Sunday - Sarah has been increasingly fussy about going to Junior Worship (kids church) since October when we missed a few weeks due to leaf peeping with Nana and Grand Dad and our trip to Knoxville. Two weeks ago they came up to get Brian because they couldn't get Sarah calmed down. She ended up falling asleep in his arms because she had gotten so worked up. Last week Brian didn't even make it out of the room dropping her off before she had a meltdown. Today I asked her to give me a kiss before Daddy took her downstairs (thinking that might help the separation) but then she wouldn't even willingly leave my arms and Daddy had to walk her out wailing the whole way. Brian ended up staying with her (as I expected from her reaction to leaving me), and even so I kept hearing her crying from downstairs. Then almost at the end of church I heard a little familiar sob from the back of the auditorium. I whipped my head around to see her pig-tailed head through the glass doors at the back of the auditorium with an anguished expression on her face. I rushed back to her as she started to cry "Mommy, mooooommmmmmmyyyyyyyy!". As expected, on the way downstairs I heard Brian say, "Nathan, where's Sarah?!" Brian had gone to wash paint off his hands (from the art project that morning) and Sarah had taken the opportunity to bolt and come find me.
Long nap for Sarah after church (thank goodness!) which meant that we actually had to wake her up at 4:30 so that we could have a little birthday celebration before small groups - yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting made from scratch by Brian and the kids, singing "Happy Birthday" and opening cards before heading out the door to small groups.
My cupcake was the "31" and Nathan got an "N" and Sarah an "S" on their cupcakes. Brian put a lot more effort into decoratively frosting the cupcakes then I usually do! Unfortunately we forgot to get a picture of the kids with me on my birthday, though we did get it on video.
Monday - I have been reading "Large Family Logistics" this past week - not because I'm planning on having 9-ish kids, but rather because I figure a mother of that many would have some great advice to give. I've been inspired to try to change some things about our days. Some of these are ideas from the book and others are things that I've just been slacking on lately: expecting them to help around the house rather then just letting them play while I work, dedicated morning and afternoon clean-up times, reminded me to take time to teach/practice life skills with them as they come up, morning Bible/memory verse time after breakfast, reading a new book or chapter book out loud at lunch, etc.
For instance, Sunday morning when Nathan needed help buttoning his shirt I worked with him to practice buttoning his own shirt. He has been self-dressing for years now, but buttons is one skill that we've never practiced with him. After I showed him once or twice how to do buttons he didn't want me to watch or help him, but after a while he came to find me and show off his buttoned shirt!
Monday morning the kids helped me unload the dishwasher and set the table for breakfast, then afterwards we spent quite a while cleaning up. They cleared the table, put dishes in the DW and then I gave them spray bottles and rags to wipe the table off. They especially loved cleaning the table and spent quite a while spraying and wiping. After a week of company, our house was a mess so they helped me tidy up and sweep in the kitchen/living/dining room and then we picked up their room.
After Nathan's quiet time he and I spent a little time with a phonics lesson and writing practice and then I made some labels to put around the house for Nathan to practice reading. When I started making the labels, he just wanted his own page to write on, but later when I had stuck them up around the house he got really excited about "reading" the words to me. I know he had great context clues since each sign was taped to the corresponding item, but I was still impressed when he "read" the words "mirror", "oven", "fridge", "door", "book" and "window". When I say "read", he would spell the word for me and then tell me what word he thought it was.
Tuesday -Grocery shopping in the morning. I made ham salad for lunch (with leftover Thanksgiving ham) and both kids gave it a big thumbs up. During Nathan's "school time" he was still super pumped about our new project of labeling things, so we worked on labeling some things in in the toy room. Need to print some more pages of "lined paper" to continue our project tomorrow!
Wednesday - Children's museum trip in the morning then a quick swing by the library to return some movies before getting home at almost 2pm, which is very late for our morning outings. Nathan was pretty irritated that I didn't let them check out any books since I just needed to drop things off to avoid late fees. Later he told Daddy, "I really need to go to the library because I have books that are on due and Mommy wouldn't let us go downstairs to the kid's room!" And by "on due" he actually meant that he had some that he wanted to pick out and check out.
Thursday - Daddy was home pre-call in the morning so I went out and ran some errands. When I came home Daddy reported that he and the kids had spent lots of time playing football in the house and wrestling. After nap, Daddy headed to work for a call shift. I watched Carrie Underwood's Sound of Music special after putting the kids to bed and also had a long chat on the phone with the wonderful Jennie!
Friday - Brian came home after a crazy call shift where he didn't get any sleep. So he went to bed while the kids and I did a library run - this time letting them go downstairs and getting their books that were "on due". After naps it was time to start packing for our Vermont trip! I had Nathan try on his new snowpants to check and make sure they fit (even though it was kind of late for an alternate plan) and of course Sarah wanted to put her's on too. Later when I told her that we needed to take off the snow pants to get her pajamas on, she started to have a melt down because she was "ready goooooo!". She was very upset to learn that we weren't leaving until the next morning for our trip! It took quite a while but we finally got her calmed down and into bed.
Saturday - We headed off on a trip to Stowe, VT! (Which deserves its own separate post).
great stories...especially about chores, buttoning & "ready goooooo!" which made me laugh out loud. :D Gran
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