I first woke up when Robert came to kiss me goodbye, whenever it is that he goes to work. probably between 7:30 and 8, I wasn't really concious. He just crawled onto the bed and grinned at me expectantly and i was like, "what!" i wanted him to just kiss me and leave so i coujld go back to sleep! I'm kinda grumpy in the mornings. After rob left I told the girls to watch tv and fell back asleep. our fan, which sits right beside the bed and blows directly on us, is very noisy so i couln't hear a thing those girls were doing. so i had a nice sleep and woke up to a messy house. It's a pretty fair trade.
I got up around 9, and wandered out to find the girls watching tv nicely, milk allover the kitchen floor, juice allover the table, the bread out and getting dryer by the second, and an empty hot dog package. from this i know what my kids had for breafast and i decide not to make hot dogs for lunch. I clean it up, all the while ranting at the children about their messiness and making them promise to ask me before they get into things. ( "But we wanted you to get your rest," elizabeth explained later.) So that is cleaned up, and i take a glass of water and some thyroid medication and sit down on the couch to work on the water. I always try to start the day with a big glass of water. the kids climb on me and we cuddle and watch cartoons. I keep thinking of things i need to do ( like getting dressed)but everytime i walk through the living room a kid wants me to sit down and cuddle and i hardly ever say no to a good cuddle. However, i manage to be dressed and have my teeth brushed by the 10 o'clock phone call from Robert (it happens everyday at the same time). Robert always just asks how things are going and then starts typing or doing paperwork or mabye even talking to someone, so after i answer there is usually just silence on his end. After a wile he says "oh yeah " and i try to think of something to say to fill in the gap. Today I told him how nice it was that it's cooler out, and he reminded me to keep the fan blowing in case it gets hot later. I talked a bit about making a big batch of cookies later because it's actually safe to turn the oven on today. Robert bought me a big kitchenaid mixer that i've wanted for years and gave it to me yesterday for my birthday, so i'm also looking for excuses to use it.
After Robert's phone call i decided it was time to make breakfast for myself, so i went and did some laundry (I don't know why), then i wanted to set up my mixer so I cleaned the kitchen, washed a few dishes, and got the diswasher ready to run. Then I found a spot for my mixer an some cupboard space for the attachments. I am finally ready to make my coffee and get my breakfast, but my coffee maker is dirty so i scrub it clean first. Then I realize it is 11 and I might as well make lunch. In still want my coffee and i want to use my mixer, so I decide to make pancakes and eggs for lunch. Emma is wining at me so i sit on the couch to find out what is wrong with her. It turns out her life is sad because I never let her play nintendo- it's true, I'm a total nintendo nazi. So i tell her I will let her play when I have no more jobs to do and I can sit down and play with her. That day will never come so I'm pretty safe. I get up to start breakfast, I mean, lunch, thinking about how nice it smells outside today. It rained lst night and it is all warm and damp and earthy smelling. It reminds me of bible camp and I think the only thing that's missing is the smell of bug spray. This old trailer is closer to a cabin than a house anyway.
As i start mixing up the ingredients for pancakes the girls become curious and begin drifting into the kitchen to hang out and see what I'm doing. I have no milk so I make a mixture of cream, water, and mashed bananas instead for the pancake batter. I turn on the mixer to stir up all the ingredientsand pull out my griddle, turn it on, then put the eggs on to boil.The pancake batter is all mixed now, so i pour it out and the girls gather around to watch wile elizabeth asks questions like "why do we have dough?" and "why does it have to be hot".The kids like the idea that dough is the beginning of all sorts of things lite cake , cookies , and bread. Soon the slow process of cooking bores them, so a spontaneous game of charades breaks out, with the girls taking turms doing goofy dances wile we try to guess what it looks like. Emma and elizabeth do various animals and soph is always the same thing-a mixer( she twirls around in one spot with her hands curled upwards). The game eventually turns into a break dancing competition with Sophie running aroung yelling "supermaann!"
Brunch is ready before robert gets home so the kids and I set the table all nice, put out yogurt and fill the glasses with juice. Then I still have time to take out the garbage and try to encourage patience in my daughters. Lunch goes well with hardly any crying on elizabeth's part, and emma even clears her own plate and then kisses me on the cheek and thanks me for lunch!
Robert tells the girls to go play nintendo. He tells me to come do this, and now i have been typing for almost two hours. In that time Sopie has come to me crying for her soother, been put down for a nap, gotten up and climbed on my back twice.for the last half an hour emma has been standing beside me bugging me to either play nintendo with her or let her write something on the computer. Soph is still awake, elizabeth and her are coloring in the corner.
I get off the computer and let emma write something for the blog. I tell her she can just ask me if she needs help spelling anything, but she is determined to do it herself. when she is done i add some spaces between the words, add a picture and post it. I want to look at everyone else's blog but the phone rings-and the computer is immediately comandeered by children. My mom is on the phone, she talks about this and that. while i'm talking elizabeth and soph have a fight, soph comes running to me and sits on my lap screaming for a few minutes, wants to talk to gramma, and then cuddles for a while. It's probably getting close to 3 by now.
I get off the phone with mom and consider the possabilities for how I should spend the rest of my afternoon. I am weaning myself off antidepressants right now, so all I feel like doing is having a hot bath (the withdrawls make me nauseous and jittery). I also think about curling up with a book, but decide that I cannot ignore the messy house any longer, so I start to clean. I find more garbage to take out, tidy the living room, vacuum the...zzzzz. Sorry, I drifted off there. Turns out writing about chores is even more boring than doing them.
To put it consisely, I cleaned until 3:45, at which time I remembered I needed to run to the pharmacy to pick up more thyroid medication. Elizabeth suggests that we go to the park and then to the Frosty Top (our local ice ream shop and soda fountain). So we end up going to the pharmacy, where I chat with the cashier a bit and then run into my freind Maureen who is also going to be homeschooling for the first time this fall. We chat a few minutes, and then it's off to the frosty top.(we forgo the park due to the lack of panties under elizabeth's skirt)
At the frosty top we run into the Pastor and one of the families from church having an afternoon snack. They bug me about my imminent birthday, and I direct the kids to the candy counter where they each pick out something that they pay for with their allowance money.
Candy in hand, we head across the street to the post office to get the mail, and on the way back Theresa, one of the people i knew in the frosty top, comes out to chat some more. Finally on our way home, I notice rob's car is still parked behind the bank and the time is 5:00, he should be home soon but I will beat him.
I let the kids turn on the tv when we get home, and I sit down to write some more of this story. I lose track of time and when I surface again robert is home(he came home late, too.), and Soph has fallen asleep on the couch due to sugar shock from the candy. Her face is all sticky and her hair is all stuck in it. I decide it's well past the time I should have made supper, so I get up and start washing potatoes. Once the potatoes are on, it's out to get the bbq started. As I run in and out of the house, bringing everything I need for grilling, I notice the peony bush is taking over the garden and grab some scissors for pruning. I am still feeling gross from withdrawls,so when I finish pruning I realize I don't feel well enough to clean up all the clippings. I leave them on the grass. I take two flowers in and put them in a vase. The potatoes are done boiling, so I take them out to the grill and start my bbqing. I'm out there by myself but after a wile emma comes out to hang with me and we toss the football a little. I try to teach herabout the laces on the football making the football spin, and then the food is ready and we take it inside.
The table is all set and the food is waiting before I remember I forgot to tell everybody that supper was ready. So I call them all impatiently as if I'd called them 5 minutes ago and they didn't listen.(being hungry makes me grumpy)
At supper Elizabeth cries and freaks out about the food for about ten minutes. Robert and I say the usual things like "you will spend supper with your nose against the wall" and "you can go to your room if you aren't going to stop crying" but ignoring her is what ends up working. Soph sleeps through supper, and after supper I show emma that paka j has commented on her blog.
this is usually the time of day I relax, so we send the girls out side to play a little, soph wakes up and I send her to the table to eat supper, then curl up with a book-The Poison Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It is an amazingly well-written book about a southern baptist family that spends 10 years in the Congo as missionaries, set in 1960. Everytime I pick it up my mind is transported to the african jungle, the beauty and the hardship of it, and the follies of the racist preacher who thinks he is better than a very ingenious, hard-working people.
My escape is brokenup by the realization that it is past the kids bedtime, but by then I am feeling so dizzy all I can do is go lie down on the bed. Robert has been obsessively rearranging the bedroom, but he stops so he can put the kids to bed for me. He is such a sweetie. Then he comes back for some quick ****** before sophie gets bored in her bedroom and comes to bug us.
After the ******, I feel better so I come to finish this story that is probably like a hundred pages long by now. It is now 10:35 and my plan is to clean up the kitchen and then the entryway, and then collapse into bed and let the room spin around me passively. Good night.
