Snow Day!

Wednesday we woke up to a couple inches of snow on the ground plus more falling down.  The children decided this necessitated getting out full snow gear and playing outside.  The snow was a big deal.  This is the first snow we have really had in Boise this year.  So the kids got themselves dressed, got the babies dressed and headed out.  Meanwhile I canceled all our commitments for the day because I didn't feel like taking my non-winter-loving van out.

I did consider driving to Camel's Back Park to take them sledding.  Then Sam let me know how he felt about the snow.   I decided to forgo the sledding expedition.

 The babies came in and had a hot drink while Libby and Ethan made a new friend.  His name is Ice. 

Then we had the clean up.  It's amazing how much wet snow gear four children can create. 

Trying to Be Something I'm Not

It all starts a few months ago after a conversation with another homeschooling mom.  She has seven kids, including a set of twins.  We are talking about an upcoming picnic that is starting at 7:30pm.  I mention I am not too interested in going because my kids' bedtime is eight o'clock and I don't want grumpy, tired children at a picnic (plus I'm not that fond of big get togethers anyway).  This starts another conversation about how she always expects her kids to fit into her schedule, not to fit her life around her kids' schedule.  This includes spontaneous trips to Eagle Island instead of school work and having her kids nap in their car seats if they aren't home during nap time.

This appeals to me somewhat as I am heavily structured.  We are home every day from 12:30-3:30 so the babies can nap.  We do our school work in the morning and I don't even consider going to the park first.  I have lunch on the table at noon and dinner on the table at 6:00.  If  I don't have dinner on the table until 6:15 it totally stresses me out.  So this mom's flexible schedule, which she manages with her seven, seems like bliss.  The idea takes a while to germinate but I decide this week to be more flexible.

Monday and Tuesday I stick to my schedule and Tuesday night I decide to try this flexibility thing for the rest of the week.  My visiting teachers asked if they could come over Wednesday morning and I agree, even though in the past I've asked them to come in the afternoon so we wouldn't interrupt school time.  So Wednesday dawns and because Michael came home late and woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep I am beyond sleep deprived, but we need groceries.

So instead of waiting until after naptime I decide I can be flexible and go to the store.  I get the troops gathered with shoes, socks, coats, semi-clean clothes, brushed hair and start to head out the door.  The house is in shambles with clothes and toys everywhere and dirty dishes in the sink.  But it's okay - I'm flexible.  I have my wallet, the diaper bag, the grocery bags and I open my door where I see my lovely visiting teacher coming up the sidewalk.  So I let her in to the disaster that is my house and take off everyone's coats.  After a nice visit I load everyone back up and head out.

I get to WinCo at 11:30 and know I have to book it.  I run through that store pushing a big red cart loaded with kids and groceries.  I'm sweating as I'm bagging groceries.  I manage to get home at 12:30, throw some PB&J at the kids, put away the perishables, let my mom in, and shove the older kids into the car and get to piano lessons by 1:00.  My poor mother has to put the babies down for a nap because I don't have time.  No school work gets done and Wednesday is over and no one dies.

Not having learned my lesson I decided I could be flexible on Thursday as well.  We have homeschool co-op until 2:00 and the kids have standardized testing at 3:45.  Any other week I would have rustled up a babysitter so I could put the babies down for nap as soon as we got home from co-op and let the babysitter stay with the sleeping babies while I took the kids in for their testing.  But this week I'm being flexible!  I figure the babies can nap while we are running around.  Cue half-crazed laugh.

I end up at the office with two toddlers who haven't napped at all and are on the warpath.   To add to the misery Libby is freaking out about the test.  She refuses to even take it.  After having her brother go first she says she will take the test if I go in with her.  So I haul Grace and Sam into a small office while Libby takes her reading and math tests.

This takes a total of 15 minutes.  In this time Sam slams the door numerous times until Grace helpfully locks the door.  Then Grace and Sam decide to push a chair up the light switch and try to flip it on and off and manhandle the oil paintings hanging on the wall.  I snag them down with Grace vainly reassuring me that "I fine, mama.  I fine."  Sam then proceeds to play with the metal blinds.  Please remember Libby is trying to take a test she doesn't even want to take while all this is going on, plus I am trying to be quiet and keep the babies quiet.  Sam manages to find a power strip and flip it off before I get to him.  It of course holds the cord that goes to the test administrator's computer.  I flip it back on quickly, dying a little inside all the while.

The test is finally about over and Sam and Grace have exhausted the joy of the swivel chair so I send them out into the lobby with Ethan to wait.  There Sam decides to empty the water cooler.  Then we have to wait to go over the test results.  I load everyone in the car at 5:00 and head for home.  Once again the babies do not nap in the van.  It is quite possible the longest evening. Ever.

It took two days but I may have learned something.  I keep everyone on a schedule for my well being, not theirs.  It's easy for me to judge myself against how others are doing things.  What I learned this week is if what I'm doing works for me, don't change it.  I need a schedule or we will all end up in the loony bin, sleep-deprived and with gum in our hair.

Of Little Boys and Golf Balls

It all started calmly enough.  It always starts calmly.  Michael took the car to get an oil change and car wash, taking the three older kids with him (they get to shoot the car with colored soap - the apparent highlight of their lives).  So Sam and I hung out at home.  I started to make dinner and every time I turned around Sam was playing with the oven.  My oven is a gas range that is set up a little different.  The little door on the bottom doesn't open into a drawer but is instead the broiler.  Sam kept popping this open and I kept pulling him away telling him it was hot.  No big deal.  Just another day around here.

So I mixed the cornbread, turned the oven on and slid the cornbread in.  Doobeedoobeedoo.  Life is calm.  It's so refreshing to only have one kid to deal with.  The temp on the oven continued to climb.  It hit about 285 degrees and then it wasn't so calm.  I heard a series of muffled explosions come from the lower part of the oven.  Then gray smoke started to billow out and the whole house was filled with the smell of burning rubber.  I opened the window and just waited.  Something had just exploded in my oven and I wasn't in a hurry to open it.  I didn't want anything to explode in my face.  After a couple minutes I felt brave enough to open the broiler door.  This is what I saw, spread all over the bottom of the oven:

In case you can't tell, it is (or was) a golf ball.  While Sam was playing with the broiler he slipped a golf ball in and I didn't notice.  I scraped the mess out of the oven, kind of laughing and cursing at the same time, and turned the oven back on.  The house once again began to reek of burning rubber.  So I turned off the oven and saw this mess:

I didn't know there was so much to a golf ball.  It seems that during the initial explosion part of the mess stuck to the top of the broiler compartment and as the oven heated up it melted and fell down.  You haven't lived until you get to scrape spaghetti noodles of rubber out of your stove.

As I write this it has been three days since the incident and each and every time I turn the oven on more rubber appears from somewhere.  I'm not sure my oven is ever going to recover.

Christmas - Or the longest day in recorded history

The stockings were hung off the hutch with care.  Mom and Dad and kids were ready.  Or so we thought...

Christmas morning was great.  The older kids were told that they couldn't get up until seven.  At about 6:30 I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so I was ready when Libby appeared at the foot of my bed at 7:00 sharp.  The rest of the kids showed up within a couple of minutes and the festivities began. 

We opened stockings and ate candy and fruit.

Then we opened our family presents.  The kids put on their newly-received Christmas finery and we headed to the in-laws for breakfast.

This picture was taken before the children ate.  It was the last picture we took because the day soon went crazy.  We had a large yummy breakfast and then piled in the car to go to church with my in-laws.  Three wards were meeting together and it was packed.   Crowds are not my thing so by the time we left my stress level was already climbing.  The kids did fine though, especially Sam. Sam probably did so well because he didn't actually come to church with us.  We left him with his aunt and uncle while we went to church.  Love the aunt and uncle.  We got back to the in-laws at 12:30 and then exchanged gifts.  A lot of gifts.  It was wonderful and special and magical but it was also stressful and exhausting.  We got home around 2:30, put the babies down for nap, and I made snacks to bring to Christmas with my family.  At 4:00 we loaded the van, woke the babies, and headed out to my family gathering where once again there were mountains of food and presents.  Cue the eating and gift exchange.  Wonderful, magical, stressful and exhausting again.  We left there around 8 and came home to dump the sticky present-laden children in bed while Michael and I collapsed in wobbling masses on the couch.

I think maybe it was going to church on Christmas that made the whole day longer and more taxing.  And that makes me feel a little guilty.  Shouldn't church be the first priority on Christmas?  Guilt or no I still looked up when Christmas fell on a Sunday again.  It's in 2016 in case you care.  I figure by then the babies won't need naps and the kids will be old enough to help.  Until then I need to remind myself that all these events are blessings.  I'm complaining about an overabundance of blessings. Yep, there is definitely something wrong with that.  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and that you (and me) have a peaceful and calm New Year's.

Ethan's Birthday

This boy of mine just turned eight.  I really can't believe it.  Somehow eight seems so much older than seven.  He was so excited to get a scooter.  He said it was worth three presents and he didn't seem to give a fig that it was gently used.

He also got a book about mythology (mythology is one of his great loves). As the pictures show being eight doesn't mean you've outgrown pop up books. Michael wanted one for himself even.  Truly cool book.

And of course a pocket knife.  He's lost his other one he got for his fifth birthday (I assume he will lose this one soon) so he needed a new one.