A Day "Off"

I always chuckle to myself when we (the teacher and kids) have a day "off" school. The day is the furthest thing from being "off" as it could possibly be.

I awoke this morning to 3 whining girls fighting over the iPad. Apparently my iPhone and 2 iPod touches are not sufficient, they must all fight over the almighty iPad.

And now my day "off" really begins! Fun things on the agenda today:

1) Laundry. This element of my life seems to duplicate by the second. It is a never ending chore that I must say, I loathe.

2) Dishes. After a hectic week of Halloween parties, after school teaching, etc, etc, the dishes have piled up so high I no longer see the sink--that can't be good.

3) Attempt to find the surfaces of my house. Hopefully after 1 and 2 are semi-complete, I will begin to see the floor and the counters again.

In the midst of all that fun, I will be heading to town to do some last minute Halloween costume shopping. All three little girls will be joining me---again far from "off" but we should have fun meeting my mom, my sister, and my ADORABLE 5 month niece!

Although far from a day "off," it will be packed and most likely fun. There have been screams and tears already and I am sure there will be more, but the giggles, smiles and laughter in between seem to make it all worth while!

Happy Friday!

Here a Blog, There a Blog, Everywhere a Blog Blog

It seems that every time I turn around, someone else I know is writing a blog. I will be the first to admit, everyone else seems to be more successful at updating than I am. I can whine about my busy life, blah, blah, blah, but in reality, I somehow find the time to read all of the other blog posts of friends and family and look forward to the posts daily! So, I have decided that business is no longer a valid excuse. I love checking in on blogs daily. Reading each person's perspective on their "expertise" is fascinating!

So, here I go again! Goal=3 posts per week!

The Busy Life For Me

As a teacher, I have the wonderful opportunity to hang with my kids all summer. Now, many of my teacher friends enjoy hanging close to home all day. I, however, have decided that hanging out at home all day makes a typical 12 hour day seem like a lifetime (and not in a good way).

Today was my kind of summer day. I woke up and stayed in my pjs until 830. We hopped in the car and dropped off the extra kid we had for a sleepover, went shopping, went to lunch at Applebees (which by the way has $0.99 Kid Meals M-W) and then headed to the pool.

Tess was in heaven with the the kiddie water slide and went down no less than 25 times popping up and screaming "genn" each time that she landed. Emme is Miss Independent and was going off the diving board the big girl water slides by herself the whole afternoon.

We headed home from the pool so that we could grab a quick meal and head to softball games for Lily and Emme.

It was a busy day, much of which was not spent at home. When we finally returned home for the night, the girls were exhausted, but had to explore the newly built deck and are now sound asleep.

This day is the exact opposite of a relaxing day at home, nevertheless, it is the best kind of summer day! And the icing on the cake.....one little girl saying, "I dove you so much mama" as she faded into a deep sleep.

Let the blog flow

Blogging must be genetic because my sister and I both have one now, only hers is way better then mine! Her blog (Glorious Greens http://gloriousgreens.wordpress.com) is not only a great tale of a working, middle-class, married, chic, chick trying to be healthy and cook creatively; it is also am honest journal of her life. I realized when catching up on her blog tonight, that I post too little and think too much about what I post. I only post wildly funny stories that happen and I have to think exactly how I should write it so that everyone can feel the feelings that I had when it actually happened. I forgot in this process though, that many things in my life happen that are wildly hilarious to everyone but me! I should post those moments too. My goal is to post more and not be so selective. If I can't laugh about the chaos that I call my life, then maybe some of you can, and I hope you do....out loud!

The Version of the 6-year old

It is always interesting, both as a mom and an elementary teache,r to listen to kids' versions of the happenings in their lives. Not the big happenings, but the every day, easy to over look happenings that make up their "normal" world.

My parents are married and have houses in two different cities due to their jobs. It has been that way since my oldest, Emme, was only 18 months old. I never thought twice about it. This living situation is all that my children have ever known. Then one day, one of Emme's friends asked her why her Gramma and Grampa (aka Mami and Papa) lived in different houses?? Now it needs to be noted that this question was very valid because this friend of Emme's sees my parents together all the time and has spent time with both of them together in both households.

Now, Emme is not one to admit to not knowing something. I am not sure that I have ever heard her say the words "I don't know" (except of course when I am trying to figure out the culprit behind something lost or broken, then she readily claims ignorance). Well, this time was like all the others. She pondered the question and after a few long (obviously reflective) seconds, she responded to her friend's question about the living situation with great confidence in the content of her answer. Here is what she came up with:

"Well, you see, Mami lives in the condo but Papa can't live there because he would eat all her
food and Mami wouldn't like that. And, Papa snores really loud, he even has a machine for it. So
that is why they CAN'T live in the same house."

If only every situation could be explained by Miss Emme.

And.....I'm back

The best part of why I haven't posted in so long is that in the go-go-go of my every day life with three small children, I forgot my password. That says it all. My brain is so overwhlemed with input, that a mere prompt for a password became a huge hurdle. With a great deal of reflection and some actual time to tinker, I figured it out, and...I'm back.

Now that my password is back in action, I can actually resume the tale of this crazy life that I live and love. So many stories to tell, I will be back at it again soon. As I write this though, monster #3 has awakened and I will have to write again some time soon.

For all of you that have been missing my stories, not to worry, the stories have not stopped happening. They will again be preservered in the blog world....if I can remember the password a second time.

The Pukes

It was a typical Thursday afternoon. I was scrambling to get dinner ready while the girls scrambled to see how big of a mess they could make before I was done making dinner. I was just getting the meat off the grill when I heard "Gulp, gulp." I looked over just in time to see Tess puke all over the kitchen floor.

As I was stripping her down and cleaning up the mess I thought to myself, This is not the flu, this is not the flu, she drank her water too quickly. I was in major denial. Every environment we had come near on any given day this week had the flu racing through it like a wildfire. But I still held out every hope I had.

She just needed food, I thought. She'll be better after dinner. 3 little girls sat down on the bench for dinner and Tess took 1 bite, turned and puked all over Emme. (Now Emme, being the drama queen that she is, certainly didn't calm the situation. One would have thought from her piercing screams that the puke had been sulfuric acid and that her skin was melting off).

It was official......the flu.



Poor little Tess continued to puke for another 8 hours and had nothing left in her. I was most afraid that I was going to look down and see a vital organ that had mistakenly been puked out. Luckily, at 3am, the puking stopped as quickly as it had started. This was not just the flu, this was the flu ramped up on caffeine or something. Tess managed to puke all over every family member, including our dear sweet lab Phoebe, who just laid and took it. The only family member who was not hit was Lily; Lily made it out clean.



24 hours later, it was Emme's turn. Although Emme's was not quite as bad she managed to puke 8 times in 5 hours. However, as many know, neither vomit, nor fever will stop Emme from being Emme and she managed to continue "ruling" the world between trips to the bathroom.



I have seen more vomit in the last 48 hours than one should have to see. Tess is 2 and therefore never made it to a toilet. I have cleaned vomit from clothing, rugs, blankets, couches, beds, hair, and even shoes. I am now sitting and waiting for the last little girl (the one who made it out clean) to vomit all over something, because as we all know, all good things, come in threes.