Today was a pretty quiet day around here, as far as things go with a handful of excited kids. Yesterday, they all asked, “Do we have to go anywhere in the car tomorrow?” So we decided to take a quieter day and stick close to home.
I had to get up in time to be at work by 6:30, so everyone was still sleeping when I left. Justin, on the other hand, got a 6:45 wake-up from a crying Isaac. Justin’s first reaction was, “Oh no, did he puke again?” It took a little while to figure out that the toilet downstairs was having some trouble and that was the cause for concern. That was easily resolved, I heard, and that was the biggest “Oh no!” of the day.
They went down to the pool a couple times during the morning — apparently the water was cloudy and the maintenance folks had to run tests and balance the chemicals a little better or something. I’m really not clear on what happened. But swimming people had to get out while the pool people did their thing.
I worked and it was not terribly exciting nor notable.
When I came home, we played some games and ate lunch and figured out what people like to eat so we could work up a grocery list. And then we all went to the grocery store together, which was another learning experience for us. How on earth to you all corral these excited kids while trying to do any shopping? The looks we got from other people in the store was interesting — most of them were really understanding that we looked like we had no idea what we were doing. Others were less patient, but not verbally, which was nice of them.
Cassie, one of the young women who works there, saw us and said, “Do you kidnap some kids?” I said, “Yeah, but I figured we should feed them anyway!”
Once we got home, we played more games inside. It was really hot outside today, so playing in the yard wasn’t the best idea. We stayed inside and played Mario Cart and Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii and stuff like that.
For dinner we made macaroni and cheese and really confused the kids by making it from scratch instead of from the box. But they were all willing to give it a try anyway. I’m pretty sure Ethan even ate the hot dogs that we sliced up and put in there, even though they weren’t cheddarwurst.
The biggest mistake we made there was telling the kids that they had to try to eat what was in their bowls or they wouldn’t get ice cream for dessert later, but misjudging how big kids tummies are. So poor Audrey, who is so good about knowing when to stop eating when she’s full, started crying because she didn’t want to eat anymore but she still had food left in her bowl. We felt TERRIBLE when we realized that she was willing to keep eating to make herself sick because we told her she wouldn’t get ice cream otherwise. We told her that she could absolutely stop eating and that we were very sorry and that we’d do better about that tomorrow. And she was smiling again in no time, so I guess we were forgiven for that mistake.
And that was probably our biggest “Man, we stink at this!” for the day.
Tomorrow, once again I will work in the morning and they’ll stay home and do things around the house with Justin. If the weather is nice, we’ll have a picnic in a park at lunch. And then head to the beach to play in the water for a while. They’re all looking forward to the beach again — even Audrey, despite her run-in with the jellyfish. Her leg is doing fine today, I assume, because she didn’t mention it even once.
I have no photos for today, but I’ll make sure to include some tomorrow!