My kids are the Celine Dion of childhood. Case in point, yesterday we went to Legoland in the morning and the Children’s Museum in the afternoon. At this point, you may ask if I’m overdoing it. Yes. Yes, I am. We’ve got a week and a day until school starts, and I play to win.

We went to Legoland with our partners in crime, the Chans – Marie, Evie, Eliot and Orla (we missed you, Jip!). My favorite part of Legoland is always Lego Boston, made with intricate attention to detail, including a hidden window where they play the Cheers song.

Legoland was just the cherry on top of the ridiculously decadent sundae that was August.

The kids’ favorite part of Legoland is the Zakim bridge (their favorite bridge), with Logan airport being a close second for George. Gillette Stadium is a new part of Lego Boston, and it was pretty sweet. There’s also a few rides, a kids-only play gym, and a 4D movie theatre.

Since our last visit to Legoland, there’s a new space-themed room which is super cool.

If you haven’t been to Legoland, it’s definitely worth a trip. Insider’s tip: you can get your kids free socks for the play area from the cafe. These are better than the used free socks you can get in a bin outside of the play area.

Other insider’s tip: if your child is under 48″, they can’t ride the Merlin’s Apprentice ride without an adult. And if your friend’s child is also under 48″ and his mom is with her baby, and you’re with all four big kids, maybe don’t leave your own son in the line for Merlin’s Apprentice while he weeps loudly and you ride in circles on those stupid flying bikes with your friend’s son, yelling, “Mama will be right back!” with every revolution. The people in line with your weeping child will not judge you kindly and your son will be mildly scarred for life.

After Legoland, George cried himself to sleep (just kidding, he was fine), and then I woke him up early to rally for the Countdown to Kindergarten event at the Children’s Museum. All of Boston’s incoming kindergarten classes were invited, and they were all wearing their yellow, “I’m going to kindergarten” shirts, which made it really hard to find your kid in the crowded museum.

We mostly did our usual activities at the CM: feats of strength, ball hoarding/rolling, bubble blowing, plane piloting, and construction fashion modeling. We also met Arthur, who between you and me, was a little dead behind the eyes.

After our museum visit, we had the most special special guest star, Dada.

And then we went to a sweet restaurant in Southie, the Lincoln, where we got seated way in the back (good call), conveniently next to the stage, where the kids proved they were indeed mine by immediately dancing on it.

After dinner, snuggling on her father’s lap, Hazy sang, “He’s so tall, and handsome as hell…”, then paused and looked at Matty. “You’re not him.” #BURN

This is the point in the summer when the wheels start falling off. I wake up and look at BostonCentral.com and the Boston Public Library schedule, and then hope I hear something on the old shower radio. When I had no luck with any of my go-tos, I had to go to plan B: Wegman’s and a movie.

At Wegman’s, we stepped up our (already high) selfie game.

While George napped, Hazy read and then we worked on some dorm artwork for Cassidy. Then, we headed to the movie theatre. I was really proud of my mom skills because I packed their pigs full of popcorn and filled their water bottles and actually remembered to bring them. Packing snacks and drinks and remembering to bring them are basics for most moms but advanced level biz for me.

At the theatre, we had some photo shoot fun.

We saw Kubo and the Two Strings, which was super cool animation, but a little scary for the kids. We watched most of it with both of them in my lap and me covering their eyes. I have to admit, the cuddling was quite nice. The villains are two evil immortal sisters (“samurais,” according to George) and the hero kid (Kubo) is missing an eye because his grandfather stole it. So if you’re wondering if the movie is too scary for you/your kids, it depends on their comfort with evil samurai sisters and eye-stealing relatives. Highly recommend for adults and brave kids though.

On the walk back to the car, we passed this cool graffiti art.

The kids have been in Costanza-mode for a few days now, so to nip the bickering in the bud, I’ve instituted a new rule where I confiscate a toy anytime they fight or don’t listen. In related news, if anyone wants a pink or blue My Little Pony, a fire truck, or some Ghostbusters Slime, let me know.

Yesterday, we headed back to my former workplace, PJA, in Harvard Square. I miss all the awesome people there, so it was a treat to get to see many of them. So much has changed since I left a couple of months ago: Meaghan got pregnanter; Lauren has started putting chia seeds on her oatmeal; and Phil has started having lunch at Zoe’s instead of Café Sushi. (Phil, I think I saw the Café Sushi hostess stabbing herself with the check spindle as I walked by.)

We were lucky enough to get special guests, Amy and Dez, to join us for lunch. They were very gracious about ignoring George’s not-so-subtle attempts at taking their lunches (“I’d really like some eggs!”) and listening to Hazy’s detailed synopsis of Stink and the Shark Sleepover.

We also did Year 2 of our Bags for the Homeless program. This year, we did tote bags instead of backpacks, mostly due to time constraints but also because I figured we might have some repeat customers. We bought some essentials at Family Dollar and then baked some chocolate chip cookies, because those are essential too.

I try to teach the kids that when you do good things, good things happen to you. So, thank you universe, for not turning me into a liar. After we handed out our bags, one homeless guy (whom I see all the time and never talks) could not get over that we were giving him the bag, and insisted upon giving us a free Spare Change newspaper. That’s a big deal for him because he makes money off of selling them and a big deal for the kids because they love newspapers. Then, we walked by Petali florist and it was Free Rose Day! The florist was super nice and also gave us a beautiful rainbow spinagig lawn ornament.

To make things even better, we then went out for ice cream with my old PJA West Coast ECD, Chris Frame.

And as a special treat, I let the kids do a second round of Vend-a-Friend, a project I helped out on, where you get assigned to a friend group at PJA and get a themed tchotchke from the vending machine. For the second time, Hazy got “hooligans.”

One of the hooligans skipped his nap (hint: it wasn’t Chris), but still managed to make it through the day without a major meltdown. I think having a constant influx of sugar helped (you’re welcome for the parenting tip!). At dinner, George said he wished he’d be homeless someday. Why? “So people would bring me cookies.” I’m really nailing these life lessons, guys.

Sure, it’s possible that the Wenham Museum existed before Hazy and George did, but highly unlikely, since it appears to be custom-designed around their interests.

Exhibit A: a giant, interactive LEGO exhibit

Exhibit B: the most mind-blowing train room you’ve ever seen

I’m not even that train-crazy and I have to admit, the train room was mad cool. There’s such attention to detail, along with some weird touches like dinosaurs in the mountains.

Exhibit C: a dollhouse and doll exhibit

Hazy got a ton of ideas from the fancy dollhouses (not pictured, sorry), things like chandeliers and sconces that we can totally pull off with our combined lack of skills. Look for our dollhouse chandelier crafting fail later this summer!

After our museum, we swung by to visit Captain Donut (Jonah) and Ham (Pam) at their super cool Plum Consignment offices, where Hazy and George applied for jobs by touching various things they were not supposed to touch. Let us know if they got the job, guys.

The kids were well-behaved dream children all day, if your dream is a never ending cycle of universal kid catchphrases like “Stop it!”, “I’m telling!” and “George didn’t wipe!”. I decided the best course of action was forcing all three of us to take a much-needed nap. I also added 10 minutes of napping time on for every time they argued. Best idea ever. Everyone wins (I win).

I also had to repeat myself A LOT of times. I repeated myself so many times! I did so much repeating it’s like I can’t stop repeating. Anyway, the final straw was when George used one of the guests-only plastic cups (don’t judge us, they’re the ones from Legal Seafood and we use them when other kids are over so the kids don’t argue about who gets which color cup) that I have to hand-wash. I told him since he was making more work for me, I was gonna make more work for him, namely he had to wash a toilet. In a surprising turn of events, George loves washing toilets and ended up washing all three.

When Matty went to check in on George later that night, he said George whispered, “I’m so tired, I cleaned the toilets” and then tried to get up to clean one he thought he had forgotten. Sweet dreams, George.

On Wednesdays we w̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶p̶i̶n̶k̶ go to Oma & Opa’s. But during Sweeps Week, we can’t just do our usual pond/pool rotation. Oma took us to a hidden gem of Plymouth: Hedges Pond.

This place rules. There’s a gorgeous swimming pond, a nice playground with our two favorite pieces of playground equipment, swings and American Ninja Warrior training bars, and it’s about a mile from an awesome lobster roll place called Rock Bottom Seafood.

There was one drawback to Hedges Pond: this was the restroom.

Even during sweeps, nappers gotta nap. While George napped, so did Oma, Opa and I, while Hazy held down the fort on a spare iPad. After naps, we couldn’t ignore the lure of the pool. George must have recognized the need to step it up, because he started swimming with his face in the water for the first time and absolutely crushed it. I’m super proud to have two full on swimmers now.

One Fish

Two Fish

After Red Fish/Blue Fish worked up an appetite, we headed home for the main even: dinner. Opa must have known it was Sweeps Week, because he outdid himself.

At our last visit to Oma & Opa’s, Opa taught my kids the, “Look over there!” trick. This week, he taught them the towel-snapping game. Thanks for remembering the classics, Dad.

Exactly two weeks until Hazy starts school (George starts the Monday after). Let’s do this (this = cram as much fun as possible in the next 14 days)!

Well, “ball” may be a bit of a stretch. It was a festival, a children’s festival. It was Mayor Mahhhty Walsh’s annual Children’s Festival and we only went because I heard an ad for it on my trusty shower radio, tuned to Magic 106.7 who doesn’t sponsor this blog but totally should.

And because it’s still Sweeps Week, we had a special guest. Luckily, we already had a playdate scheduled with the lovely Sabina.

And fortunately, we had an extra ticket for the ball (and by ticket, I mean the whole city was invited and it was a free event).

Like any ball, there was food (free Hoodsies!), entertainment (police horse demonstration, a fire truck, bubbles, puppet show), and dancing (a flash mob dancing to Can’t Stop the Feeling).

There was also face painting at the ball, but the line was so long we would’ve turned into pumpkins, so I convinced the kids that we could do our own face paint at home. I neglected to mention my complete lack of artistic skill. After nixing their early ideas (“a sunset over an ocean”, “a unicorn leaping over a rainbow”, “Van Gogh’s starry night but done in more of Monet’s style”), I googled “easy face paint ideas” and let them choose. That’s how we ended up with leaping dolphins (still above my skill level), a heart and two rainbows (good choice, George), and a heart with random lines and dots (you are welcome at our house anytime, Sabina).

After lunch and the face paint shenanigans, George napped while the girls played in the toy pit and harangued me until I agreed to play Palace with them. How do you play Palace, you ask? “You can be a princess, a knight, a maid, anyone in the palace.” I get to be a maid all the time, so I decided to be the queen. I chose not to take any photos of me in my blonde curly wig, pink tiara, and arms shoved into a size 4T princess dress. Your loss.

After nap/Palace, we hit the mini pool. And we hit it pretty hard.

I have major FOMOMO (Fear Of Missing Out on Motherhood Opportunities), so I agreed to do a jump with the kids.

After our playdate, we headed to Target because I desperately needed a new phone. While there, I discovered Cat & Jack, and by discovered, I mean I acted like it was Black Friday and I was the first person in at 4 am.

Yesterday, I got called “the Best Mom Ever” by my kids. Do you know what it takes to get BME status? Doing an amazing craft project? Reading them a favorite book? Passing along a cherished family tradition? No, it was taking them to McDonald’s for dinner. That’s because it took so long at Target to transfer stuff to my new phone, while the kids entertained themselves by figuring out how to watch PJ Masks on YouTube on the sample iPods. Best Mom Ever indeed. Guys, don’t try to live up to this level of parenting.

After a week’s hiatus (more on our Cake House vacation later), it’s time for Sweeps Week. This is when I step it up with non-Pinterest-worthy crafts and bring in the guest stars. Yesterday, our special guest was Jack, whose Mom is my good friend Dee, who had to take care of some business.

For this adventure, we made some PJ Masks (not TJ Maxx, unfortunately) bracelets, did the mind-numbing PJ Masks chant, and then headed to the Aquarium.

As per usual, my children’s favorite animal on exhibit was the computer.

Did you think we were just going to the Aquarium? This is Sweeps Week, people! I made these stamp books with a bunch of animals I thought we might see at the Aquarium and gave each kid their own unique stamp.

We also saw a fur seal show, petted some sea creatures, and had a picnic lunch with the harbor seals.

I swear the seals were gunning for George’s PB&J&B (the second b is for banana).

After our aquarium adventure, we headed back home. Jack and Hazy played in the pool while George napped, and then Dee and her daughter/Hazy’s buddy, Nina, came over and joined us for some swimming and dinner.

Dee brought over rosé and fresh veggies, the only payment I accept for childcare, and we whipped up some one pot pasta. There’s something to be said for friends who can drop by whenever and not judge you on your perpetually messy home and unbathed children, and that something is the F-word followed by a yeah. Thanks for the wine and the company, Dee!

It was Hazy’s last morning of Tenacity and George and I walked/scootered her over to the courts. Fun fact: I was on the Connelly Partners softball team for several years and I have a sweet collection of team t-shirts (I swear this is relevant). You know what’s the perfect shirt to wear walking your kids into tennis & literacy camp? One that says MILF on the back. Oops. Fortunately, I realized on the walk over (thanks, construction guys) and turned it inside out. Literacy wardrobe malfunction averted! On the walk back, George had a minor dream come true when he got to see this <insert construction vehicle name here> in action:

While Hazy developed her tennis and literacy skills, George practiced for his back up (after swimming) Olympics sport, diving. He may have a shot. (Sorry, Phillipinos. You’re way better than I’ll ever be.)

After Tenacity and lunch, we headed to the MFA with the lovely and talented Michelle. At what age do you think kids can start appreciating fine art? I’m not certain, but I can tell you it does not seem to be 4 or 7. When we walked into the museum, George kept asking, “Where’s the art? Where’s the painting?” and then I realized he thought the Museum of Fine Art was a place where kids get to paint and create “art”, which is what I call it whenever we do coloring. Needless to say, he was disappointed that it was just a bunch of Monets and Chihulys.

Our art appreciation mainly involved playing with binoculars, picking a giant baby head’s nose, making slides out of things, and fine art acting, which is a more sophisticated version of photo acting.

The fine art acting was Michelle’s idea.

Hazy did get briefly into sketching this sculpture.

The kids lay or sat on about a dozen benches, including these ones.

There was a teensy bit of art appreciation.

Before we left, we did an outdoor photo shoot.

Thank you for the (extremely) hot date, Michelle!

After the museum, we cooled off in the mini pool, which consisted mostly of playing Baby, more cannonballs, splash fights, and rosé drinking (mostly just me on that last one).

Cheers, turds!

I’ll be taking a week off from blogging, so share all your pent up emotions in the comments section.

There’s something to be said for spending one-on-one time with your kids. That’s why I’m so grateful for Grammy (and Auntie Dita and Uncle Matt) for taking each of my kids for a few days. This week, it was George’s turn, much to his delight. On Wednesday morning, the day he was going to Grammy’s, George woke up a half hour early, explaining, “I have a big day ahead of me!”.

I dropped G off at Grammy while Hazy was at Tenacity (tennis & literacy camp, of course) and then it was GIRL TIME.

After she’d had her fill of both tennis and literacy, we headed down to Oma and Opa’s. As it was girl time, we listened to the Dork Diaries CD in the car (OMG!). And since it was pouring out, we didn’t bother with the pond, pool or beach. Instead, we went back to school shopping. I was remiss in taking any photos, but the most important thing to know is that the piece de resistance was a t-shirt that says, “Taters gonna tate.” Hazy, Oma and I have very different tastes (glitter/sequins, mom stuff, hodgepodge, respectively), but somehow we made it work. Let’s just say there were a lot of adjustments made the night before the final runway show.

Then, we had Oma & Opa’s won tons ALL TO OURSELVES, which is a very dangerous proposition indeed. Hazy put away 14, a new personal best.

You’d think after having fifths, she’d be full, but she is my daughter, so she had ice cream for dessert. Just like her mom.

Did you know I used to think I wanted to have two boys? I knew I wanted more than one kid, but I just thought having a girl would be too much responsibility (Ha! But boys aren’t?) and too much drama. Then I had Hazy and fell in love. Of course, it is a huge responsibility to raise a young lady and there’s also a lot of drama (but let’s remember who cried for almost an hour for ice cream), but it’s also a tremendous honor. I’m raising a future rockstar, badass, and general ruler of the universe. When it comes to overall demeanor and cheese (fine, and ice cream), George and I are the same person, but Hazy and I are what Anne of Green Gables would call “kindred spirits.” We get each other and appreciate each other on a really deep level. Hazy’s incredibly sensitive to other people and I’m a sensitive old cancer crab, so we are a great match.

Since it was what my friend Nina would call “bastard hot” today, I picked Hazy up early from Tenacity Tennis & Literacy (seriously) camp. Sometimes I feel like Olaf in that I literally cannot survive in really hot weather, so Hazy and I needed some AC time before we could go back outside. So, we watched Brave (the best non-princessy princess movie) while we chilled out and had some lunch. Then we headed to the pool. As we were walking there from the subway, Hazy started humming, “My Girl,” which I’ve told her is about her, since it is (in the same way that “Your Song” is your song).

On the way, we stopped by the candy store that always tempts the kids. I let Hazy get a giant jawbreaker that comes with its own carrying case, because, isn’t that every kid’s dream?

The pool was absolute perfection. Usually we spend about 2/3 of our time out of the water because it’s actually quite cool being on the water, but today we were in the pool almost the whole time.

All in all, a great day with my girl. Georgie crushed it at Grammy’s, basically training for the 2028 Olympics in the pool, and then came home this evening. And while it was awesome to have some dedicated time with my girl, it’s very nice to have both of my babies back in their beds and to be able to smell their distinct scents when I go to check in on them before bed. But if anyone gets up in the middle of the night, Matty’s on duty. I’ve got boot camp tomorrow.

By the way, if you ever want to comment on a blog post, please do it in the comments section versus on Facebook. It will make my day. I tried to think of a way of saying that without sounding desperate, but honesty is the best policy.