Day: February 27, 2006

Today was a day that I had planned out in increments of 15 minutes. In order to stay ahead of everything that needed doing I had to keep moving down the list and checking things off. I actually had a list because I was afraid I might forget something. Gleek and Patches did not pick a good day to be extra cranky. They simply could not interact without one of them ending up in either a screaming tantrum or screaming tears. Frequently both of them did both.

I baked Howard’s birthday pie. Took care of NotMyBaby. Did book keeping and bill paying. Decorated Patches birthday cake. Got three loads of laundry washed. Handed NMB back to his mom. Made an emergency trip to bring an all important item to Kiki. Picked Link up from school. Physically separated Gleek and Patches several times. Picked Kiki up from school. Spent 90 minutes registering Gleek for Kindergarten next year, most of the time was spent in line. Then managed a birthday party for Howard and Patches. By 7 pm I was so exhausted I just wanted to sit down and cry.

Things got much better from there. Howard did the dishes so I could lay down and tune out the world for awhile. Then Chalain and Chaliren stopped by. While they were here Howard pulled out a habanero pepper that he bought at the grocery store. Chalain and Howard sat together and sampled the pepper. I took pictures. Some of the pictures are really really funny. Habenero peppers are really hot. I never even touched the thing and my nose is burning a little. That was really fun and made an exhausted evening into a good one.

Other highlights of the day:

Howard made dinner. He and Kiki worked together to create egg rolls from scratch. They were delicious and everyone wished we could have had more of them.

Gleek’s best friend brought over a little paper note for Gleek announcing “I wrote you a email!”

Kiki finally has a friend at her new school. She has a playdate and a birthday party with this new friend this week. I’m glad she’s finally making a connection with someone. I wish I knew better how to teach her about building friendships. It’s not something I’m historically very good at. I’ve lucked into some really good friends and inherited others, but I’m not so good at building a strong frienship from scratch. Anyway I’m glad she has this new friend I hope it continues to work.

Patches loved his birthday. I wish I could have held the celebration on a less hectic day so that I could have savored it more, but he had a wonderful time. He loved having a cake that was for him. He loved that it had hamtaro figurines all over it. He loved the four foil wrapped chocolate cars that raced around the bottom. Each of the kids got one of these cars. The three older kids tore off the wrappers and gobbled the car up. Patches removed the wrapper and proceeded to drive the car in circles around his plate. After several minutes of this I leaned over and said “It’s chocolate. You’re supposed to eat it.” Patches gave me an “are you crazy?!” look and hugged his chololate car close to his chest. I had visions of this chocolate car being loved for days as it slowly melted and smeared all over the house. Fortunately just as the car was beginning to look lumpish instead of carish, Patches ate it up.

Howard had a good birthday too. A couple of fans mailed him gifts which was a nice addition to what I managed to provide. The biggest gift was an orange vest on which I’d affixed a hand embroidered Tagon’s Toughs logo. I’ve been stealing time to work on that for over a month now. I’m really glad to have it done and for Howard to be able to wear it. Of course the irony is that he recieved it just as the weather has turned warm, so he may have to wait until next fall before he gets to wear it much. Oh well.

This evening I was half offered yet another book keeping job. I’m not going to jump at taking it because I need to get stabilized in managing books for Chalain before I even think about undertaking new projects. Also I need to refocus a little on active mommying. And with the incoming inventory management for Howard’s book I’m reluctant to commit to anything else. But it feels really good to be asked to consider it. I like having valuable skills.

And that’s all the babble I have in my head. I’m going to sleep now.