The Puddles

It was a good start.  And it is finishing better. The middle was a little messy.  I think our mantra this summer will be . . . flexibility.

The kids got up and dressed.  I made it to work (all the way to my office chair) on time.  The world was good.  Lunch was served at 12:00pm.  And then Ben walked into my office without a shirt on.  And there was this rash.  I noticed a few days ago he had a rash that looked like a heat rash.  Today that rash covered his entire chest. It was yucky.  Couple that rash with this persistent  cough he has had for a week made me think that it might be scarlitina(sp?). So off to the doctor we go.  The end result . . . walking pneumonia. That’s right. Ben has walking pneumonia.  Again.  We had it this fall. Now he has it again.

So we went to pharmacy and picked up our list of medicines (all of the refills plus the pneumonia medicine plus the medicine for the possible fungus on his feet.  It is never simple when we go to the doctor.)  and then we headed home.  We are only about an hour behind schedule.  Dinner is in the oven and we will hopefully eat and go to bed on time.

The highlight of the day was that we got to do summer school.  Bridging book, math, art, journaling, reading, etc. I went over the kids packets with them and then they went back to their rooms to finish.  The girls liked it, but that “boy” didn’t like it at all.  Well, he had just better get used to it!

Time for dinner. Then it is time for bed.  And finally, it will be time to hit the rest of my “to-do” list.

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Today was officially our first day of summer vacation.  So we woke up at 7:30 (like the schedule says) and we were all ready to go by 8:30 (like the schedule says).   After that, the schedule fell apart. Madie left. Ben got grounded from tv (for having an illegal channel on – Nickelodeon – have you watched “SpongeBob” lately?). Ainsley refused to do any chore except cleaning the toilet. I was exhausted from getting only five hours of sleep with Ainsley climbing in and kicking me for the last two . . . and I was grumpy.  It took me until 3 in the afternoon to clear my head enough to not scream at the children.  Having the children at home is disrupting my routine.  It will take me just as long to readjust to the idea of the kids being here as it will for the kids to get use to being at home and not at school.  Hopefully, we adjust quickly!

It also didn’t help that our food pantry was bare. We ate pb and j sandwiches on hot dog buns.  If my mother hadn’t sent some cucumbers down with my dad last week we wouldn’t have had any veggies today.  We were out of everything.  Milk, bread (at least the sandwich kind), juice, vegetable, fruit, meat, etc, etc. The fridge was empty.  I cooked the remaining eggs for supper along with a side of bagels.  There weren’t even enough eggs for me to have a serving too.  So I served up “dinner” and headed to the grocery store at 7:00pm.

It is midnight and I’m home and still unpacking the groceries. I’m sure that there were things that I missed (I went without a list). But I assure you . . . we have food.  And not the weird kind.  I made sure we had plenty of fruits, veggies, milk and bread. We will survive for another week.  Or at least our stomach will. Now that we will be well fed on “normal” food, hopefully our tempers will be kinder and we will be more willing to meet the challenges of the day! I had better go to bed so that I don’t wake up grumpy. We can’t have a repeat of today!

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So about a month ago, Madie’s teacher asked if I could help cook the hotdogs for the class picnic.  I’m thinking 30-40 hot dogs? No problem.  Somehow that turned into cooking all of the hotdogs for the entire third grade class.  So I did a huge recruiting job.  Both Papa’s were called. Dad, Grandma, and other moms from the class. I wasn’t going to do this myself.  It was really fun.  We had a good organized system and the line moved quickly.  The guys had a good time. eventhough they had to barbeque without beer.

It was really hot!  By this time, we had done the Kindergarten graduation which we brought the bridge for and we had been there at 8:00am and were ready to go home.  It was a great day and a good way to end the year!

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Finally we made it to the last day of school.  Ben’s class had a luau, Madie’s class was camping, and Ainsley’s class was just having a good time.  So after the luau was over I took all of the kids home and they swam for the rest of the afternoon.  It was a good day for the last day.  I was exhausted by this point.  All of this final day stuff, presents for all of the teachers, end of the year parties, bringing home their stuff made for an exhausting last few weeks.  Glad it is over!

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Another hot day, but at 8am it wasn’t too bad.  I love Ben’s solution to trying to find some shade and stay cool.  Ainsley just went for the middrift look.  Madie’s team almost won. Madie was actually a little more aggressive at this games.  She really tried to go after the ball.  It was great.  She had a sweet coach who was gentle with her.  I appreciated that.

Ben had a good last game.  He hit and made it to first base.  He got out the first time, but the second time he made it to base he got to stay.  The next batter got out, so he had to go in.  He had such a great attitude about it.  He never complained or cried (like some of the other boys).  He just said, “maybe next time.”  and “Mom, did you see how good I did?  I made it to first!”  I was crying to see how wonderful it was for him to be thrilled with even the small victories.  That is a great kid.  It was a good year and a great way to end the season.

In fact, we weren’t able to make the team party at the end so Ben got his trophy at the end of the game.  He was so excited.  He thought he was the only one who got a trophy because of how good he did that day.  And Chris and I didn’t spoil that thought at all!

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A friend of mine has inspired me to try new ideas on Ainsley’s hair.  I checked out the website she had been using and we have been trying new things on Ainsley’s hair.  I have passed the website onto another friend of mine and her daughter has been coming to church with that creative style.

At least Ainsley lets me do her hair.  I’m ready to bribe Madie to do hers.  She doesn’t want me to, but she would benefit from having her hair up.  Plus her hair is so much thicker than Ainsley’s that I bet there are different things that I can do with her than Ainsley’s.  The summer opens it up to do even more with their hair.

Here’s the link:

http://www.princesshairstyles.com/

Plus the name of the website is Princess Hairstyles so now Ainsley will request Princess hair!

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Ainsley got to celebrate her birthday today with cupcakes.  We had gone to Krogers the day before and picked out the cupcakes.  They had a triple layer of icing on them.  I think her class bounced their way to the car rider line and to the buses.  It was wild.  They even sang to her.  She loved it.

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It was hot day for field day.  It is a good thing that they had popsicle, snow cones, and cold water.  It was a really hot day.  But the kids had a great time and really enjoyed themselves.  I got to help with the snow cones.  Making snow cones for over 100 kids and their parents was a full time job.  But we got it done. Ainsley had a hard time with the pop the balloon relay but one of the parent’s lifted her up and helped her.

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The kids had a great time enjoying a waterslide brought by the co-leader.  It was a great time to end the year.  We have one more fun event planned for this summer. But it was a hot day and the waterslide was awesome.

It took some time to get the water hooked up.  First the hose didn’t fit the end (it had been modified).  Then the water was locked up.  Then we found another spiket and got it hooked up only to find out that the handle was missing.  So we had to put together a lot of hoses to hook up the water from the front of the building to the back of the building.  I thought nothing was going to work.  But at last it did. And we had some good fun.

We followed it up with snow cones and an award ceremony.  A good way to end the year.

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