Month: December 2006

We are approaching high pitched Christmas anticipation frenzy as we turn the corner into less-than-one-week-until-Christmas. The kids have been counting and recounting to make sure that they counted correctly. They’ve been counting until our California trip departure. They’ve been counting to Christmas eve. They’ve been counting until Christmas day. They’ve been counting days. They’ve been counting nights. I’ve been trying to tone down the excitement levels. Unfortunately I have not been assisted by the people who left a gingerbread house kit on our doorstep this evening. Now I have Christmas anticipation frenzy with candy and frosting. (Incidentally, if the people leaving 12 days of Christmas on our doorstep happen to read this blog, I’m not really complaining. We’ve received four wonderful gifts now which we have all enjoyed greatly. Thank you very much!)

Speaking of gifts, my kids have all finished their Christmas shopping and wrapped it all. I had to make sure it all got done in plenty of time for me to assess how much stuff needs to be packed into our van for this trip. We all tried to shop for small gifts because we knew we would be traveling. This seems to have worked because I think I can fit it all in. Yesterday I pulled all the gifts out from under the tree and packed them into boxes for transportation. This process was fascinating to the kids. Gleek and Patches in particular watched each package to into the box.

Gleek spent a lot of time poking her packages and speculating about contents. When she was speculating about the package from Patches he thoughtfully announced exactly what was in it. Patches is so excited about giving gifts. He loved wrapping them. He knows that they’re supposed to be a surprise, but he’s so excited about what he is giving that the secrets just kind of slip out. The first time this happened he immediately collapsed into tears because he realized that he’d ruined the surprise. Wonderful Link just looked at tearful Patches and announced that he hadn’t quite heard what Patches said. He then talked out loud pretending to try to figure out what was in the box that Patches had just revealed the contents of. Gleek followed that example when Patches announced her present. Now we just try not to talk about presents in front of Patches. A week is a very long time for a small child to keep an exciting secret.

I have to confess that I’m counting too. 2 more days until we depart. But those two days are going to fly because I have so many things to get done. I am a little stressed about it all. But I’m happy stressed because I’m really looking forward to having an out-of-my house vacation.

My theme song to my children for this morning:

How can I miss you if you won’t go away?
far far away from me.
How can I grieve, if you won’t leave?
And how can I shed a tear, if you’re still here?
Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
so they say.
Let’s see if that old saying still holds true today.
I’ll sadly sigh
as we say goodbye.
I’ll miss you more than words can say,
but how can I miss you if you won’t go away?
So go way my darling and please don’t delay.
And my heart will grow fonder each hour you’re away.

The kids have been in my face this morning, in case you can’t tell. Large portions of my brain have been trying to figure out how I can get away from them and from my house for awhile so that I can be glad to come back and be nice to them. I haven’t figured it out yet, so instead I’ve been playing the above song on my Vocal Point cd. It has been cathartic to sing along.

The other day when I picked Gleek up from school she came running to me and cheerfully announced “I got to go to the principal today! It was fun!” She then began chattering about how she wanted to go again soon. As she chattered my mental wheels were spinning. She’d been sent to the principal’s office because she was sitting in the doorway of her classroom having a crying fit. The last thing I wanted was for her to start throwing regular crying fits so that she could go visit the principal’s office. Her chatter continued and she told me how she got to watch a movie in the principal’s office and she wants to go back so that she can see the rest of the movie. At this point I was wondering what on earth the principal was thinking. He’d apparently turned his office into a garden of earthly delights. Gleek’s chatter shifted and I realized that she was saying that now she didn’t mind about other kids teasing her because she was like Rudolph.

That’s when it all clicked. The principal and the secretaries in the office are brilliant.

Gleek has been having a hard time going to school ever since the day that one of the other kids called her a crybaby. She has been very anxious that she would be teased again. The principal is smart enough to know the difference between true sadness and crying for effect. He took my truly sad Gleek and talked to her. Then once he discovered that teasing was part of the problem, he helped her know how to deal with it by using the section of the Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer movie where Rudolph gets teased by the other reindeer. He helped her calm down, feel happy, and he gave her tools she can use to be happy on other days.

My fears about misbehavior so that she can go back have completely failed to materialize. Ever since that office trip she has been more cheerful and much more willing to go to school. Once again I’ve been shown how wonderful the administrators at my kids’ school really are. I should probably get them something for Christmas to say thank you.

This evening Patches was very seriously explaining to my why I should give him some M&Ms to eat along with his cottage cheese. It was a very long and involved explanation. When he got to the point where he informed me that M&Ms equal cottage cheese I couldn’t help it and I burst into laughter. His little face crumpled into the most adorable humiliated tears. I was immediately contrite and snuggled him into my lap to calm him down. I have to remember that these things are very serious and important to him no matter how funny they seem to me.

We don’t have either broadcast, cable, or satellite television in our house. This does not mean that we live in an entertainmentless cave. Instead we’ve gotten creative about how we get our hands on the entertainment we’re interested in watching. It is more work, but it means that we don’t have to put up with all the advertising and dreck programming that comes with a regular supply of television. We rent DVDs, buy movies, borrow movies, or barter trades. For a while we had a very happy arrangement where we traded homemade bread for the loan of MST3K videos. When my oldest kids were younger a friend kindly recorded a bunch of PBS programming for us. They watched and rewatched these tapes for years. Then the tapes sat and gathered dust because the older kids had outgrown them.

Today Gleek fell sick. Again. She needed something quiet to watch. I dug around the video cabinet and unearthed a tape labeled Zoboomafoo. I’d nearly forgotten this show. It isn’t on the air anymore, but my kids loved it at the time. I played the tape for Gleek. The image and sound have degraded a little with age, but Gleek didn’t mind. She was as enraptured as my older kids were when they were her age. Not only that, but as the older two came home from school, they plunked down to watch as well. Kiki reminisced loudly about how she always used to watch the show back in the “olden days.” I don’t know what it is about Chris & Martin Kratt and their lemur friend, but we’re all happy that they’ve come to visit again.

My friend’s baby was born around 5 pm, which meant that I was able to hand her four kids over to her husband by about 7:30. They went to go see their baby sister and then he’ll put them all to bed. My house is so much quieter with only four kids in it. I’ll probably have some or all of these other kids in my house tomorrow and Friday until their mom comes home from the hospital, but for tonight I have hustled my own crew off to bed and I have blessed silence.

Have I mentioned that I do not aspire to have eight kids?

My home has been invaded by four extra children. They’re here because their parents had to go to the hospital to give birth. This means I may have these extra kids all night long. I’m already mentally figuring out sleeping arrangements and how I’ll manage school departures in the morning if they’re still here. It is exciting to be able to help with this kind of an event. I’m really enjoying being the one who watches all the kids rather than the one who is in labor.

The five minute clean up is my new best friend. One day I hauled each kid individually into their bedrooms with the requirement that we both clean as hard as we could for 5 minutes. At the end of 5 minutes the kid was done whether or not the room was clean. Two kids per room means that each room got 10 minutes worth of cleaning. Lo and behold 10 minutes was all it took to make the floors vacuumable again. I spent 20 minutes and each of the kids spent five.

On both of the nights since that project I have enforced a five minute clean up in our toy strewn family room. This time all the available children were drafted for the same five minutes. I really had to crack the whip to keep them moving, but at the end of five minutes the room was clean and I didn’t have to be mean any more.

I’ve also been applying this to myself. I’ll take 5 minutes and pick up my bedroom or my office or the front room. Doing a 5 minute pick up breaks down the huge “clean the house” task into bite size chunks. Everyone knows that bite size chunks are much easier to eat a lot of.

My house has been much nicer and cleaner these past three days. Yay for good advice via LJ!

This morning I decided to treat myself to sausage mcgriddles on the way home from dropping kids at school. Patches was in the car with me, so I planned to get him one too. I also decided to bring one home for Howard. We pulled up to the drive through window to Patches delight. He loves to buy food to take home. Instantly from the back seat there was a littany of “They sell hambuwgews? I want a hambuwgew!” I shushed him and placed an order for 4 sausage mcgriddles. Patches was paying attention because he switched to asking for mcgriddles.
“I want a mcgwiddle!”
I was relieved that we weren’t going to have an upset over the lack of hamburgers at 10 am. “That’s good, because I have one for you.”
In a matter of fact voice Patches announced. “You have fouw.”
I was suprised that he’d paid such close attention. “That’s right. I have four. One for you, and one for me, and one for Daddy.”
I couldn’t see Patches face because I was driving, but his tone of voice made very clear that he was not at all fooled my attempted misdirection. “That’s fwee.” He informed me.
I suddenly felt a need to explain further. “The extra one is for me because I am super hungry.” There was a brief silence then Patches announced:
“I’m super hungwy.”
I think I answered with something along the lines of him needing to finish his first one and then we would see about others. He thought for a moment then asked
“Can mine be extwa?”
“Sure, yours can be extra.”
“Then we will have two extwas. One for you and one for me.”

So we took home our mcgriddles and ate up all the extras.

Once again it is 3:30 Monday afternoon. I’m tired. I’m frazzled. I feel like the day is gone and I’ve accomplished nothing. This feeling is common on Monday afternoons. I spend from 7 am until 9 am getting kids fed, dressed, and out the door for school. Patches has gymnastics at 9:15 and I usually use that hour for errands. Then I bring him home for an hour. Then we go fetch Gleek from school. Then 30 minutes later I take Gleek to gymnastics. Then I drive straight to Link’s school to pick him up. Then home for 30 minutes. Then I pick up Gleek. Then home for 15 minutes. After picking up Kiki it takes me about 30 minutes to feel settled here at home and mentally ready to do something. Voila! It is now 3:30.

If my only goal for the day was to meet the needs of the kids, this list of things done would be just fine. But Monday comes after Sunday. On Sunday I honor the sabbath and do not work. I don’t usually get businessy things done on Saturday either. This means I have a two day backlog on shipping out books. I feel like I should be getting that done first thing, but I don’t. There is also the inevitable backlog of housework and laundry which occurs after our day of rest. I get up in the morning on Monday and already feel like I’ve fallen behind.

Recognizing this pattern has caused me to make some shifts in our family schedule starting in January. I’ve moved Patches gym lesson to another day. Gleek and Link are both dropping out of gym so that they can take an art class together at their school. I have to volunteer for this class, but it sandwiches nicely between Link’s pick up and Kiki’s pick up. At least this way when I have home time I can just be at home rather than having to run out constantly to drop off or pick up.

I hope it will be enough better that I can finish out the remaining 5 months of school. I look ahead blissfully to the time next fall when Kiki will ride the bus to junior high. Link and Gleek will be dropped off/picked up at the same time. Instead of making 5 trips daily our family will be down to 2 trips, or less if the kids walk home.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned/complained about all of this before. But somehow reminding myself that it won’t last forever helps me to deal with it now.