long weekend

I think my Labor Day weekend began on August 8 when Alex started work and I, by default, became a stay-at-home mom. When you're locked-up with the kids, the days start to run together into one extremely long weekend. The only thing that changes is the traffic and the number of people in the grocery store or the library or at the pool. But because this weekend was a holiday for everyone else, we decided to celebrate the unofficial end of summer by starting with a splash on Friday afternoon.

Catcher and Scout enjoyed a little afternoon splash time at the Liz Carpenter Fountain in Butler Park. I had forgotten how exciting spontaneous water spouts shooting from the ground could be, and it turned out to be way cooler than the pool. I loved it because I didn't have to walk around in the pool with two toddlers clinging to my swimsuit, and they loved it because who wouldn't love playing in a giant fountain?

On Saturday we visited the Austin Children's Museum, which honestly turned out to be more of a giant playroom than a "museum," but the little ones kept themselves quite busy for a couple of hours and we'll definitely go back. I found it distracting--not due to the dozens of kids running around to all the different activities--because I couldn't help wondering who cleans the place up at the end of the day.

On Sunday we were back at Ruta Maya for our traditional morning kids' music show, breakfast tacos and coffee. The group this week, the Telephone Company or the Cable Guys or something, was a bit odd for my taste, but Catcher and Scout were into it.

Today we tried to go for a morning walk around the lake until we realized the Austin Triathlon was blocking all our routes, so we opted for coffee followed by a stroll where we stumbled upon another fountain, albiet not the soaking kind, where the kids enjoyed the beautiful Austin morning.

We had a great weekend. I just hope I didn't use up my entire bag of tricks to get us through the rest of the week.