Changes...

After two incidents of pulling ticks off of Gavin, I mostly refuse to go outside at home now. I know that, unfortunately, in this area that will likely always be something we have to contend with but when one incident was on a day we hadn't even been outside and the other we had not even spent much more than an hour outside and it was already working on attaching itself by the time we came in, I am done for now.

To replace our time outside at home I have been working really hard to arrange our schedule each day so we can get out and have fun things to do and for Gavin to get to run around. There is an added bonus of Gavin getting to play with other kids even more often and we have even made some new friends! To maximize our time out (usually after Gavin has napped) I have been being really good about meal planning each week (which I have been doing for a long time but I had been slacking some in the last few months), doing as much prep work for dinner as I can in the morning when Gavin is playing on his own or napping, Gavin has been better about helping pick up all his toys before he naps, and I make his lunch and have that and snacks and our water packed up before he wakes up so if he doesn't want to eat right away we just take it for him to eat while we are gone. Most days this works out really well and we get at least 2-3 hours to play wherever we go, depending on how long he naps. It has been fun.

We have been to the museum several times (Gavin still loves it!), the playground, the library, and run our weekly errands (Gavin even enjoys these too). We have a few places we know about from last winter that we will check out from time to time when the weather makes it more difficult to be outside but they are a bit farther away so we have been sticking closer to home to maximize our time playing while the weather allows us to be outside. It is certainly easier to not have to leave home all the time but Gavin doesn't mind because he is really enjoys seeing all the other kids when we go places to play. It also causes him to burn more energy by running around more than he does when we are outside at home. He seems to really look forward to going these places and has started asking or his shoes and going for a ride. He is often very cooperative in getting changed and out the door pretty quickly once he is up. He seems to understand that if he cooperates we get to go play with kids and have more time there.

I am hoping that we will be in a good enough routine with the changes we have made that it will not take us too long to incorporate a new baby into the mix. We probably will not be going places every day but we still need to get out at least a few times a week to prevent both Gavin and myself from going a little stir crazy. I'm sure our first outings as a group of three will be quite interesting when the time comes!