Dirty.... but busy!

Today we had some archaeologists in our midst! The kids had two archeology kits to work on today. The kits were very very cool, and the 20 minutes of working together and not fighting was well worth the 45 minutes it will take me to clean up all of the dust!

Connor's kit contained gems.

Here he is working hard at breaking them free:

Got one! (Hm, it's much smaller than the package advertised...)
Got them all free!
Okay, they are pretty cool now that they're clean!

Here's his favorite:

The girls' kit contained bones to piece together a dinosaur skeleton
I think I see a bone!
Connor is done his, so of course he should come help the girls.

Got some bones!
We made the world's tiniest T-rex!


Guess I'm off to go vacuum!

Are you there God? It's me Heather!

How exactly does one let God know that one has had all that one can handle? Seriously? Prayer? Letter? Telegram? Owl? What's the secret path to relief?

I only ask because I am starting to feel a smidgen overwhelmed. Life for me is, in general, slightly near overwhelming on a normal day. That I'm okay with. I know I own that for the choices I've made. However, some days it feels like I've been thrown the work of one hundred other mothers as well.

This past weekend we went camping with Aisling and a few friends as a little birthday treat. (Blog update coming). Then, on Monday afternoon I left to drive to Boston for a work training. I met up with my best friend from high school on monday evening, and then Tuesday morning headed into Boston. All day tuesday and Wednesday I was in Boston at a residential hospital based school program for kids with Autism and behavior disorders run my a mentor of mine. The two days were overwhemingly full of fantastic information! I rerutnred home to the damily on Wednesday at around 11:00 PM.

Thursday morning I went right back to work. Cue to Thursday afternoon; the dreaded call from day care. Siobhan, they think, has lice. *SHUDDER*. It's okay, go ahead and Shudder again.

I brought her to the doctor, and sure enough, she does. I cannot tell you how often someone at her day care has had lice and I have commented on how it's the worst thing I could imagine having to deal with. Well, now I can tell you with great certainty, it's the worst thing I have ever dealt with.Not only does she have it, but she also passed it along to Aisling. I am also quite sure that I have it too. (Damn co-sleeping family!)

Thursday night was the Harry Potter event. I did not want to let Connor down, so we went to it. (Late). However, there were countless bags of cloth things to bag up; rugs and beds to vacuum; children to shampoo; and nits to find. The children did not go to sleep until after 10:30.

Cue Friday morning: Siobhan woke up with one eye stuck shut. Darnit. I pretty much ignored it and hoped it would go away.

It didn't.

Friday afternoon we went back to the doctor and got a prescription for pink eye.

Did I mention that Saturday is Aisling's birthday party? Because I was away and then the kids had lice, we still had not purchased anything for her party. (In fact, I forgot to invite some of the people she wanted to have come. That poor kid always seems to get shortchanged in her birthday. The summer can be so nuts.

So, tonight we took the kids out for a quick dinner, then went to Iparty to get her birthday stuff.

However, we neglected to remember that we still had to nit pick; vacuum everything; and put all the sheets in the dryer on hot for 20 minutes.

Again, bed after 11:00.

Tomorrow is her party. Then, Al and Connor are leaving for a week of overnight camp on Sunday morning, so; next week I will be all alone.

I need to know, then, how do I let God know that I have reached my limit? I can't really take any more crises; most definitly not next week.

Montshire Museum

This vacation of mine is turning into a veritable tour around the state! Today's destination was the Montshire Museum. We've been there many times before, and Aisling and I even slept over there last year with some girl scouts. It's a fantastic place, and I wish we lived closer to it. It's about a 2 hour drive away, so we only head there a few times a year. They have a fantastic outdoor water exploration section, so we generally go there in the summer. Today the biggers slept until 9:00 (!!!) and I did not want to wake them, given their behavior yesterday... so we had a late start. We still had a blast, however.

We started the day with a picnic. (Yes, I actually packed food today, not Subway!) They have great outdoor trails and tons of places to sit and eat. They've never sold food there before (and there's nothing really close) although new this year was a food cart. Dad was still up visiting.
This museum is right in the middle of the trip from MA to VT,
so it's a great meeting spot too!Once inside, the kids hit one of their favorite places within the museum, the fog machine. They have little blocks and things with the machine, so you can move the path of the fog. Siobhan, probably having no idea what fog was, felt certain that we were going to see "frogs". She spent at least ten minutes of our fog playing asking me where the frogs were!(I'm having a really hard time with how grown up Aisling looks in this picture...)

Connor and Aisling learned a little about evaporation,
as they tried to spread fog to everyone below them.
It didn't quite work!The fog machine is right near the "tower" which rewards your climb with views like this
of the "science park" below.
Next up was playing in the robot garden, where giant robot bugs gave the kids
some perspective on a bug's life.
This is the kids putting pieces together to make a platypus.
How bad of a parent am I if the first thing Siobhan said was "It's just like Perry?"Perry:

Hey, it's a good show. Don't judge.

They were then able to head to Siobhan's favorite place, the bubble zone!

Then they did some exploring with aluminum foil to try to build boats that would hold the most pennies. They learned about surface tension. They had a blast with this and tried a few different ways to build their boats. I have a feeling this may be replicated at home. Connor's record for the number of pennies held was 168. Aisling's was 100 something, and Siobhan lost interest after about 50.

Finally it was time to head out for the true favorite part, the water exploration park! This is a long stream which includes places for the kids to look at damming, currents, and fountains, among other things. The stream ends in a little water fall. There are ping pong balls that the kids can drop into the stream to explore what happens at various places and under various conditions. There is also a place where the kids can build their own fountains using little pieces of PVC pipe. There is also a little area where the kids can climb on the rocks and in and out of the water. They can control the speed of the fountains here and can play in little pools of water. They can also play with the ping pong balls here, and can also experiment with blocks to change the water path. All around excellent water play!
This child keeps me on my toes in unbelievable ways.
Good thing I love him so gosh darn much!

I'm having a great time home with the kids. I head back to work next week. I haven't worked over the summer since college, so I am having some mixed emotions. I LOVE my job, and am excited to go back to it, honestly. I am also quite happy to take a break from being camp director/nurse/teacher/fight manager/art teacher for four kids all day every day. That's exhausting. It's fan-freakin-tastic, but so exhausting. I know the kids will have a blast at the camps we've picked out for them too. But, of course, they are feeling a little nervous about it as well. Thankfully, I will have Fridays off. A decent mix I think.