Quite a Day

Although Friday was our first official day of summer, I didn’t really feel like it started until today. I had so much going on Friday with packing, making bread (for the camping trip), and trying to leave the house in decent order that I knew I had to ignore my plans for how our summer days will work.  You might remember the post from a few weeks ago on chore charts and chore sticks.

I really should call them “Activity Charts” since they include the things I want the girls to work on each day like reading, writing and arithmetic in addition to daily chores that make up their routine. I think both of them practiced piano on Friday, but that was about it. To their credit, they were incredibly helpful with their brother and helping me pack their own things.

That means that Monday was our real start to summer. I woke up with Henry at 6:30 to try and get a start on the day before the kids were awake. My BFF Bridget is chuckling right now since she and her husband routinely get up at 4:30 am. Oh, and my neighbor (hi, Carrie!) is really laughing at me since she sets her clock for something like 1:45 am so she can get to work by whatever ungodly hour they require her to be there to get crazy people on their airplane. (Just in case you missed it, I said 1:45 AM!)  But I’m really off-topic now.

The kids rolled out by 7:30 – all three of them since they all slept in Ryan’s room Sunday night – and we headed downstairs for breakfast. (Have I mentioned Ryan eats two breakfasts and two dinners now?) We did ALL the activities on our charts by lunchtime – read aloud to mom, math drills, practice piano, read the Bible together, write out a verse, and whine. Oh wait, whine isn’t on the list, but it did happen multiple times throughout the day! Note to self: tell the kids “whine” isn’t on the list.

The day was okay. And when I say okay, it’s in the woman’s sense of the word. The kids argued about almost everything…. with me… with each other. Natalie cried for at least a half-hour this afternoon about nothing. Or least about nothing she felt like telling me about. I finally threw in the towel at about 3:30. I gathered my chicks on the couch and cuddled them while we watched a movie. It quieted the whining at least.

I’m hoping the rest of the summer isn’t such a struggle. There was a lot of mothering today. Typically the girls play for hours together with a few squabbles here and there. That’s kindof what I was hoping would happen this summer when they aren’t doing their charts so that I can still run the household. Monday was like treading water just to keep everyone sane.

P.S. Speaking of sane I almost forgot – – we, meaning the girls, decided Monday would be a great day to start potty training Ryan. I bought him some undies Sunday in preparation but hadn’t decided when I wanted to start. I’d thought of doing it in the winter but then my washer broke and no woman in her right mind would potty train a child without a working washer and dryer. By the time my set arrived we’d scheduled heart surgery which I knew would mean diapers and no getting out of bed so I feared training him only to have it undone in April.  When the girls saw his undies they asked him if he wanted to be a big boy and of course he said YES!  That might be why the day seems so harried. The long and the short of it is that he had 5 accidents before naptime and I think 1 or 2 after, but then successfully made it from about 3 until 8 keeping little green Percy engine no. 6 clean and dry. At one point he said all panicked-like, “Mama!” and I said “Potty, run to the potty!” The whole way there he’s muttering “Percy, Percy” and I knew he was thinking, “I better not pee and get Percy all wet and bothered!”  He held it the long run to the bathroom and managed to pee in the pot. Whoot! Whoot!