role playing...

My kids have great imaginations, you may have noticed, and love to pretend all the time. One thing they love to pretend is school. Tonight, they wanted to pretend school during dinner time. This is how that conversaiton went:

kids: "Let's play school! Mommy, you can be Miss Aranjo and Daddy you can be Mr. Phillips. Then we have to raise our hands when we want something, and we have to eat politely".

me: "Why don't we just play polite family dinner?"

kids: "no way!"

Alone with my children tonight.

If you were alone with my children tonight you would have:
1) Cleaned up a pile of colored sand from a broken sand bottle Aisling made yesterday; After she tried to clean it up with her toy vacuum of course.
2) Purchased $35.00 worth of food from McDonald's so you wouldn't have to cook.
3) Cleaned up a bottle of spilled milk from the newly washed floor
4) Eaten dinner with one child in a bathrobe instead of milky clothes
5) endured your foster son throwing his spoon with every other bite
6) Endured numerous thrown french fries from the baby
7) Listened to your son practice piano in the basement while barricading the doorway with your foot so your baby cannot go to the basement, while also continuing to help your foster son eat.
8) Allowed your son to try to beat level eight on Translmania.
9) Endured a temper tantrum when he couldn't beat it.
10) Listened to the baby walk around crying "no no no no" while you assisted your foster son in getting ready for bed
11) Listened to shouting and mysterious heavy banging from upstairs while you assisted your foster son in getting ready for bed.
12) Totally measured your foster son's medication wrong, and re-measured it. (While listening to the baby cry "no no no no no")
13) Arrived upstairs to find numerous children hanging out in your bathroom with suspicious amounts of toilet paper all over the floor.
14) Found your daughter sitting on the floor looking at a view finder with her toothbrush on the floor next to her because she "forgot she was supposed to be brushing her teeth".
15) Bribed the children with treats if they quietly helped each other with pajamas.
16) Been disappointed, but not surprised, when even bribery didn't work.
17) Skipped baths for everyone
18) Actually put the children to bed within 2 hours of their typical bedtime.
19) Had a blast reading favorite books before bed
20) Endured a kicking baby who eventually settled and snuggled
21) Collapsed by 9:00.

Back to school!

This year brings us one sixth grader, one second grader, and one kindergartner. (Along with one toddler!) The first day of school was adventurous. Wyatt had an incident in his chair, and fell on the ground, getting road rash on his face; poor guy. So, you'll see a swollen eye in his pictures. However, he's doing much better, and sixth grade is off to a decent start. Connor had an eventful start as well. On the third day of school his class pet, a guinea pig named Zach died. The class wrote letters and helped bury little Zach. Aisling's start was a tad simpler! She is, however, exhausted to tears by the end of her first full day today.

continued...

In our last episode, I was complaining about the hose being buried. It's unburied now. It took me about 2 hours to dig up. It was about 2 feet underground; after the hole Connor had begun. Here are some pictures (please ignore the redneck child in the pictures).

Quiet children, never a good thing.

Today, after suffering through an afternoon of bickering and complaining, I banished my older children outside. (I know, terrible). They were playing with the sprinkler and seemed to be having a blast. After a while I looked outside to see that they had taken the hose out of the sprinkler and were chasing each other with it. They then started making a water slide on the swing set. I decided, against my better judgment, that it was probably fine. After all, they were happily playing and I was watching Oprah while folding laundry. (I KNOW, Oprah! When do I ever get to do that?!) Shortly after Al got home, Aisling came in and said Connor had gotten the hose stuck in a hole. I went out prepared to take the hose from a hole in the fence or something similar. Oh no. My lovely son had some how managed to get the hose stuck in at least three inches of mud. As they made a water slide it created a giant mud puddle. They then started digging in this, and the hose got stuck. Neither Al nor I could get it out. It remains stuck. I've never heard of such a thing!

The hole goes up to his elbow.
Hose stuck in the ground.
The carnage of our swingset.

The worst part of this whole thing, besides the fact that the hose is stuck, is that while hunched over and trying to pull it out, I got bitten by a few bugs (three!) I don't know what they were, but they were not nice! However, I did get to watch Oprah. It MAY have been worth it...

Techno baby...

Siobhan loves Al's Blackberry. She knows what it is and knows how to use it. Here's a video of her:


Incidentally, while she was watching this video, she was waving to herself!