Home Alone No More, Day Two

HA! What a terrific title. I'm on a roll! :-)

Today didn't go at all as planned. Actually, I don't know that we had any definite plans. Perhaps that's why it went the way went. In any case, it was GREAT. :-) I had no motivation today and felt like simply loafing. So aside from a little laundry, that's pretty much what we did. Katie woke up feeling a little sick and proved it about an hour later. Yuck. It's strange--our family used to never, ever get sick. Seems like it's come and gone a whole lot more around here the past year or so. Kate wasn't seriously sick (after that one episode), but she felt sort of puny and carried a bowl around all day just in case. She never get get out of her pj's.

We had devotions by a nice, warm fire this morning. I love that. :-) Afterward I read a few Pat McManus stories to the kids. I read "Two-Man Tent Fever" to them, Mom. They enjoyed it, but are still too young to fully grasp the hilarity of it all. They kept asking for more stories though, so I read the one about group terms (a gang of elk, a sloth of bears, a screaming meemie of snakes, a murder of wives), the one about the crouch-hop and other useful steps, and then "Never Cry Snake." Gotta bring the kid-o's up right. :-)

I felt it my duty to open my new puzzle from Mom today, so I made myself do it. :-) Katie and Joe wanted to try a new game they'd never played before, so I grabbed Scattergories. They LOVED it and we played through all 12 lists, then through all but one of the refill lists--that's 11 more! It probably took us close to two hours, but it just seemed like the thing to do. Nobody felt like school today, especially the Mom. It was cold and windy and snowy outside and it just FELT like it should be a game and puzzle day. :-) We even had some fantabulous snow cream. ~Aaaaaahhhhh~ What a great day!

I worked on my puzzle a little while this afternoon and am probably close to half done with it. It's a very fun one to do. As I was working on that the boys got to playing around with dart guns and whatnot, like they do every day. Before I knew it Sam had shot Joe square in the back of the head with his slingshot. It has heavy foam balls (better than rocks, at least!) that can't really do any serious damage, but it would definitely smart if you got hit full force. And we have a "no shooting in the head" rule around here for everything--darts, rubber bands, whatever. I did the dumb mother talk as I took the slingshot away: "How would you like it if I shot you in the head, Sam?" I confiscated the slingshot and told him he was done for the day. That sent him into urgent pleading, "Oh, please, Mom! Please--can't you just shoot me in the head and then give it back??? I promise I won't hit Joe again!" Ha! That kid kills me. Which reminds me. I forgot to write an update about his fears the other night. I had prayed with him and put him to bed, then went to bed myself. At about 1:00 in the morning a very groggy Sam appeared next to my bed. I asked what was wrong and he just said, "Thanks for the prayers, Mom. They seem to be workin' pretty good." Then he stumbled back to bed. Ha! Crazy kid. Thank the Lord for being good and answering our prayers, large and small. He is good to us. :-)

I made a GREAT dinner tonight: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, GREAT gravy (two times in a row!), and corn. We also had some homemade bread along with biscuits and cornbread from Cracker Barrel. Yum. Katie was feeling better this evening and her Dad commissioned her to make brownies. Everything about the meal was great. Except for the cardboard cut I got on the tip of my finger while opening the butter box. What kind of a nerd cuts themselves opening a butter box?! I didn't even know it was possible. But I've got a big, clunky band-aid on it right now and probably a plethora of typo's to prove it. Dumb.

I've been playing with a VERY hyper puppy tonight and I think he's finally ready to curl up in his bed and go to sleep. I talked to my final TAP leader tonight, so now I just have to call the fun time lady and I'm all set. I do need to go work on some retreat stuff now that everybody is bedded down. I love the quiet of the night. Well... except for the two different Cathedrals songs coming from opposite ends of the house--one from Kate's room and one from the boys'. Still, it's almost quiet. I also love the kid noises of the day, of course, and am thankful for them. But it does make studying rather challenging, so the night time provides opportunites that are nonexistent during the day. I'm going to go take advantage of them. G'night!