…not only has a new fence, but the roses are trying to take over. Yesterday we only had three blooms, but today there are over twenty!
Plus we have tiny corn sprouts in the side yard and something that I can only describe as a “cone” of wysteria forming in one corner. Nothing else has sprouted yet, but I’m sure it will any day now.
Sunday morning Ben woke up with a headache, fever, and a cough. I woke up with a headache, fever, stomach ache, and achy all over. It was such a fun day. Ben rolled around the floor moaning while I writhed around in the chair moaning. Greg ran around and took everything out of all the closets and drawers. David watched TV all day. Nick and my dad cut down tree limbs high above their heads with my dad’s new tool. My mom followed Greg around and picked up after him. This morning I felt better, but Ben was still sick. Then 15 minutes before school ended, the school nurse called and said that David had a fever and an ear infection. Woo hoo!
(Greg is still fine. So is Nick. Oh, and we have a fence now! YAY!)
This week has been weird. We’re using the laptop for all our computer needs, but it’s not our regular computer, so it has none of the nicities that our old one did, so we’re back to basics and little things like links & saved files are not to be found and it’s quite maddening.
David and Ben have both been acting up at school this week. My mom attributes it to the Wii and the loss-of-Wii that’s gone on, but I don’t know. Ben’s becoming a little chatterbox. He can’t keep quiet. Not ever. David’s been sullen and rude to everyone. He’s not paying attention to directions at all.
So we’ve devised a new schedule to help with things. First off: no TV after school unless it’s been earned. Ways to earn TV include: helping out around the house without yelling or sulking, being nice to your sibling without being asked to be, etc. First we have snacks (because when we’re hungry, we’re cranky), then we go outside and have play time. After a half hour (because every kids needs an hour of exercise a day, so says the government), we head inside for some cool-down & reading. Then there’s the part of the schedule that’s designed to help me to remember to sign David’s folder and ask about homework. If there’s no school-assigned homework, there’re always Bible verses & songs to learn for both churches as well as Cub Scout stuff & sign language to work on. After homework, there’s 15 minutes to half-hour of “free play” where I leave them to their own devices (and get my own housework done). Then, just before Nick comes home for the day, we tidy up all our messes so we’re all ready for dinner.
The younger kids and I also have a new daily schedule, but it varies by day and is way too complicated to try to tell about here. Basically, instead of the massive amounts of TV we got used to watching while the house was under construction & then during my bout of pneumonia, we’re going without TV during the day as well. Our new schedule includes exercise, art, music, reading, and free play. I don’t have thematically planned days like I did last summer quite yet, but I’m working towards that.
We also finally had a playdate with someone. We’d had a run of bad luck with playdates & lunches (for me with friends) the last several weeks where either I had sick kids or the other kids were sick or my friends got called into unexpected meetings for work or kids school. But finally! A playdate where there were kids the same age as both my kids! We’ve got two more scheduled for next week–here, at the house. Insanity, I know. (All three of these are with new-ish friends, as it seems that all our old playdate friends have either a) already moved or b) are in the process of moving. )
In other news, I’m still reading. I know I haven’t posted about that lately, but I’m wishy-washy about what I’m reading lately and I’ve got about six books going right now. I just finished Summers at Auburn Castle by Sharon Shinn and Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. Currently reading: Mozart’s Sister by Rita Charbonnier, Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, my book for Bible study, my chronological Bible, Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” (probably one should be: don’t read 6 books at once), and Songs from Distant Earth (because ACC died a couple weeks ago). I think of them this way: the couch book, the car book, the bathroom book, the Other Bathroom book, the homework books, and the book by the bed. You can guess which book is where. Go on, I know you want to.
I’m sure there’s other stuff I’m forgetting, but what? No idea. What do you want to hear about?
This weekend we had a big storm. With the storm came a lightning strike near our house. That caused a power surge. A power surge that took out two things near and dear to us: our computer and the Wii.
Yes, we had them on surge protectors. Yes, there were other things on those surge protectors that are just fine right now. Which is nice, I’m sure, if I weren’t so upset about the computer and the Wii.
Fortunately, Nintendo has awesome customer support. They’re sending us a shipping label and fixing the Wii for free. They are the best company in the world to me right now! (The Wii still apparently runs, it’s a video issue; the music plays, the controller vibrates, etc.)
The computer we have no such luck with. The Geek Squad (hey, they were open weekends, unlike most of the other computer repair people in town) said that a data recovery is definitely possible, but the power supply was definitely fried. The motherboard also took a hit–it’ll stay on for 15 minutes, then shut down. Every time. *sigh* And a new motherboard + a new processor = almost as much as a whole new tower. So that’s what we’ll be doing sometime later this week, once we figure out money stuff (I’m thinking that I will not be getting a camera for my birthday is what will happen.).
And how am I blogging right now? Using the Laptop of Doom that only sometimes works. At least it sometimes works, right? So at least we can pay bills and file taxes today before it dies again. So you won’t be seeing much of me until the new computer arrives.
We got a Wii for David’s birthday. Well, not really his birthday, exactly, cause it arrived yesterday and the whole family is going to use it, but in honor of his birthday, I guess. We’d ordered it from amazon.com where the cheapest one was selling for about a hundred over the recommended price, but could ship out within two weeks (as opposed to ordering it from just about anywhere else, where it was listed either a) out of stock or b) in a $600+ bundle with games or c) I could order it and wait, wait, wait for possibly months to come in).
It arrived, surprisingly, within three days of ordering it. I wasn’t home. Of course. So we had to wait another day for Fedex to retry delivery (at which point we had boys!jumping!and!growling!with!excitement!). I opened it and put it together and tested it out a bit to make sure there was no damage during delivery, but we waited until David was home to let him have to first real gaming experience.
The Wii Sports package was pretty much a resounding success. Nick loves it, David loves it, Ben likes the parts that are easy, and I am Not Bad at bowling (just bowling). David played for an hour straight and got reallyreally sweaty and Ben played for about 35 minutes out of his hour. I played about 35 minutes and am in pain in various parts of my body today. Nick played for an unknown amount of time last night after I went to bed. He does really well at the tennis (which I suck at). Ben’s favorite part of the Wii? Making and editing his Mii.
The only problem with this whole thing? We need to move the coffee table. It’s seriously in the way. You can play with it there, but you risk life and limb due to tripping potential. Plus, having a wandering toddler around makes it very hard to play a game where your miming hitting things. Nick actually whacked Ben in the head with his knuckles when Ben tried to sneak past him (Ben’s okay today, but Nick’s hand is bruised).
(I want a different game to play, personally. I can’t wait until we get something more in tune with my personality. Apparently we can get older Nintendo games downloaded for like $10, so we’re going to try for one of those for me next week.)
…was a bit less exciting, although it did involve making banana pudding from scratch (sugar, corn starch, egg yolks, cooking on the stove, etc), actually making it to the recycling center (toss! crash! toss! crash! toss! crash!), and me eventually leaving the house to go paint pottery with my friends mom’s group (cause mine was meeting the next night when I couldn’t make it).
Today was also a Study in Weird. Got up, shaved biggest kids head so he no longer looks like Zach or Cody (from the Disney channel), found another dollar so he could buy books at school, made three kid lunches, drove kid to school, checked voicemail and discovered some “new” 2 week old messages the system just left me, also checked regular mail (just arrived) and found letters dated February 22nd, drove other children to school, talked mdo into taking Greg even though it wasn’t his day (don’t tell the other moms, but they love greg best), went to my doctor’s office, get a call stating that ben is sick with a fever and headache, finally get in to see the doctor only to find out his computer system is down and he has no idea who I am or why I’m there, briefly consider lying to the doctor, recap my entire medical history in less than three minutes, leave without medicine of any kind (but with a promise that when my symptoms return—which they will— I can call for meds instead of making an appointment), pick up sick kid and baby, feed people, make husband change poopy baby (”He might be getting sick, too.”), hold cranky baby and attempt to fold laundry at same time for several hours while soothing middle child who is whimpering at the other end of the couch, pick up oldest kid who has note that we owe school 12 cents, attempt to feed children snacks, clean up large puddle of poop from new rug, change three wet-poopy diapers in a 9 minute period, clean up more wet-poop from elsewhere in house and on self and on child, convince middle child that he will not die of a headache because mommy hasn’t yet, convince husband that leaving work early to take oldest child to school program, get oldest child ready for the Waltz Across Texas program at his school, change more wet-poopy diapers, run yet another load of laundry (what? I didn’t mention the two earlier ones I ran and put away? *sigh*), empty/reload dishwasher, put away hand washed dishes (and wash more), snuggle baby who won’t stay out of dishwasher, call friend who wanted to go to Aggiecon to pretty much cancel trip, muse over the fact that despite Aggiecon’s changing dates year-to-year my children are always sick with a stomach virus on Aggiecon weekend (5 years running), talk children into eating dinner despite sickness, eat dinner with spouse while having real conversation while children do God-knows-what elsewhere, feed baby bottle while big kids get read to in another room (we watch Dr. Who), and then, of course, watch Scrubs with spouse until he leaves for bed, then read battles about bread on the internet until I realize I meant to post something, which leads us to here. Longest paragraph ever. Yay.
(at least I’m tired now)
5:30am Nick’s alarm goes off
5:55am Nick wakes me up for my shower
6:29am I am clean, dressed, and still not quite awake
6:32am Nick goes back to bed. We torture him for 20 minutes
6:53am I tell Nick it’s nearly 7am and to get up.
7:00am David has been awake 20 minutes and still is not dressed.
7:11am I discover that Nick is not awake. He usually leaves for work at 7:15. This is not good. (Apparently I was supposed to wake him up “at” 7am.)
7:25am I’ve finally persuaded David to make his lunch (he’s dressed now) but he can’t figure out how to clean out his lunch box (which is filled with velvet pear jello)
7:35am We’re heading out the door and David says “Today’s the Storybook Character Parade! Where’s my costume?!” I grab the Harry Potter stuff out, throw it in a bag, and we’re off. Drop David at school
7:45am At home, but still in the car. Realize 3 things: 1) David’s forgotten his lunch & schoolwork, 2) No one’s eaten yet, and 3) Greg’s poopy.
8:05am After cleaning up baby poop from everywhere in the universe, dressing him in different clothes, re-shoeing everyone, and grabbing cookies to tide us over for the duration, we are finally back at the school. Since the parade starts in just 10 minutes, we decide to stay.
8:15am Starting to regret staying, as it is cold and there’s no parade in sight.
8:20am Parade starts. Kids that do not belong to me run up to me, hug me, call me “mom.” The parade is awesome! I take pictures of the teachers we know that dressed up. Also take pictures of kids I’ve taught in Sunday school & VBS & mom’s group at various places over the years. Most of them remember me enough to smile & pose.
8:45am On the way home, realize we need tampons & hot cocoa. End up buying: tampons, hot cocoa, strawberries, ibuprofen, salad mix, & Nilla Wafers.
9:15am Finally actually home. Feed kids strawberries and hot cocoa.
9:30am Start looking in car for library books. They aren’t in the car. I didn’t take them out. Call spouse, ask if he let books loose. He saw some on the kids shelves, mixed in. *sigh*
10am Have finally found all 17 books. Load up books, kids, and recycling into van.
10:15am Leave house again. *sigh*
10:25am Actually early for storytime. Only’s happened once before. Wow.
11am Ben is hiding behind a tree while other kids are flying homemade kites. A grandmotherly person comes and tells me this will make her daughter feel better. Oh yay. Later, daughter comes over and introduces herself as “L’s mom, from MDO” Yeah. So apparently all four of our younger kids are in MDO together during the week. I pass on my phone number on the way out to check books.
11:15am Look for book I saw on another mommy blog. It’s listed as being there, but it’s not on the shelf. Enlist help. Am told that it’s probably been remaindered and that if I really want it I can request they buy a new copy or wait for the big library sale and buy it then. OH JOY.
11:40am In driveway, with two sleeping children. Realize we forgot to go to the recycling center. (Goodness, how often are they going to redesign the city website this year?!)
And now it’s 12:04 and Ben’s been asking for either a) Lego.com or b) a cookie for twenty-two minutes. Yeah, that nap didn’t last long. I demand a nap of my own now. NAP NAP NAP NAP NAP NAP NAP!
More photos here.
We stayed in our town for Easter this year, which meant a bit of extra planning on my part to make the day something both predictable and unique.
We got up and had our baskets (filled with both toys & candy–in order to disguise the fact that they were light on candy). The kids got one piece apiece (the largest, naturally) and then we had breakfast. We were supposed to have both fruit & apple turnovers, but my thriftiness in the produce section this week killed that plan. The kids did not care in the slightest.
After breakfast we had the egg hunt, with a bit of a twist. I let Greg go first for three minutes, then Ben got to go, then David. I hid stuff at varying levels for each of them and hoped they’d find an even number of eggs. Which they didn’t. Even more strangely, they found more eggs than I’d hid. I still haven’t figured that out.
We went to church after that. It was…churchy. It didn’t really feel like a different service from the regular ones, other than the addition of extra people to the orchestra, which kind of made me sad.
Came home, had some casserole for lunch. Then the kids cleaned up their room (supposedly, I haven’t checked–but they’re looking for something specific, so you’d think they’d really feel like finishing). I managed to slip and fall on my way into the house at some point. I’ve got a bruised & swollen left knee, bruised left shin, swollen & scraped left foot, swollen toes on my right foot, and my right shoulder feels not-quite-right when I move it. Still, after a couple hours of rest, I’m feeling, if not great, then not too terribly bad. The pain relievers have helped greatly towards that, I’m sure.
Tonight we’re going to church for a live performance of The Last Supper, as envisioned by the men of the church. Half the men are from my Sunday School class. That should be interesting, at least. After the performance we’re coming home, where Nick should have dinner waiting (beef stroganoff–my mom’s recipe, zucchini, and Velvet Pear Salad–also my mom’s recipe). For dessert, I’m hoping we’ll have some homemade ice cream (Nick made it for the bbq, but it didn’t set up right, due to a lack of dasher situation at the time).
So we’ve had a pretty good day. Tell me about yours….
Here, have some photos…
my azaleas have been moved to the front yard where I can actually see them and they’re blooming so happily!
Palm Sunday, so of course there’s a palm fight!
HOSANNA! he yelled…or that was what he was trying to yell anyways…
Kay or Bob or someone took this photo of me and my Greg during their visit
Music currently on rotation for the kids in my living room*
-music of Puerto Rico
-Celtic bagpipes
– Sunday School compilation of 4 “Books of the Bible” songs (one a riff off “Barbara Ann” & one a riff off “La Bamba” and two others with original music)
* No, we don’t listen to many mp3’s at home. We have lots, but iTunes hates me. We listen to CD’s on a 3-disk changer that’s gone horribly awry. It sometimes picks songs at random off of any of the three cd’s. You never know what you’re getting. It’s awesome, actually, if you don’t mind having musical chaos.
Lisa Holcomb 