This weeks Friday Five is five things that made me proud.  I was a bad girl and forgot to do a five last week (and it was only the second week!  The shame!), so I’ll think really hard and make these five extra special.

1. Eirinn played a game with AH and I last night.  It involved her running around the dining room table, making a pit stop at each of us to give us a huge hug and big, sloppy kiss.  I was so proud of her showing so much affection.
2. When I picked up Bosco from the groomers, she told me that he had the softest fur she’d ever seen on a non-puppy.
3. I hit a homerun during Tuesdays softball game!  Yay, me!  It had been about 6 years since I had even touched my cleats and glove when I started subbing on my sister’s team this year.  The feeling of hitting a homer is about as great a feeling in sports as there is.
4. I swear.  I’m not lying.  I heard Eirinn count to 8.  She was mimicking the television, but it was as clear as day.
5. After such a tough week, I haven’t killed anyone.  That’s something to be proud of, isn’t it?  Not that I’ve felt like killing anyone, but a few times I’ve wanted to run to my bathroom, lock the door, curl up into a ball and rock myself to sleep.

…but two weeks vacation is too long.  I am completely tapped out of ideas of things to do to keep Eirinn entertained.  We’ve done the zoo, the park a few times, Little Feet, walks, toy store shopping, a playdate.  She’s too loud for the library, we’re not near any swimmable beaches, none of the farms around here are open to the public, and anything that requires driving is an excruciatingly painful experience for everyone involved. 

We’re now starting to really get on each others’ nerves.  All of us.  Eirinn and Anonymous Husband are frustrating me, I’m frustrating them, and they’re frustrating each other.  Oh, and the dogs are frustrating all of us, and they aren’t even doing anything.  We’ve all had enough of looking at each others mugs.  It’s been almost two weeks of just the three of us nearly exclusively and that’s too much for anyone, I think.  Especially when we’re used to going our separate ways during the day (the two grown-ups to work, Eirinn to daycare), and meeting up in the evening and on weekends.

Right now Eirinn is yelling in her crib.  She’s been up since 6:30 and it’s now 1:30 and I do believe she is refusing to sleep just to irritate me.  She’s pushing my buttons on purpose because that’s where we’re at.  But whatever.  She can yell all she wants.  I can only hear her when I have the monitor on and it is firmly off.  I’ll turn it back on when she stops.  So there, sucka.  She’ll fall asleep eventually and when she does I’ll have a nap, too.  Because, holy crap, being angry and frustrated and annoyed all the time is very tiring.

Today’s vacation adventure was the Peterborough Zoo, formally named the Riverview Park and Zoo.  Say we lived in Peterborough, this place would rock as a day trip for a kidlet Eirinn’s age.  Besides the zoo, there is a massive playground with twirly slides, spring-activated see-saws, tubes to climb through, climby things.  There is a good sized water park for young ones (no water slides, but lots of sprayers and wading pools) and a little train that takes you on a ten minute mini Disney-inspired adventure, although I think it was even a little juvenile for Eirinn (a snake clearly fashioned out of dryer hose?), but they tried and that’s what counts.  The grounds are immaculate with mature trees, pretty landscaping and beautiful architecture.  The zoo animals are pretty basic, but that’s ok because the goat we saw first and a donkey were tied for Eirinn’s favourite.  I also love that the zoo is one of the highest ranked by Zoocheck, a watchdog organization that monitors zoo’s ethical treatment of animals, and receives their praise; the zoo in our town never fares very well in these rankings, which is disappointing. 

 Keep in mind I said ‘Say we lived in Peterborough…’ because it is about 45 minutes to an hour to get there from our place.  And 45 minutes to an hour in a hot car with a screaming, crusty, mega-beast is not, I repeat, NOT fun.  Oh, and we had to do that twice because, like it or not, we had to get home somehow.  She whined literally (and I don’t use that word lightly) the whole way there.  She would have whined the whole way home if I hadn’t got into the back seat, which, in itself, was a hilariously embarrassing story. 

After dealing with the crust for about 3 minutes, Anonymous Husband suggested I jump out of the car while at a red light and get into the back in order to a) entertain her on the way home and b) make sure she stays awake so she can have a proper length nap when we get there.  Well, I got out and ran lightening speed to the back, not out of fear of being run over while running through stopped traffic, but I didn’t want to annoy anyone by taking too long in case the light changed.  When I got to the back door, lo and behold, it was locked.  Gah!  I ran to the front and got back in to tear a strip off the now-hysterical AH.  In a panic (and the light was still red), he unlocked the door and I made the trip again, this time noticing the car behind us was filled with similarily hysterical men. 

Ha, ha, ha.  Laugh it up, boys.  Laugh it up.