Wednesday, August 17, 2011

This Is My Life: Tuesday

Today dawned bright and beautiful, like 99% of North Carolina days. Showered and dressed, bed made, coffee brewing, protein shake gulped down, devotions started, and then it was time to get breakfast going for three kids. Apparently they all decided to wake up at the exact same second today.
Both boys chose the standard fall-back: oatmeal, cereal bar, yogurt, and juice. Win - simple to make and guaranteed to be licked clean.
While I took care of dishes, watered flowers, and emptied trash cans, Grady Lee and Micah played computer games. Thank you PBS Kids for letting my kids laugh and learn simultaneously. Win.
Annalyse went down for her morning nap at 9:00 and the boys and I continued working on Psalm 23. We're in the process of coloring poster pictures for each verse. The artistry leaves much to be desired, but the simple pictures seem to be helping them remember the order of things. Win.
After devotions and Bible memory, we hit the books to get some school work taken care of. Micah flew through several pages of matching, finding opposites, choosing what is larger, etc.
Grady worked on a couple pages of math, which is usually a quick and painless process for him. Not so much today. He decided that he didn't want to count by two's, that writing numbers in the 70 and 80 families didn't sound fun, and that double digit addition was boring.

I started out patient with prodding him to continue and encouraging him to "just focus so you can get this out of the way and then go play. After all, you've done this many times before and I know that you already know this stuff!"

Nope. Not a good enough motivator. Instead, he chose tears and pouting and eye rolling. Fail.

Alrighty then, not a problem for me. No TV or computer games for him for the rest of the day. That was the game changer - he picked up his pencil and had his two pages of math done in a matter of minutes. Win.
Annalyse woke up around 10:00, I quickly packed some lunches, and by 10:30 we left the house to meet friends for a few hours of play at Discovery Place. We've been several times, but so far my boys aren't tired of anything there and are happy to explore things again and again. Win.
Annalyse was all eyes - watching everything. Her eyes always knew where her brothers were.
No pictures of seven kids eating lunch together. No pictures of seven kids playing together. And that's because keeping all seven kids accounted for was plenty enough. By 2:00 we called it a day and headed home.
We got home and Annalyse and Micah took naps. Actually, I carried Annalyse from her car seat to her crib and Micah from his car seat to his bed. Both were tired kids!

Grady lounged in the toy room with books and puzzles for his quiet time and I attempted to get a few things done on the computer. Attempted being the operative word.

The computer moved at a slower than slow pace. Files wouldn't open or upload. Pages wouldn't display. I rebooted the computer. I rebooted the router. And I thought about punching the keyboard. Nothing helped and nothing seemed to be working. Fail.

Fine. Be that way.

I decided to lay down for about 30 minutes before I knew kids would be up and I'd have to get things rolling for dinner. Grady Lee decided to lay next to me and look at books... sometimes it's a real treat to listen to him "read." He's heard some books so many times he can almost recite them and he remembers where to put certain voice inflections. Precious.

At 4:30 Annalyse woke up and a few minutes after, Micah was up too. The boys went in the backyard and played for an hour while Annalyse and I played inside and got things ready for dinner.

A quick dinner at 5:30 since we were leaving at 6:00 to head to church for Grady's softball game.

In typical 485 fashion, the highway was a parking lot at this time of day so it took forever to go 14 miles and get to church. Oh well - it offered some quiet time for me to make a couple of phone calls and catch up with people. Win.

We arrived at church and the boys took off with friends playing in the dirt, kicking soccer balls, throwing footballs, and running under bleachers. Annalyse was passed from one set of arms to another set of arms and I don't remember holding her all evening. Win.
Grady's team won - hip-hip hooray!-  and they're slated to play in the championship game tomorrow evening. And, just for the record, the khaki dress socks my husband wore with this cleats were no fault of mine. I arrived at church with white athletic socks for him and he opted to not bother and change. Now that, that is a confident man.

While driving home after the game, I remember silently thinking how nice it was that it was almost dark.  A sign that Fall is just around the corner and the time change is coming. My favorite time of year!

After all kids were bathed and showered and tossed in bed, I hopped in the shower and then settled in bed with a good book. Win.

Yes, I'm writing this past tense and yes I'm talking about today as if it were yesterday. But that's because I am and that's because it was. Our lovely computer wouldn't let me post Tuesday's post until today... so lucky you gets a double dose of My Life fun. Win? Fail? Who cares.

1 comment:

  1. I am LOVING reading about your week! You really are an amazing super mom & have such bright kiddoes! Way to go Grady Lee on the double digit addition!!

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