Kindergarten!

And so an era begins....

Day #1: The first day started out rough, he wanted NOTHING to do with pictures. Here is a glimpse of that catastrophe...

There was one picture that is usable in any hard copy capacity....

As soon as he stepped out into the driveway and put his backpack on, he pulled himself together and did a great job. We were able to walk him to his room and gave us all three sweet goodbye hugs and kisses and marched right in his room. 

His teacher's name is Ms. Corrigan and she seems great. She has 4 kids of her own, but this is her first full year of teaching her own class. I am every optimistic and enjoy her. 

I could not settle myself all day for all the thoughts going through my head and wanting to see his face so bad. Then the time came.....I was up there like 20 minutes early, but oh well. He came out of the "walkers" door and smiled at me, but then went immediatly into a cry. 

His water bottle had leaked in his backpack and gotten his shirt and bottom all wet (he hates to have wet clothes on). We rushed home to change and then over to the Waters house for Tiff's Treats and a little celebration. It was fun and John was in a great mood. 

Later he says to me... "they just don't care about me in kindergarten".... !!!!! WHAT!!!! Every part of me broke inside as I am trying to calmly go about my business while asking probing questions. He says "well I have good news and bad news". We started with the bad news, "I got lost several times today" !!!!!WHAT!!!!! Again, every piece of me wants to scream, but I do not. He calmly tells me that there is no potty in the classroom and no one told him where it was, so he got lost in the halls trying to go to the bathroom. But he was brave and strong and found his way back. 

Day #2 - WAY better mood. Was ready to go. 

Time to pick him up again, he says to me as soon as he sees me. I forgot what you told me about the water bottle (we had like a 20 minute talk on how to make sure it was closed all the way and set it up right and it would not leak) so he decided to just not take it out of his bag. He drank NOTHING all day long. Guess he used problem solving.... :/

He was in a great mood all afternoon, complained a little of a headache, but overall great. He begged to go to the library and get his own library card (stop judging me for not getting him one by this point in his life. :)). So we did, how do you say no to that. We spent almost an hour (until MJ could no longer stand the library voice) and brought home several books. Then to soccer practice, home, shower, early to bed. I am thinking this is GREAT! 

Day #3 - REGRESS. He screams and cries and says he does not want to go. Then I tell him that his "special" for the day is the gym. He breaks down "it is so long from my classroom and I will get lost". I try to tell him to just stay with his group and he won't and to pay attention everytime they are outside the classroom to know his way around, etc. Then he throws this nugget out.... "last time I went to specials I got lost and went to the wrong classroom and no one knew where I belonged".... !!!!WHAT!!!! How is my child getting lost SEVERAL times in his first 2 days of kindergarten?! So even though we are running incredibly behind, I have no makeup on, Matthew has a complete blowout diaper and no shoes on, I stop and hold him and let him cry. I try to tell him he is so strong and brave and he is doing great and he should be proud of himself for being so independent, etc. etc. Nothing is working. I have to throw on his backpack and pull him out the door screaming (if you are tardy, it is considered an absent!). The whole walk to school he is dragging his feet and crying. As he standing his ground outside the cafeteria (parents are not allowed in the building) I tell him that if his class leaves without him then he has to find his way to his room by himself (which is totally true). I hated to scare him into going into school, but I had no good choices at the time. 

I waited outside and tried to watch and Ms. Corrigan came to console him and he is crying really hard. I had to walk away but a couple of my friends stayed and peered in for me. He finally stopped crying, but they said he looked sad. :(. So, I am writing this on day #3 during nap and I CAN NOT WAIT TO GO PICK HIM UP! 

New or Noteworthy: John

A few things new or noteworthy for John:

1) Money - He has started spending his own money on buying legos. I have always told him that his money is for him to spend any way he wants. He is about to run out though, so I think he will learn a lesson pretty soon about how fast money can go and the long process of earning/saving it back.

2) Sleeping - he falls asleep within minutes at night, but is almost always in our bed by 5:00 or so in the morning (a habit that we start breaking....tonight). Or at the very latest he is up by 6:30 every morning. He knows that he can play with whatever he chooses (quietly) until 7:00, which gives me time to either finish biblestudy, clean up a bit, prepare for the day, etc. It works out nicely and I think I will like the early riser when Kindergarten starts.

3) Potty talk - He thinks tooting and pooping and bathroom stuff is hilarious... does that ever really end?

4) Consequences - We have started a consequence jar for him and although we have not had to use it too often lately, I really like it. There are yucky consequences (clean a room, alone time, early bed time, no TV, no ipad, etc.) but there are also some silly ones (jumping jacks, make a card, sing a song while balancing on one foot, etc.) This is to keep him going back without a fight. It is nice for us because in the heat of the moment, we do not have to think of a fitting consequence and the situation descalates pretty quickly.

5) Bike - Carl has tried several times to get him to ride his bike. He even took off the training wheels and pedals so that he can just ride it and learn to balance as he picks up his legs and scoot along. He tries it, but still shows very little interest in actually learning to ride.

6) Summer - We have not done too much in the way of summer camps, but we have stayed busy this summer. We did our vacation to the Florida Keys and then John had VBS. We have sprinkled some art camps in there, and Tae Kwon Do twice a week. We have filled the other time with playdates and down days at home and trips to Oklahoma. The summer had flown by and it is hard to believe Kindergarten is around the corner.

New or Noteworthy: Matthew

Matthew Edition of New or Noteworthy:

1) Whining - whew, it is in full effect, with fake crying and everything. The whole package. awesome.

2) Fearless - his bravery is not new, but more than noteworthy! He keeps me on my toes and perched at all times.

3) Sleeping - he went through is first waking phase since he was a newborn. Guess I can not complain, he is almost 2.5. He would get up for several hours at night and just stand in his crib and call my name. Tried to let him fuss it out one night.... no go.... but it passed only after a week or so. not too bad.

4) Talking - he is at the stage that he has at least one new word every day. His other words are becoming more understandable. When we can not understand him, he says "I show you". :) He says a lot of the same things (and in the same way) that John does. Like, when you give him a choice of something (orange bowl or blue bowl) he will say "ummm probably....". Too cute. Some other favorite phases right now.... "I do it myself", "where bubba go?", "swim at our house?, "black iPad", When he counts it is "1, 6, 7, 8, 9 ,10".  He can say the ABC's, but at the end he says "now I know my ABCD's next time won't you...." His expressions are the most hysterical though, he cranks an eye brow or cocks his head just so, or narrows his eyes, I love it! When he really wants to tell you something, he looks right into your eyes and won't let you go until he has said his piece.

5) TV - he will watch a full show now, but that is about it. Not that I wish this to go away, but I have to say that those 20 minutes while I am trying to cook dinner is fantastic! 

Life is changing...

- John wants to go in the men's restroom now without me.

- The upstairs gate came down

That's it. But two big milestones if you think about it.

A Week In The Life: Saturday

6:15 -Bible study

7:00 - John is up coming from my bed....hmmmm....not real sure. I vaguely remember him getting in bed, but I must have been in a deep sleep. I just know that I was falling off a king sized bed and had to literally inch out from under him to get out of bed this morning.

7:15 - He helps me make pancakes then plays with bird puzzle things. I make the rest of the pancakes and get breakfast on the table. (Wheat pancakes)

7:45 - I go get Matthew, I like for breakfast to be completely ready for him or 90 % there, otherwise I have to do it with a very heavy toddler on my hip.

8:15 - Carl up, he gets coffee and watched fishing shows with the boys. Then they decide to "run from lasers" Oh my... THE SOUND EFFECTS... I have yet expressed the total amount of sound effects that go on in my house. The one word that I would use to describe my house with two boys is loud! On their own the boys go upstairs and we are not real sure what they are playing, but they are up there a long time without us. We were able to have coffee and sit in semi silence for a bit.

9:00 - I go upstairs and play with them a bit, and then get them ready for the day.

9:30 - I take MJ to the store with me (SO much easier with only one kiddo). John and Daddy play a bit and then they go out front and stain the garage doors. Our friend comes to borrow Carl's truck.

10:30 - (Target always seems to take 1 hour, if I go for a few things or 100 things). Unload the groceries while the boys play outside with Daddy. Then John, Matthew and I do outdoor chores for a bit and John earns $3. We are starting to have him earn money around the house to buy things he wants.

11:30 - The boys help me make lunch. They spread the PB and squeeze the honey, John picked lunch because it is soccer game day. They have grapes and trail mix too.

12:00 - MJ down for nap and John and I go into the media room to do Yoga. He does some of it with me and we talk and he plays around for a while. It was actually really effective and fun.

1:00 - shower and run to Kroger for the coaches gift cards (this is the last game and I was in charge of the cards)

1:30 - John and Carl head to soccer. I wake up Matthew 15 minutes later and we head that direction next. We get there just in time to see John kick it off. Matthew is pretty good during games to just sit in my lap and eat a snack, or play with the ball behind the parents. The Cobras win 4-3 against the sharks. The season before, the Sharks beat us like 10-2, so this was a huge win for us, and the Dad's knew it. :) I post two pictures of him actually on the field here. One where he looks like he is playing and one where he is dancing, truth be told, he floats around a little more than he plays....maybe the light bulb will come on next season.

3:00 - We head to a snow cone place with the whole team for the end of season party. Fun,but cold, what in the world?!?! It is MAY! The coaches gave them their trophies.

4:15 - home and I am preparing dinner while Matthew and John play with a pretend "monster gun" (cue sound effects). And play some random games in the living room.

5:15 - Eat dinner. The boys ate left overs from Pei Wei and I made summer veggies and chicken tostadas.

5:45 - unloaded dishwasher (I feel like I run this thing 3 times a day) and clean a bit.

6:00 - Carl goes back to Home Depot to gets glaze and finishes the garage doors. The boys wrestle in the living room. They love to rough house. I love those boys. Without a doubt, one of them gets hurt though. Matthew bumped his head on something and his new thing is to say that he needs "medicine" or a "band-aid". john very gently escorted him into the bathroom and found him a spider-man band-aid all by themselves. The pcitures below are the before and after.

7:00 - bath and bed, similar to every other night. :)

A Week In The Life: Friday

6:00am - Carl up

6:15 - I am up, coffee and bible study

6:30 - John up way too early. He knows that if I am still doing bible study that he needs to do his own thing. He chose ipad this morning.

7:00 - get dinosaur oatmeal ready.

7:15 - get MJ, eat breakfast while John teaches him how to play "rock, paper, scissors".

7:45 - Boys go upstairs and build a camp out while I blog

8:15 - I go upstairs and we play camp out for quite sometime. Roasting crafted marshmallows and everything. John has such an amazing imagination. John even teaches Matthew how to put the fire out when we you are done using it. (notice the colored Popsicle sticks are gone) :-)

Oh, and the pink line on the floor is duct tape. We used it as a balance beam in one of our obstacle courses we set up last week that also included a huge green duct tape hopscotch course. Love having a hidden upstairs playroom!

9:00 - Convince the boys to go downstairs with me to empty the toy box with me to see what old toys we can find. This is really trickery for me to organize the living room toys a bit. Literally for an hour and a half we pull everything out and they play with it all while I put things in piles and a secret throw away pile. They played with balls, remote control cars, dino and pig poppers, transformers, airplanes, etc.

10:30 - bug bites (graham crackers shaped like insects) and then some more coloring while I unload the dishwasher and blog.

Typically at this time we would be at swim school, but since John supposedly has pink eye, we stay home and are on lock down. I will have to do a separate blog about swim school, because it is fun.

11:15 - John requests Chick-Filet so he can collect the other cow comic books. I swing by to get cash to pay the lawn guy on the way home.

11:45 - lunch, blog, and a really messy child. Matthew won't eat the nuggets from chick filet, but he LOVES the Chick filet sauce....case in point.....

12:30 - nap, Carl comes home and goes running, I clean up and John plays in the living room.

12:50 - John and I go upstairs to finish our game of qwuirkle, we order his VBS characters he wants, make zoo cages out of legos, play with animals and get new songs on itunes. .

3:00 - wake up MJ. Go downstairs and the two of them start acting like every animal that John can think of, jumping, growling, crawling, slithers, running, biting, etc. They play with books and blankets and the leapster for a bit.

3:45 - snack (everything bagel with cream cheese and a smoothie) while I make a grocery list.

4:00 - Daddy is home again from work, we read books and do yoga and roughhouse and I start prepping dinner. John colors, I cook, Carl works and Matthew is exploring the pantry. These separate activities happen often

4:30 - new Doc McStuffins keeps their attention for a bit, while I clean and Carl works.

5:05 - Dinner (scrambled eggs, fruit, crackers, etc. for the boys and spinach and feta pie for Carl and I)

5:30 - bath

6:00 - I go running. Not sure what happened when I was gone, but there was a huge mess of cards and puzzles in the floor when I came back.

7:00 - I am back, we play a bit longer.

7:30 - bed for MJ. I keep forgetting to add that we do brush his teeth, but the boy will not spit! Still can;t do it. Guess we will be fluoride free for awhile.

7:45 - John's bed  time - In his prayer tonight he thanks God for healing is body so quickly. :)

8:00 - I start to organize and purge my closet. I know it is a big project, so I am going to try and tackle it a bit at a time. do some laundry, have some tea and watch some TV.

A Week In The Life: Thursday

6:00am - biblestudy

6:45 - get dressed

7:05 - John up, we chat, he plays on the ipad for a few minutes, I make french toast sticks (and prunes)

7:20 - get Matthew up, eat breakfast, more ipad (not for long, it is sounding like this is all they do), pack up for school and pick up the cleaners one last time.

8:40  - leave for school for John and gym for Matthew and I. Cleaners are here!!! WAHOO!!! Love this day!

9:15 - at the gym. I drop MJ off in the childcare center and we had arranged that two of his friends from school be there at the same time. He was happy to see Cage and Zachery.

10:45 - 12:30 - Matthew goes to Nana's for a little special one-on-one time and I....well...selfishly... go get a pedicure. :)

12:30 - hang out a Nana's for a few minutes, drop off dry cleaning, head up the school. I have decided at this point to let Matthew skip nap because it would be so short. There is an auction going on at school and it ends at 1:45. I feel the need to hover over my bid. Luckily, it was John's turn to play outside, so we watched him and all of his friends play on the playground, but he could not see us. I really enjoyed being a fly on the wall for the moment. :)

1:30 - others start to come hover as well. One lady is secretly bidding against me, but I see it. I squeeze in right behind her....she does it again.... I do it again... then BAM! I WIN! I bought us front row tickets to preschool graduation! (All proceeds going to turf on the big kids playground replacing the mulch. I have three more years vested there, I want Matthew to have that turf.... so I made it okay in my mind to spend what I did)

2:00 - too cold for the boys to run around again outside, so we head to Starbucks for a birthday cake pop and coffee for me.

2:25 - home and a little TV, but the boys are not interested (they really self regulate themselves with the TV). so we go upstairs and played Qwirkle! WAHOO! I try to get Carl to play this with me at night. I love this game. (we don't finish the game until Friday, so I will post a picture then). We all color and the boys crash into the bean bags several hundred times. I am not sure when this video was taken this week, but I am adding it here. Matthew counting....

3:15 - head to the dr. :( John has been complaining about his throat and cheek and now his eye has goop. sure enough. He has pick eye. AHHHHHH!!!! After the doctor (that was 30 minutes behind schedule), we go to the pharmacy, then to get Pei Wei for dinner, then back to the pharmacy for the prescriptions, then to the drive up Kroger gas station so I do not have to get the kids out of the car (did I mention it is like 40 degrees and raining) for Gatorade.

5:15 - Carl is home when we get here. We sit to eat. John hardly eats anything his throat hurts too bad. He is so sad. It is breaking my heart.

6:30 - I take MJ for a bath by himself while Carl lets John have some ice cream.

6:45 - John and I take a shower. In an attempt to not spread the pink eye, I did not want them to bathe together. We all sit around the living room and have our usual routine, but a little more calm today.

7:30 - Matthew up to bed.

7:45 - John to bed. Tonight he thanks God for the Doctors that heal our bodies! :)

A Week in the Life: Wednesday

2:00am - John came down because he wet the bed. Clean him up, put a diaper on and back in bed.

4:00am - John comes down again, I think his reason this time was because he was itchy. He has a lot of excuses that make no sense at all. Sometimes I just put him in bed with us, sometimes I take him back upstairs. I realize this is not consistent and we are just perpetuating the habit. He comes down at least once a week.

6:15 - Carl and I sneak out of bed. He gets ready and I do my bible study.

7:00 - Make the boys lunch (Turkey and cheese with no crusts, fruit, crackers and smoothie for John. Graham crackers and raisin for snacks).

7:25 - John up. Make breakfast, toast with cream cheese and jelly and mangoes. we talk about tornados versus hurricanes. odd. We flip through the fun run pics from the day before.

7:35 - Matthew up. Some of his first words in the morning are "snot mommy", "bubba?" "Daddy work" or "eat".

7:45 - the boys eat breakfast and watch Charlie and Lola and then Jo Jo's circus comes on. I am unloading dishes and end up having to turn off the TV because the boys are not eating. They finish eating, get dressed, chase each other and then ask for tattoos.

8:30 - start loading up, then head to school. John goes through carpool, and then I park and walk Matthew in his class. He leaps into Ms. Beth's arms.

9:00 - I try to go run a quick errand at the UPS store that ended up being a big bust. BLAH! So I rush back for Matthew's fun run.

9:30 - Back at school at the little kids playground with cameras ready. He has to wear the same size shirt as John wore, so I had to tie it up like a girl, so I put him in camo shorts to balance it out. :) He did do good. Just ran and ran, long after all the others were just playing on the playground (see bottom picture). He just kissed be goodbye like such a big boy.

10:00 - get home and blog about Sunday and Monday. only 3 days late. :)

10:40 - head to gym for a 11:15 Hot Vinyasa Flow yoga class that fills up real quick. I laid mats down for me and Marie (Cage's mom) so she can drop her infant off. I jump on the treadmill for a quick 10 minute warm up before class.

11:15 - 12:15 - Torture that I love. you sweat so much it literally feels like you are in the shower. I am addicted and wish I could go more than once a week.

12:30 - come home and finish up the twp blogs with pictures and videos.

2:00 - get kids from school. They love to run around outside in the empty space with Garrett and Logan and Logan's little brother Levi, this time Cage joined in too. You would think they had not just spent ALL day together. Matthew did not nap again. He has only napped 1 time at school, but they say he is quiet and will just talk with them while they eat lunch. They have to put his crib away from everyone else in the corner. :( They say he is happy and just talks to them, ask for bites of their lunch, asks for books or balls, etc. Stinker!

2:30 - A sucker when we get home (not sure why I agreed). They chased a little bouncy ball around for like 15 minutes straight then John asks Matthew if he can play by himself. So I take Matthew upstairs to change his diaper and burn a little time while John plays with his animals again downstairs. Matthew and I look through the fun run pics that I took of him. Then they have an everything bagel with cream cheese for a snack and I unload the their backpacks.

3:00 - Upstairs to play. John and I play 20 questions (his new favorite thing), the boys build a tower with the big blocks, they play with the piano thing that hooks to the TV. It is meant for toddlers, but I think John likes it more. The boys color a bit.

4:00 - Carl scares us, we did not hear him come inside. He takes the boys downstairs to show them the new swimsuits he bought them (I was not planning on buying new ones, as I have already bought a couple, and they do not need 14. love him! :)) Matthew and I play a bit longer.

4:45 - Carl works out, I cook dinner for the boys . The boys play in the living room with animals and blankets and Lego's and then on my bed.

5:15 - dinner. for the boys stuffing balls (diced chicken and stove top stuffing rolled into bite size balls), corn, oranges and crackers. I have a shakeology and Carl has leftovers from last night.

5:45 - head to soccer practice down the street at the park. LOVE THAT. All of the the boys except two he will go to kindergarten with, so that is awesome. John starts to complain about his ear hurting at practice. About 3/4 the way through practice and by the time we get home, he is in tears.

7:00 - home, ear drops and Advil for John. quick baths.

7:30 - bed for Matthew


8:00 - bed for John.

8:15 - I pick up the house because the cleaners are coming Thursday instead of Friday this week. I send pictures out to all of the Busy Bee parents of the fun run that day while we watch Survivor and Criminal Minds.

10:00 - off the bed.

A Week In The Life: Tuesday

6:45 - John comes down and wakes me and Carl up, apparently we slept through our alarms. We get up and I start prepping breakfast and we talk about the day and plays with toys.

7:15 - I go get MJ (I really have no idea what time he gets up or when he would get up, I normally just go get him when it is convenient for us, he never makes a peep. 2nd kid I guess). They eat breakfast (yogurt with cinnamon and sprinkles and a pear). I sit at the table with them and have coffee and say our prayer.

7:40 - John is drawing in his "forever book" (a binded book that I he only draws in every once in a while and I always put the date of the drawing and plan on keeping it forever) and Matthew is on the ipad. (After recording how much Matthew plays on the ipad this week, we decided we probably need to regulate his screen time). I make lunch for John (PB and honey, cantaloupe, goldfish and smoothie). We get dressed and play a quick game of greedy gator, pack up and then john teaches MJ how to sort the animals by color.

8:30 - Kathleen comes and John and I head out to school. Matthew loves Kathleen and he kisses us goodbye with a smile. I am not entirely sure what they did, but I know they went to the park, squirted bubbles with a squirt gun, sidewalk chalk and that he had macaroni and cheese and a hot dog for lunch.

9:15 - I go to the gym for a cardio workout.

10:30 - I went to Family Christian Bookstore to pick out my next bible study, as I finished my other one on Sunday. I also picked up 2 great books for the kids.

11:30 - I went to a friends house that had two babies sleeping but her school called and one of her kids had a fever so she had to go pick him up. I read a little bit while she was gone.

12:00 - I park in front of John's school because he is getting ready to do his Fun Run to earn money for the big playground to have turf. I do my bible study and then Carl pulls up next to me to surprise John too.

12:30 - Fun Run! The kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

Best Buddies (I can't get the picture any bigger for some reason)

1:00 - Home and let Kathleen go. Carl works out. MJ is napping. I run to the store, then prep dinner and do laundry.

2:45 - MJ wakes up. Nana picked up John from school today, so MJ and I go over there to play and pick him up. We all have snacks and chat and play for a bit. always a favorite thing and always hard to leave the fun!

4:45 - Home. boys play with Daddy and the marshmallow shooter that were in the surprise bag from Nana's and I get dinner on the plates.

5:20 - dinner. The boys had Rotisserie chicken, carrots and potatoes, and strawberries. Carl and I had the chicken and a orzo pasta salad with avocado, corn, tomatoes and black beans. It was good (it is on my pinterest)

5:45 - I go on a quick walk while the boys wrestle and play.

6:15 - the boys play, but I am not really sure what they did, because I fell asleep on the chair again. weird.

7:00 - Bath time, then they played follow the leader. Carl and I take turns showering.

7:30 - MJ picks the order of hugs and kisses and then we go up to read the new "The Toddler's Bible" I got him.

7:45 - teeth, potty, clean living room, to bed in time for book for John "Where is God?". John decided he wanted to try underwear again tonight, of course we said yes....

8:00 - movie night! Silver Linings Playbook. Not nearly as good as the book!

A Week In The Life: Monday

6:30 - Carl and I up

6:30 - I hear MJ, but hope he falls back asleep. I do bible study

7:00 - I start breakfast of dinosaur oatmeal.

7:15 - John is up and then I go up and get Matthew. The eat breakfast and play at the table (they can sometimes take up to 45 minutes to eat if I did not push them along). Then they play a bit in the living room with balloons and coloring. We start to get ready for the day.

8:20 - have a quick snack and then leave for the gym. Garrett and Elyse are also at the gym so they all have a fantastic time. Sometimes John will take Matthew into the toddler room so that "kids won't bother him" or "he won't get hurt", but most of the time, John wants Matthew with him. John also asks if they can dress the same on gym days so that the teachers know they "belong together". He is such a protective brother. With Elyse being there, she was all about taking care of Matthew. I wanted to take pictures of all the gym child care center because it is huge and the kids love it, but I was afraid they would make me stop taking pictures of other peoples kids. So this is how we found them after our "barbell strength" class.....love 'em all!

We stopped at the gym cafe to have a snack and talk about a plan for the rest of the day.

10:45 - We get home and Garrett and Elyse come over to play for a bit. The boys look at the fish charts, Elyse organizes all of the animals, they colored a bit, talked and played with balloons.

11:45 - John left with the Waters to go paint pottery.

Matthew and I played outside on the scooter for a bit and then came inside for lunch. PBJ and fruit.

12:15 - Nap. I cleaned up the house a bit then got in the shower and did my hair for our work dinner later that night.

1:45 - John gets home and has some cold pizza, strawberries and carrots for lunch. We sit and talk for a bit about the gym and the day.

2:15 - John has an incredible imagination and he plays with all of his animals with sound effects and voices and story lines. I fold laundry and watch.

2:30 - MJ up. We stay downstairs and John and I "exercise". I show him some yoga positions (which apparently he does at school and already knew some of them) and then he makes up some of his own. ("the double winged butterfly", "the rocking horse" and "the apple shrink"). All the while, Matthew is doing them with us or jumping jacks or acting like a robot "beep beep" or screaming the word "applesauce" (he does that a lot, for absolutely no reason)

2:50 - the boys go upstairs to play by themselves. They decide to make me "stations" of things I like to do. The only two stations we had time for were the exercise station (they had carried the 5lb weights and the push up bars into Johns room) and the coloring station. They also had a reading station set up.

3:45 - run to the store for some things for dinner and lunches for the week.

4:20 - play while I get ready. They played with balls and balloons and then they came into the bathroom with me. John pooped (takes a REALLY long time) and Matthew stood on top of his  potty seat and pretended to fish with his fishing pole.

5:00 - Kathleen gets here to watch the boys and Carl and I head out to a work dinner at Abacus. The boys do great. They hug and kiss us and tell us goodbye without any fuss at all! Dinner was amazing and I ruined every last ounce of working out that I had done for probably a week! I think I had like 6 courses.

10:45 - home. in bed. tired.