All I can say is, "IT'S ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME!!!" I have had kids home 24/7 since their last day of school on April 9th. Yes, I know the date. We left Cairo on the 12th.
The kids began at the Jefferson Montessori school at 8:30 am sharp. We were there at 8:25 am. Spencer called at about 7am to say hi to them on the first day of school and wish them luck. I have to say, I had my alarm set for 7am; my mobile rings at 6:55am.
me: "uggghhh hullo?" Spencer (nice & perky): "Hi hon! How's it going? I wanted to talk to the kids before they left for school."
None of the kids were up yet, but they needed to be anyway. He talked, I woke up, eating and dressing ensued. Then the first day of school pictures. Eliza & Mairyn were pretty compliant. Grant, on the other hand, was VERY excited, to say the least. We got at least one good one.
I dropped them off and Jacqueline wanted to know where her class was! She was very irked until we got back in the car, I offered to turn on Dora and all was right in the universe. Since I don't have a laundry room, or washer & dryer, for that matter, I went down to the local Magic Suds. I commandeered 6 washers for the task. Jacqueline was very helpful and it all seemed to be falling back into place. Helping do the laundry was one of Jacqueline's favorite tasks. But all summer, we were either at a hotel or just throwing in a quick load when we could mooch some time at someone's house we were visiting. It was a very frustrating summer. Anyway, all went well. The kids love their teachers and I love having a bit of a life back.
Unfortunately, I think I may be the only person with a song association to the post title. One: It's a really awesome song on Guitar Hero. Two: if you are familiar with the first Transformers movie, it's a song in the soundtrack. Also, it's the first thing that popped into my head when I heard Eliza's announcement.
I was in my room trying to talk to Spence on Skype, alone, without any interruptions. Some other kindergarteners in the neighborhood had just gotten home, and so Grant & Jacqueline were busy running around the backyard with them; Mairyn & Eliza were happy playing & herding them around. I had had about 10 minutes of peace when Eliza came running in.
"Mommy, Mommy do you you know what Rider has done?"
"No, what?"
"He pooped. He POOPED in the driveway." (Rider is like, 2)
Really? I wasn't too concerned. I told her to go tell Rider's Mommy and she'll get it cleaned up. I asked if anyone was getting near it. No way! Alright, just go play on the other side of the yard until it's cleaned up. I moved with the computer out to the kitchen because it was about lunch time and kids would be getting hungry. That way, I could stay on Skype and help kids. I was at the table with my back to the door when I heard it open but no slam.
"Who was that?"
*cricket*cricket*
"Who came in the door and left it open?"
Silence. I thought I heard something down the hall so I went to investigate. It was Grant. He was scrabbling at the bathroom doorknob, but hiding his hands from me.
"Grant, what do you need?" I asked. "Rider pooped Mommy." Grant blurted out. "I know. Did you get into it?" "No, RIDER pooped." he said again. "I know sweetie, HE pooped. Not you. But what's wrong?" "Well, his poo got on my bike wheel and I tried scraping it off and . . . uh . . . " he trailed off.
He had been trying to scrape the poo off of the wheel. Great. We deep-cleaned those babies, scraping under fingernails and even clipping them. And Grant did not protest. Usually, plipping (clipping) nails is akin to Chinese Water Torture. No screaming this time. He wanted the poo OFF. As did I. Over and over, he kept repeating,
"Rider pooped. Not me."
This kid was in preservation mode. For once, it was not something he had done and he wasn't taking the rap for it. No way, no how!
Today as we were leaving the kid's school, Jacqueline took a nose dive right into the rough pavement. She skinned up the palms of her hands and basically took all the skin off her knees. She was a mess, inconsolable. Band-aids that I keep handy in the glove compartment helped a bit and the fruit snacks in my purse smoothed most of it over.
We get home and it's time to get out of the car.
"I can't walk!!" Jacqueline cried, gingerly stepping on the tiptoes of her left foot.
I carried her inside and put some toys by her on the floor. This is like having a 6 months old again. That didn't help much and soon she had to go to the bathroom.
"Mommy, carry me! I can't walk!" she wails from the front room.
We go and do the business and return to the toy pile. Not gonna work and I have cleaning to do. So I fold and turn on Dora in my room for her. She is happy as can be. Until she's hungry, or needs a drink or has to go to the bathroom. Seriously kid? She was a weeping, wailing mess until she fell asleep for a rare hour and a half nap. I thought she'd be over it once she woke up. Nope. Still singing the same song. So I packed everyone up and took them to a new park very near us that they've been begging to visit. Everyone starts piling out and Jacqueline is just crouching behind the front seat.
"Carry me, Mommy! I can't walk!"
The park doesn't last very long because since it is very new, there are no shade trees around and the equipment is HOT. 10 minutes later (really) I pack everyone back into the car, head to the grocery store for the manna from heaven produce and back home. Jacqueline looooves watermelon, so she was satiated for at least an hour; sucking on the rinds and slurping down slice after slice of juicy watermelon. She is content just coloring at the table until bedtime.
Bedtime. Can I say it again how wonderful it will be once the basement is done? Jacqueline does not want to share a room with Grant right now, so all girls are tripled up in one room. Jacqueline seems to think this is pretty cool and won't calm down at night. Combined with jumping on her trying to sleep sisters, she wanders out for a drink of water or to go to the bathroom for the 5th time. (because of all the water. It's a vicious cycle) But since she "can't walk" she hasn't come out all night! Can she just suffer from this "I can't walk" syndrome at night?
Today was a day of meetings. We were at the school by 9:30 am to meet with the kid's teachers. Turns out, there is another Mairyn in the class. Except she spells it 'Marin'. Go figure! We try to choose unique (but not too wild) names; and this is one of those reasons why. So I asked the teacher if the other little girl could go by her last name's initial. Because, really, these kids are in elementary, Mairyn P. Ha-ha! Mairyn you p! But guess what? That little girl's last name in Peterson. Greeaaat. The teacher suggested they just go by their last names; but c'mon, Mairyn Penrod just is too much on the playground. I think we've settled on going by Mairyn K. Her middle name is Kathleen; Mairyn Kathleen is quite a mouthful all at once, but I sometimes playfully call her Mairyn K. So, that's pretty much settled.
We rushed home to get the upstairs in order for our next meeting. My Visiting Teachers were paying their first visit. Very nice ladies and their combined total of kids came with; 4 1/2 to be exact. The other gal is very pregnant. All under the age of 5. Fortunately, I don't have anything out yet that can be broken or messed up. And if I did, Grant already broke it.
Later in the afternoon, my Hometeachers came. But, I am unique. The bishop thought that I might feel uncomfortable with two men visiting every month or when I needed help, so he assigned me this nice married couple. Hey, I actually have a chance at getting cookies from my VTs & HTs! At each visit, each companionship (of course) asked if there was anything they could do, just call. I told them I'm really in a holding pattern right now. Not much more can be done upstairs until the downstairs is done. It's like one of those 9 square puzzles that you get from a cheap arcade game. You have to rearrange the squares to make the complete picture, with only one extra space. And that's how my house is right now. The computer is displaced to the kitchen because the girls are sleeping in what will become my office, towels are still in boxes because they are being displaced by the girl's clothing which is in the hall closet which will become the linen closet, and so on and so forth.
The last meeting we had today was an old friend to me, but a new experience for the kids. Artichokes. Mairyn picked one up by the stem and asked if we could buy one. Ooo-kay, let's try it. And it was a hit. We actually had a great dinner, but it's not one that can be a regular. Menu: Fresh corn on the cob, watermelon, ripe peaches, & artichoke. And it was fast. I'm going to make it as often as I can before the wonderful summer produce disappears.
The top one is a "current project" and the bottom one is completed.
The granny square one was intended for someone else, but I just can't part with it. It took a lot longer than I thought and it matches the colors in Jacqueline's room perfectly. Soooo, yeah, it's mine.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to send the striped one to Spencer. I know he won't laugh at the uneven edges. The yellow strings in the middle are where I am TRYING to keep count. I always seem to add or drop a crochet somewhere along the way of 112 double crochets. It keeps me busy during the long, lonely nights.
The poor, poor fan. It has served us well. This $15 fan was bought at least 8 years ago. When we were starving students at BYU, the apartments we lived in did not have any central cooling system to speak of, just heating. Our little two bedroom apartment had the sun beating down on the front side, facing west-southwest, for a majority of the day. The first summer we lived there, we could not afford a window air conditioner. But we both worked days and just suffered through the evenings. The next summer rolled around and I had a 5 month old and was going to be home most days. We needed an air conditioner. So we scrimped and ate noodles for a month, and bought an AC and a fan to circulate it to the rest of the apartment. It was wonderful!!
Time passed and we moved on, graduating and moving to Virginia. We lived in a townhouse that had central air, but good 'ol boxy still got plugged in every night and provided back ground noise for sleeping Grant. Or to blow out the fumes from a dinner gone wrong.
More time passed and we moved to Egypt. Boxy sat unused for the first year because, yet again, we had central air. But the next year, Jacqueline was born and the need for a white noise maker came about again. Every night, we switched it on and (usually) we all slept in bliss. When we packed out and the fan was gone, there were some sleepless nights without our resident white noise.
Now, we are in yet another location and in need of cooling. Yep, this place does not come equipped with central air. Although, south western Idaho is borderline when it comes to NEEDING central air. I bought two window air conditioners and we are doing fine. We just needed the fans to circulate the icy air. Then two nights ago, Mairyn comes into my room. **
"Mommy, the fan stopped."
I stumbled out of bed and checked Boxy. Sure enough, it had quit. The motor part was hot hot hot. Fortunately, we had a spare fan and I leaned Boxy against the wall. In the morning, I plugged him back in and flipped the switch. Nope, no air stirring in this bad boy at all. It was a bit sad. This old box fan has been a part of our life as long as most of our children. I didn't cry (much) but it will be a sad morning tomorrow when the trash man comes and hauls it away. We will miss you, Boxy. You served us well.
**Mairyn has a creepy way of coming into my room at night when I'm sleeping. She doesn't touch my shoulder, or poke my side or try shaking me awake. She just comes up to the bed, leans in close so we are nose to nose and starts stage whispering. "MOMMY! THE FAN QUIT BLOWING!!" Thank you, Mairyn, so so much.
Every Friday, there is a Farmer's Market from 4-8pm. We decided to wander through this week and discovered such a wonderful atmosphere! Fresh fruits and veggies, of course, were the expected fare; but there were fresh cut flowers, herbs, local honey, homemade textiles, hot corn on the cob, cotton candy, and face painting. All of this, set to the tunes a local DJ was spinning on the lawn. We got there a little later than 4, more like 6:30pm. The kids saw the face painting and had immediate tunnel vision. That was the only this existing in their world. It was $5 a face and they would be going to bed in 2 hours. Not going to happen. I told them that if they stopped their whining and fussing, we would have time to go over to the craft shop and buy some face paints. I would paint their faces in the morning so that they could have it for the WHOLE day we were in Idaho Falls instead of just for 2 hours tonight. They weighed their options and everyone voted for Saturday morning. We went over to Porter's and spent $11 and in the morning, I painted their faces for our day on the town. The rest of the day was spent running to do school clothes shopping, grocery shopping and general errand running. Everyone kept asking where we got it done, if there was a fair in town. Hmmm, maybe I should start charging!
--> I have taken 5 truck beds full of boxes and packing debris to the dump. It's great because they only charge .03 cents a pound for trash. So you drive up, your truck (or should I say Casey's truck) gets weighed and then you drive into the dumping bay*, unload your trash and then drive back over the scales to be weighed again. Usually the tab was about $2-3.
*The dumping bay* I must say, it's an odd smelling place. The odor isn't pleasant but not overwhelmingly stinky. Like a sickly, sweet, damp smell. I once got dump goo on my shoes; ugh, I went home, hosed them off** and let them dry in the sun all day.
**another tangent** Can I say how much I LOVE using that phrase? Hosed off. There have been so many times in my married life when a messy situation would have been so much easier had I been able to just "hose it off". Poopy baby blow-outs, muddy anything, an experiment I called dinner once that had the pot needing a good hosing, I could go on and on. This house thing is pretty great.
--> I have taken 5 truckloads full of things I don't need to the local D.I.; or Deseret Industries (to call it by it's full name and those who are not Intermountain West natives or transplants) D.I. is like a Goodwill shop. You bring by things to donate and then they sell them. I could have had a killer yard sale and (maybe) raked in a couple hundred $$, but really, my time is more valuable than that. I'm a salary girl now, not a by-the-hour drone. And then after the yard sale I STILL would have been taking multiple trips to D.I.
--> Amazingly, I have only ordered pizza twice. Yes huh! Once, last Monday when we were at our empty house for 7 hours, waiting for the trucks that never arrived. And again this Tuesday when I had been up since 7:30am unpacking boxes, taking truckloads of stuff everywhere, moving 135 sheets of sheet rock through the basement window and keeping track of 4 kids that just want their toys!! That doesn't mean I haven't missed Otlob. I have. I just dabbed back the tears and threw something in the crock pot, one of the world's greatest inventions.
--> I have bought 2 window air conditioners and it makes a world of difference. The highs have been between 88F - 95F. I know, mild for a Cairo girl, but when I don't have a cool basement to retreat into and 4 hot, sweaty, tired children, comfort comes first. The past few nights, the indoor temp at 9pm was 80F. I put one in my bedroom and one in the living room (they are at opposite ends of the house) and boy, is it deliciously chilly in here. It has been an even and comfortable 72F all day. I even thought about putting some socks on this afternoon! Then I tried to put my flip flops on.
Here's some quick progress pictures. One place I am completely moved into is the kitchen. It's my base of operations. And if the base isn't in order, nothing is.
I am up to my eyeballs (actually higher than that) in boxes. And sheet rock, 2 by 4s, electrical wiring and sawdust. Getting my 7,000 lb shipment and finishing my basement at the same time makes for a crazy life. Oh yeah, and throw in 4 kids that just want to find their toys amid the mountains of unopened boxes. Here's what greets me when I go to open a box:
Upon closer examination:
Uh huh, the cartons of joy are labeled in Arabic. Numbers in English, descriptions in Arabic. Then my master list has a translation in English. But usually, the contents are not accurately described. For instance, the list says, "toys, shoes" And the actual contents? Clothes and the removable shelves from the bookcase. So it's Christmas every time I rip into a box with my trusty box cutter. I had the delivery guys stack about 90% of the boxes in my garage, and arrange them in convenient to access aisles. It's like my own little Bed, Bath and Beyond! What am I going to find down aisle 28? Kitchen appliances or old socks. And therein lies the fun.
**p.s.** btw, my internet speed ROCKS!!! i am uploading pictures faster than i have in a loooong time. i usually click the button to upload a picture and go surfing around other tabs or write more of the story and before i know it, up pops my picture!! awesomeness. **p.s. done**
