A Day Off....

I am back at work this week, teaching an almost new batch of GED students.  I was looking forward to today very much as a breather to catch up before the long holiday weekend...

Catching up didn't happen, but here is a taste of what I did do.....

6:40 - William stumbles in and goes to the bathroom. With the light on and door open.I wonder, why oh why doesn't he use the bathroom right next to HIS room?

6:42- William attempts to have a conversation with me about something and is unsuccessful because I am tired.

7:00 - my alarm goes off

7:02 - I go to the bathroom all by myself in my bathroom to the relaxing sounds over the monitor of William and Amelia fighting over something.  From the sounds of it, this will be a fight to the death.

7:04- I go to investigate the fight and learn that the cars were fighting with each other, not the children.  You know, for pretend, Mom.

7:05- Grumpy over waking up to fighting.  Pretend cars fighting.  Make breakfast for kids.

7:30 - Clean up after breakfast

7:35 - Chase kids into clothes, brush teeth

7:40 Pack up library books for trip to library. Chase books from behind beds,under couches, etc

7:45 - Get myself ready for the day...except clothes.  Because the baby is sleeping in my closet.

7:50 - Quick pick up of the house - we have a Parent Teacher coming to meet with us at the house.

8:00- Lunchbox into backpack, realize club forms are due today, look for checkbook

8:01 Looking for checkbook

8:03 Call John re: checkbook

8:05 Looking for checkbook

8:06 Write note to teacher, chase kids into shoes

8:12 Out to bus stop

8:15 Put William on bus

8:16 Gemma wakes up

8:18 Change diaper, help Amelia on potty

8:20-8:45 Feed Gemma

8:45 Attempt to dress Gemma and pick up toys at the same time.  It doesn't work.

9- 10 Meet with early Childhood Education Teacher regarding Gemma

10- Chase Amelia into shoes.  Gemma poops, change poopy diaper

10-11:15 Storytime at Library

11:15 - go home to pick up food for a friend who just had her first baby.

11:35-12:30 - drop off meal, delight over new baby (Feed Gemma while catching up with friend, I do love to multitask)

12:45 Fix Amelia and me lunch, pack William's lunch for tomorrow at the same time

1- Sit down to eat my lunch

1:12 Baby crying

1:12-1:15 Jiggle baby on my leg while I try and finish eating.

1:15 - Feed baby, convince Amelia to finish her lunch

1:40- Gemma asleep while playing on floor - will she stay asleep if I put her in her crib?  Answer: yes.

1:50- Amelia watches Sesame Street (Netflixes instant) while I pound out a 35 minute workout on our elliptical trainer AND squeeze in the world's fastest shower. Sesame street is about 50 minutes long...that should tell you what kind of shower it was.

3pm- John is home.  His first question: Did you call about that _____________?  Nope.  I didn't.

3-Baby awake, feed baby

3:30-4- dinner prep

4:20 William arrives home

4:20-5- empty lunch box and fill it up again, look over school papers/notes/projects/etc

5-5:15 dinner prep

5:15-5:40 eating

6pm-7pm Amelia starts a ballet class! Feed Gemma

7:15-7:40 Kids bath, teeth brushed, ready for bed.

7:40 revisit the highlights of ballet

8 Read books.

8:20 Big kids to bed

8:25 Collapse on couch

8:45 Feed Gemma

9:20 Gemma to bed

9:20- John and I try and catch up....

9:25 Gemma is not asleep

9:35 Gemma asleep

9:35 -10 Attempt to pack family up for traveling and have conversation with husband.  Mission not accomplished....tomorrow is a new day!


So after finally squeezing in a ten minute conversation with my husband, he went to bed.  This left me to blog about our crazy day AND finally have a moment of peace to prepare lessons for work the next morning!  I finally fell into bed around 1:30...with tasks still unchecked off my list.  Someday I will be caught up again....or at least less behind, right?

William's First Lost Baby Tooth

This morning William decided he could not eat breakfast because his loose tooth hurt. So Mom attempted to remove it, but was unsuccessful. When William got home from school we decided it was time for that loose tooth to come out. He was a little hesitant to let Dad near it, preferring Mom to look at and touch it. Dad did get one time to touch it and was able to push it back (William was too smart to fall for the trick where he pushed it back himself that always worked on his Dad). The next time that Dad was able to get in there to look, he yanked out the tooth. William had quite a funny surprised look on his face.

Canoe time

This weekend was the big race our family usually helps out with as a fundraiser for a clean water non profit organization. This year, we had huge voyager class canoes for people to paddle in.

The kids were SO excited about getting a chance to be in the big boat. I was pretty nervous, but strapped up the life vests and away we went.

The highlights:

William was thrilled about how "easy" it was to paddle the canoe and about drove me absolutely crazy repeating over and over how it wasn't hard at all to paddle. And really it wasn't that hard to paddle - especially when you DIDN'T EVEN PUT YOUR PADDLE IN THE WATER! Or when you wave it around and whack your poor mother in the head and wiggle around so it feels like the whole boat is going to tip. Special thanks to the teenaged boy who sat next to William and put up with his constant stream of chatter and wayward paddle without dumping into the river.

Asian carp- we were paddling along and William was asking his 94737372829th question when 6 fish leapt out of the water about two feet away from my head. Canoes, you may know, are low on the water. They were WAY to close and I was not happy. But, how can I complain? It was my idea to take the kids out on the water....

A big thanks to the kids and my great husband. Our family carted just about everything in the garage down to the riverside at 10am and then stayed all day until we packed it up again at just before 7pm. In the rain. The kids were awesome and loved it- John was super supportive, even though I know this is far from his cup of tea!

11 weeks old

Here is our exhausted 11 week old baby. She has her first cold which makes her very pitiful and sad. And tired.

She was a very good girl and spent all day with our family outside at a festival. She was such a trooper- as were the other kids.

We have much to be thankful for..,

My Big Girl

I've been spending some quality time with my big girl this week!  I miss my big guy, but it has been fun to have some girl time with Amelia.  In the first week, we have colored and cut, baked cookies, gone to library story time, gone out for lunch and gone shopping.  It sure has been fun finding out what she likes when her brother isn't around!

One Happy Boy!

This isn't great quality video, but the giggling boy makes up for it.  John was running after William while taking this video.

How?

Yesterday, William decided he wanted to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels. He practiced for about an hour and tonight we had this: