April Nears Its End

This past week was maybe the craziest, busiest week I've experienced yet. Between activities, meetings, playdates, routine shopping and home maintenance... I didn't have many spare minutes at all, which can be easily seen by the state of my house.

The worst part of my week occurred on Tuesday, which should have been my "lazy laundry" day. I had just put in my first load of clothes into the washing machine and headed upstairs to fix breakfast. A bit later when I headed downstairs to get a few preparations for lunch, I was shocked to encounter at least a 1/4 inch of water covering the basement floor!! Our washing machine drains to an adjacent utility sink, which apparently had been plugged up with some paper towels (left over from a leaky water heater drain valve). So the sink was overflowing and water was everywhere. Anybody who knows me knows that I go into complete panic mode when met with situations such as this. So here I am after I catch my breath trying the first thing that comes to mind... the mop! Trying to soak up the water with a little mop wasn't really doing anything... so the next brilliant idea I had was to just throw all my dirty laundry down on the floor to help soak up the water which didn't help much either... there was just so much water! Finally, after I calmed down slightly, I started thinking a little more clearly and grabbed the shop-vac, which worked amazingly! I filled that little shop-vac three times with water from the floor... what a mess! Our rugs, which were completely saturated are still out on the deck to dry. You know... they might actually be dry by now. What I forgot to mention is that this occurred while Jason was out of town on business travel. He had to go to Huntsville, Alabama for an overnight trip... so he got to hear about all this over the phone. It was a complete nightmare for me.

Thursday was "Take Your Child to Work" day and Clara had been so excited about going to work with her daddy for weeks... ever since we first found out about it. I could go on and on about how jealous I am that my 6-year old daughter got to see where Jason works and it's questionable if I ever will! But I'm above all that... I'm just glad that Clara got a chance to enjoy being the special child for the day. Of course nothing comes without a price and for poor Clara, her price was that this also was picture day at school (individual and class) and I didn't want her to miss being a part of the class picture. So, unfortunately, I had to come and take her from Jason's work and take her to school. She was miserable. She cried the entire drive to school and I'm going to pay, of course, when her pictures come back displaying her red swollen eyes and upside down smile, I'm going to wonder if it was worth it in the end. The silver lining is that she can go again next year to "Take Your Child to Work" day, but this was her only opportunity to be in a 1st grade class photo. At least that's how I'm rationalizing it to myself.

Saturday was just hit after hit of activities and to top it off, it was one of the hottest days of the year so far at 87 degrees. We started off the morning with dance for Clara and Lucas and then immediately headed out for Clara's soccer game. She played so good considering the heat. Last season when it was so hot, she'd slow down and be useless to her teammates, but yesterday, she stayed right in there... and I knew it took a lot for her to do that... it was miserable for us and we were just sitting on the sidelines! We left the game and came home with just enough time to wipe the sweat off the kids with a cold washcloth and getting them dressed before heading out for Lucas' Accotink Academy recital. I was really excited for this recital and he looked so cute. And then... the boy didn't sing at all... he didn't even open his mouth (well, unless you count the time I caught him licking his arm!!). I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he did tell Jason the night before that he wasn't going to sing... but I really thought that once the music started and the other kids were all singing, it would be contagious and he would join in... nope! For the most part, he just stood there with his typical serious expression, occasionally lifting his shirt to off his belly. Oh... and the dance was even better!! The music started and his class came out saluting and marching to "You're A Grand Ole Flag"... and then just kept marching around and around and around the stage for the entire song. That was not the plan! I felt so disappointed... not because I didn't get to see his dance... I felt so disappointed for him!! Here he's been practicing for this for weeks and I'm sure that had the "line leader" stopped where he was supposed to, all the kids would have turned and performed as practiced, but they are all told to follow the person in front of them... so in doing what they are told, they all missed out... ironic? We took video and will post it on YouTube soon so you all can see for yourselves and have a bit of a laugh.

Today was Lucas' 4th birthday. He had a very nice, very relaxing day! I made him a cake and decorated it like a big digging site, he so loves the "big diggers". We barbecued and ate out on the screened-in porch, then had the cake and ice cream. His presents were a Color Wonder kit (he loves Color Wonder), a GeoAir Airport (to go with his GeoTrax set), and a new bike helmet to go with his new bike! He loved everything!! We took him for a ride on his new bike and he kept getting stuck but wouldn't let us help him at all. He kept looking back at us and yelling "don't push!" It was a struggle at time for him (and often painful to watch for me), but each time, he managed to get himself moving again, and I noticed that when we were almost home he wasn't getting stuck nearly as often. The GeoAir airport was a huge hit, too! Lucas loved making the airplane stop mid-loop so that when it stopped, it was upside down. Meanwhile, Eli LOVED the airplane! Eli would let out this high pitched squeal of delight each time the airplane started moving (this squeal was so loud that Jason could hear it outside). It was really funny. In the afternoon, since it was so hot (92 degrees), Jason turned on the sprinklers to let the kids run around in the water. Clara and Lucas had a blast, but Eli hated it almost as much as the shower (at least the sprinklers he could escape from). It was a really nice day and now I officially have a 4 year old!

Eli has another tooth and Jason has poison ivy. Jason got poison ivy last weekend when he was removing some ivy vines from the back corner of our back yard. His arms looked horrible... I can't even imagine how they felt!! It's been a week and his arms are still bright red and blistery, but they are actually looking better. Poor guy! If the poison ivy weren't enough, he's been wearing long sleeves to keep the kids from any direct contact and in this heat, he's had to be suffering!!