The Mac and Cheese Chronicles

So ends a successful week of VBS. This was a big step for Pumpkin Girl who had never been away from us like this before. She looked nervous that first day when I left her. So did I stick around and make sure she was ok? No way! Focused on the important things, like getting Bip down for his nap so I could get to crafting, I kissed my sweet daughter goodbye and marched right out the door. Don’t worry. Not only was she not scarred for life, she came home happy and excited and eager for the next day. She even told me she was now ready for swimming lessons. Good for her!

Boo, a seasoned VBS veteran who also has 2 years of Religious Education classes under his belt, barely even managed to wave goodbye to me each day.

Today was the closing program filled with fun songs and skits all fitting the theme of “Son Treasure Island.” Following the program was a picnic lunch for everyone. Boo couldn’t believe his luck when lunch included all of his favorite things: hamburgers, chips, ice cream and something sweet to drink.

The children each came home with a grocery bag filled with kiddie crafts that they had been making during the week. See, I wasn’t the only one be crafty. However, I have to be the one to claim responsibility for the glitter in Bip’s hair.

Next week, it’s back to the same ol’ same ol’, then it’s 2 weeks of swimming lessons. Our days are just packed.

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My two oldest children are off at Vacation Bible School this week. I have to admit it, I’m sure enjoying the time alone. The church is all of 3 minutes from our house, so from the moment we walk out the door until Bip and I return only takes me 12 minutes. I’m back home by 9 am! I spend awhile enjoying the peace and playing with Bip, then he’s off for his nap and the rest of the hour and a half are all mine! Amazing what I can get done when I’m alone!

I have reclaimed my craft/guest room. We had guests at the beginning of May, so all my crafting things had to be packed up and stored in other areas of the house. Then the room became overflow storage as we worked to unpack boxes and sort through things to give away and sell. Now the yard sale is over and there is nothing else on the schedule, so I’ve been using the time to take back my room.

First off, I baby proofed it so Bip can join me in there if he’s awake and I’m feeling crafty. Then I worked on clearing space for my craft table to open up and on bringing in the craft supplies. I worked on the room for close to an hour yesterday and this morning I was ready to craft! I made a promise to myself to work at least 15 minutes in that room, putting things away, before I can sit down and craft. Today I moved a big box of office supplies out and combined it with another box of office supplies, giving me one empty box. That box went back to the craft room to hold some clothes I found for Bip to grow into. That box will go live in my closet, just as soon as Bip wakes from his nap. At last, it was time to stamp. I am woefully, pitifully and embarrassingly late on some stamping commitments I had made back when Bip was a napping baby. I got right to work on those cards. It felt so wonderfully good to put stamps to paper again. Ahhh, a quiet house, a craft table all set up, complete with a natural light lamp, just stamping away. I was in my groove! I was very good, though and stopped at 11:00 and came down and did some housework.

I’ll be able to finish the cards tomorrow, I think. I love, love, love rubber stamping! Plus, having a rare break from the children just makes me appreciate them more. I am happy and smiling again. I’m even willing to listen to their long-winded stories. (I even encouraged them to talk!)

I have often bristled at hearing others say things like “I can hardly wait until my kids go back to school.” I like my children, as difficult as they can be. I enjoy spending time with them. They are funny and smart and challenging. I am glad I don’t send them off to school on a regular basis. But you know what, I need a break. Not just an hour or so of quiet time a day, but an actual break. I think this is the first time ever that both the older children have been gone for any real amount of time. It’s refreshing. I can do whatever I want with the time. I could even get a babysitter to be in the house while Bip sleeps. Cool. For now, I’ll stick to crafting at home.

I’m enjoying this week while I can. My children are really, really enjoying VBS. It’ll be nice when this week is over and we return to being together full time and I am a happier, more refreshed Mama.

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One of the things that I enjoy most about having children is sharing with them the joys of my own childhood.

We recently rented the movie “Annie” from Netflix. Not the one that came out in theaters about 20 years ago, but the made for tv one with Victor Garber that came out about 7 years ago. The tv version comes as close as you can get to seeing “Annie” on stage! As a child, I loved the Broadway play and listened to the soundtrack every week. I can still sing all the songs. I remember the thrill of being able to see it on stage when the production came to our little town. After years of only knowing “Annie” from the album, finally seeing the lights go down, hearing the orchestra start the overture and watching the curtain rise caused my eyes to tear up and my neck to tingle. Just thinking about it now causes the same reaction. Watching the movie all these years later with my own children was magic! They worried about Annie and Sandy, learned to love Oliver Warbucks and hate Miss Hannigan and laughed out loud at the antics of the orphans. As the camera pulled away from the closing scene, I watched my children, transfixed on the tv screen and I found my eyes tearing up again.

I am also a big fan of “The Brady Bunch.” As all the classic TV shows started showing up as DVD collections, I swore I’d be first in line when “The Brady Bunch” was released. Well, it happened while we lived in Korea and somehow I missed it. Not to worry, though, I’ve been buying them season, by season as I can. (thanks, Grandma Honey for the birthday money!!) Boo and Pumpkin Girl caught me watching season 2 in my room as I cleaned up. They came in and got hooked! They asked for “the Brady Bunch” as their evening movie the other day, so I set them up with Season 1, so they would know the whole story. Boo can now sing most of the theme song.

We’re also reading some of my favorite books from my childhood. Little House in the Big Woods is part of our daily reading right now, and we’ve already finished The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Waiting in the wings are Jenny and the Cat Club, The Borrowers, and The Wonderful Journey to the Mushroom Planet (I think that’s the correct title). It’s amazing how many great memories I have of the books I read as a child. Philip does, too. I’ll have to get him to give me a list of his favorites so we don’t miss them. Even many of the easy reader books the children pick out at the library have caused me to smile at the vague memory of reading them way back when. Bears in the Night and A Kiss for Little Bear both made me stop and do a double take. “I remember this one!,” I said. Somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I remember the pictures and the storyline of these wonderful books. I am so glad to be able to share them with my children now. I hope they love these books and movies as much as I do and discover new treasures of their own. Maybe someday they’ll call me up and ask if I still have such-and-such book, so they can read it to their own children.

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Lest you think my life is all pearl necklaces and chocolate macademia nuts, I present to you my morning.

It all started around 6am when The Boy Who Never Sleeps got mad at me for taking away his nummy by daring to roll over. Philip, who got a peaceful night’s sleep, blissfully unattached to anyone, free to sleep in any position he wanted, asked if I might want to nurse the baby, it being only 6:19. “He’s been on me all night. I’m tired and in pain. Go away.”

I’m not at my best in the mornings.

So young son and his dad trotted off downstairs to watch the news reports of last night’s rain. Mudslides on the Capitol Beltway, streets underwater, Metro closed, fish on the bridge…it was a good day to not be commuting. And while watching others being stuck in traffic is always amusing, the boys tired of that and came to wake me up.

“Hon, it’s 7:00. Do you want to wake up?” I tried to pretend to be asleep. “Hon? It’s 7:00. Should I come back at 7:30?”

“Go away!”

“OK, I’ll come back at 7:30.”

I did manage to haul my poor sleep deprived body out of bed. I found all the children awake and Super Dad making pancakes! Great! I can eat them with my coconut syrup! Philip also informs me that he has made extra coffee, in case I need a little caffeine. Sweet man.

Breakfast is good, the syrup is wonderful, all is well. The morning progresses.

After a bit of miscommunication, the children and I are getting ready to start out for our daily trip to the park. We got 5 inches of rain last night, but the park has that soft spongy covering, so it’ll be wet but not muddy. And we have a semi-informal play date there every morning. So we’ll head out anyway. If our friends aren’t there, we’ll go walk along the rain swollen Potomac, since it’ll be high tide, just to see what it looks like. We’ll take the Wonder Baby with us, since he’s fussy but not sleepy, in hopes that a little time outdoors will soothe him.

I’m explaining all of this to Pumpkin Girl  as she puts on her shoes. You know how you have to explain things very carefully to 5 year olds so they don’t pester you with quite so many questions later. I get to the part where our friends might not be there this morning because we got so much rain and it’s very wet. And then Boo interrupts me mid sentence. “No, they won’t be there.” So now I have to stop.

“Boo, how do you know they won’t be there?”

Silence.

“Did they call you up and tell you they weren’t coming?”

“No.”

“OK, then you don’t know. Was I talking?”

“Yes.”

So then I go into Lecture #59: Why One Does Not Interrupt When An Adult Is Talking Unless There is Blood.

Number One Son stares at me blankly and I can literally see the words go into one ear and out the other.

So out the door we go. I resume telling Pumpkin that our friends may or may not be there. Boo interrupts again. “I thought we were going for a walk.” THAT’S IT! I send him back to the house. We are going to have to take drastic measures with that boy and his interrupting. Charlotte and I continue to the park. We can already see that no one is there and there are storm clouds a-brewing. We returned to the house.

I spend some time checking the garden for storm damage. When I come inside, Philip reminds me that he’s going to go to the commissary during school time. I sit down to prepare the shopping list and notice there is a fly in the house.

Now Philip happens to be a champion fly killer. Armed with only a rubber band, he can kill a fly on the first try. He has even been known to shoot the heads right off.

So there I am, innocently writing out my shopping list. I’m not hurting anybody. I’m just minding my own business. Here comes Philip, rubber band cocked, death in his eyes. The doomed fly lands on the back of a chair next to me. Philip takes aim, facing me, about 2 feet away.

“Don’t you shoot that head onto me.”

Thwap! Something hits me in the face then falls to my paper. THE FLY!

I’ll admit it. I’m a girly girl. I like to look pretty. I wear makeup every day. I don’t go camping. So this fly in my face at the hands of my up-to-this-minute dear husband pretty much unglues me. Shopping list and pen go flying and I go screaming up the stairs. I think I’m going to vomit. I need to wash my face! No!! I need another shower. I toss my fly splattered top into the hamper and get into the shower.

My no-longer dear husband comes to the door and tries to apologize. I’m not having any.

Several minutes later, I come down, freshly scrubbed and in clean clothes.

I sit down to have school with the children. I’m reviewing chores with Boo while we’re getting settled. I tell Pumpkin to sit down. I settle into the couch with our books, and where is Pumpkin?

“Pumpkin Girl?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” uh oh.

“What are you doing?”

She reappears. “I, uh. I was. Nothing.”

“What did I tell you to do?”

“I forgot we were having school!” She starts crying.

“I told you to sit down! If you had obeyed me…”

I’ll censor the rest of it for sensitive eyes.

…When I was finished with Lecture #3: Obeying, I leaned forward, clasped my hands together and closed my eyes. “Lord, please, stop testing me!!!!” I waited several moments, trying to settle myself. I got up to go get myself some of the coffee Philip had made me.

The coffee pot was empty, clean and drying in the rack.

I started to cry. Between the Boy Who Can’t Be Quiet, the Girl Who Won’t Obey and The Baby Who Won’t Sleep, not to mention getting a fly shot into my face by the man who I swore to love and honor in front of God and everybody…well, who can blame me.

Phil tried to console me, I’ll give him that.

“Don’t touch me, Fly Boy!” I said in a voice that may need an Exorcist later. Ok, I didn’t really call him Fly Boy, but I was thinking it.

He quietly got the shopping list.

“Take them with you!!!!”

And that, my friends, is how I find myself in an almost empty house, a warm cup of chai and a cookie in my belly and a freshly scrubbed face.

I need to go dry my hair.

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Well, Philip is home from Hawaii. He’s been at a conference all week. Not just any conference, his conference. He decided to have a conference, he told the people to be there, he decided the location. So of course it was in Hawaii. Remember how Mike Brady was clever enough to be the architect of a building going up in Hawaii, even though the Bradys lived in Southern California? Well, apparently, Philip is pretty clever, too. However, unlike Mike Brady, Philip was not able to get his company to pay for his family and housekeeper to go along, too. So we stayed behind.

Our week was filled with naughtiness and attitude problems. The children’s behavior was slightly better. With wild thunderstorms that threatened to bring down the house, clogged toilets and neighbors knocking on the door at 9 in the evening, I was glad to see this week come to an end.

So the morning of Philip’s homecoming arrived. My oldest was up at the crack of dawn of course. I heard him in the bathroom at 6:15 and I thought for sure my day was off to a bad start. After closing my bedroom door I managed to get back to sleep for another 2 hours. Aha, morning salvaged, or so I thought. In honor of the occassion, I dressed Bip in a Hawaiian shirt. I set him on the bed so I could use the bathroom. I gave him very strict instructions: “Wait here. I’ll be right back. Don’t cry. I’ll be right back. Don’t fall off the bed. I’ll be right back.” I backed slowly into the bathroom. “See, I’m just going to the bathroom, every thing is good.” He smiled at me sweetly, as if to say, “Of course, dear mother, take your time. I’ll be right here.” I turned around, took the additional two steps into the bathroom, turned back to face him and yelled, “Bip!!” Because my angelic son had wiggled himself to the edge of the bed and was reaching for the clock radio, probably to amuse himself by chewing on the cord. He couldn’t reach with one hand so he was trying with the other, causing himself to roll off the bed.

Teleportation not being one of my superpowers, my calling his name had no effect and he proceeded to tumble off the bed.

Just call me Britney Spears.

After he stopped crying, I surveyed the damage. A big scratch on his forehead and a bruise and a bump on his cheek. Wonderful. This bruise has now developed into quite the shiner. The mercy in this is that my mother-in-law is not planning a visit. I don’t think I could handle a dissertation on my parenting skills.

So, baby dressed, injured and comforted, I head down to feed the older children. I manage to hold an ice cube wrapped in a washcloth to Bip’s bump until he became more interested in flinging himself off the couch.

I put him on the floor to play and Boo and Pumpkin Girl join him. Before I go to take my shower, I decide to read my email and favorite blogs. 9:30 comes around I start to head upstairs. Then I smell it – baby poop. It’s not a bad smell since he is still mostly breastfed, but it is stronger than usual.

No problem, right? Just change the baby, then take a shower. Except he hasn’t just pooped. As I said, Bip is still mostly breastfed, so his has nice soft, runny poop. Too much information? It gets worse. His poop has bubbled out of the top of his diaper, up on to the back of his Hawaiian shirt, down on to his shorts and on to the carpet. Where, because he doesn’t crawl, he has scooted over it, leaving short tracks across the carpet. Fortunately he didn’t get very far.

I haul him upstairs and peel off all of his clothes. There’s no helping it, he needs a bath. I call down to Boo to come upstairs. I tell him to take off his clothes, he and Bip are having a bath. If I’m going to bathe one boy, I might as well bathe the other at the same time.

Bath time goes without incident. My two boys are now sweet smelling and clean. Bip’s clothes and the changing pad cover go right into the wash and I spray carpet cleaner on the spots. It’s now 10:15. Bip goes into the super saucer where he can’t get at the foaming carpet cleaner doing it’s thing on the stain and I head up for my shower. But not before giving Boo strict instructions: “If the phone rings, please answer it. If it’s Daddy, tell him we’ll see him soon. If it’s anyone else, tell them I’ll call them back. Do NOT come upstairs to bring me the phone.”

I’m in and out of the shower in record time. I even got my hair dried. At 10:45 I take Bip up for his nap, Boo gets the same instructions about the phone. I return at 11:00 and Boo tells me that Daddy has called, he’ll be home in 30 minutes. We begin cleaning up the living room. Pumpkin starts crying about her not having a bath, I’m trying to explain to her that it’s ok, and Boo interrupts me for no good reason. I charge him 25 cents every time he interrupts me, so I send him upstairs to get money. He comes downstairs and says, “Daddy’s already home.” It was a fitting end to a difficult week.

Philip brought home all sorts of souvenirs, including tikis, chocolate covered macademia nuts, a pearl necklace and earrings for me, and coconut syrup. I’m hoping he bought the tikis at a souvenir shop and that he didn’t just find them lying around some construction site. Just in case, I have no plans to thread a leather cord around one, wear it around my neck and go surfing. He also had a Magnum, PI moment and bought himself 3 Hawaiian shirts. Philip is many things, but he is not a large, 6 foot tall, mustached white man. He is a rather compact Chinese man. Strong, but not big. When I heard he’d bought these shirts, I was worried he’d look less like Magnum and more like Lieutenant Tanaka or Icepick (go rent the Magnum DVDs and see what I mean). I was very, very happy to see that when he walked in the door wearing cargo shorts and one of these shirts, he actually looked quite good! I even let him wear the shirt to church.

In the end, I ate way, way too many chocolate covered macademia nuts and Bip was wide awake by 5 am (a connection?). He and Philip enjoyed some good bonding time watching TV until 7. All is back to normal.

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I’ve mentioned that Philip is gone for the week. Did I mention how much work it is to manage a house, care for three children, do any kind of school and have time to play on the computer? The work never seems to stop! The things that are normally Philip’s jobs have fallen to me this week, of course, and they are just enough to cause things to stack up. He empties the dishwasher every morning and this week I have to do it myself. Just this one extra chore in the morning causes the rest of the chores to become delayed. Plus, I decided to start taking the children to the park in the morning to avoid the heat, so when it’s all said and done, it’s 1 o’clock, we’re finally done with school and are just getting started with the chores, including emptying the dishwasher and reloading it with the breakfast and lunch dishes.

Then Boo starts nagging me to read more from the Boxcar Children book we’re into, but it’s time to get the baby from his nap. Finally, we sit down to read which doesn’t last long because Bip has gotten into something. For a baby who STILL doesn’t crawl, he sure manages to get into a lot of trouble. Then it’s quiet time for the older ones and a small break for me until I have to start dinner. Sadly, my dc don’t think that cereal for dinner is very fun. Then it’s Bip’s theoretical 2nd nap – which he wouldn’t take yesterday – then dinner, then Bip is up again, then dinner clean up and just when it’s winding down, someone asks for dessert. So I get dessert, then put everyone to bed. Back downstairs to find that no one (that would be me) has cleaned up the dessert dishes or started the dishwasher. Sigh.

And yesterday, add in Bip screaming in the living room while the rest of us ate dinner in stony silence. He wouldn’t nap, then became overtired but it was way, way too early to let him go to bed unless I was willing to get up with him at 5 am. It was awful. I finally let him go to bed where he slept for 12 1/2 hours. Sadly, not without waking to nurse, but at least he slept.

Then today, more of the same except we had to go to the PX to get poster board for a project that Boo wants to do and batteries for Pumpkin Girl’s new crayon sharpener.

Don’t let me forget about the swimming lesson saga! We have been calling every day for weeks, literally weeks! to ask if the swimming lesson schedule has been set. Boo is finally brave enough to take lessons and since he’s 7, he really does need to know how to swim. Well, this week has been so hectic that I’ve forgotten to call. I finally called today and woohoo! the schedule is ready. I load the children into the car and drive to the pool to sign them up. You see it coming don’t you? The first session is already filled up. Typical. We can’t make the 2nd session because while we were waiting, VBS sign-ups came around and of course, it conflicts with the swimming schedule. So we sign up for the 3rd session. The guy was so clueless! I wanted to know if I could sign up the children for the next 2 sessions after that, so they could continue in the beginner class if necessary or move on to the next level. He said I could only sign up for one session at a time, but he had no idea what would happen if I wanted the children to take more lessons. Argh. Ok, deep breaths. These are free classes and at the very least, they will be taking 10 one hour lessons. That should give them a good start in the basics. Maybe, just maybe, Philip and I can give them additional instructions during the rest of the summer.

Still, I was pretty irritated on the way home. Then as I was adding the swimming schedule to our calendar, I realized that between swimming, VBS and a visit from my parents, I only have 5 teachable weeks left this summer! Yoikes! I have 6 weeks of material left. Clearly, this whole swimming mess is God’s way of helping me finish up the school year all neat and tidy the way I want to before we start 2nd grade/K. Nicholas unwillingly took a nap this afternoon so I sat down with the calendar to map out the remaining weeks of school. I’ll need to double up on some science here and there, but it’ll all work out. I can only imagine what I would have needed to do if I’d managed to sign the children up for all four of the 2-week swimming sessions.

Did I mention it’s really hot and humid and I really don’t do summer? My arms break out in this weird itchy rash if I’m outside too long. Clearly, I belong inside in the air conditioning.

And I won’t even get started on the attitudes of the children. You’d think a 5 yo was capable of putting cereal back in the cupboard without muttering under her breath about how many chores she already has and how mom just keeps piling them on. Then again, you’d think a 36 yo would be able to get through one husband-less week without venting on the internet for all the world to see about how many chores she has.

I wonder where Pumpkin gets it from.

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