the mattress before buying. Actually, it was Day 4 when we went shopping, which was the first weekend day we possibly could. Philip hadn't even been home for 24 hours when we hit the road to shop 😂. Our second new mattress arrived 3 weeks later, and while I was concerned about the potential for hating it, too, the bar was pretty low. The second new mattress, a Serta Sealy, was far superior and about half the price!

The only redeeming quality of the Helix is the return process, because it's very lenient. In bigger areas, they partner with organizations, where they pick up and donate your used mattress, but we don't have anything like that here. While that put the effort on us to get rid of it, they afforded us three options: 

1. donate it to a local organization

2. give it to a community member

3. destroy it

We chose option 2, and all that was required was a form to be filled out and photos showing the mattress being loaded onto a vehicle. I was happy to give it to someone who could use it, rather than throwing it away (you all know I don't throw useful things away). I just hope the recipient doesn't injure her back sleeping on it 😂.