Last Weekend

A friend asked how my weekend was. The question caught me off guard, and I had no response. I am happy to say that after some pondering, I managed to figure out where at least some of the time went. This is taken from my response to her.

Last weekend was good. Lazy, but good. On Saturday morning, Jeff and Ree ran errands. While they were gone, I attacked Mt. Laundry and did puzzles with Leon and Michael at the dining room table while attempting to wrangle Natalia away. Jeff and Ree got back a little after ten ("morning" in our house is defined as about 6-9am). Jeff then took the three big kids to my parents' house where they could play while he watched soccer. While they were gone, Natalia and I took a long walk in search of yard sales. The yard sales were all over long before we arrived, but we did scout out a park not too far from our neighborhood that just opened. We will definitely have to go back and play. When we got back to the house, I took a shower while Natalia dutifully trashed the bathroom. She also found every bath toy in the house and launched them into the shower. (I really need to teach her to shout, "Incoming!" or something. After the first few hits, I got much more adept at hearing the shower curtain rustle and dodging the flying boats.) Jeff brought the big kids home, and then he took off for a soccer clinic around 12:30. I fed 'em all lunch, and we all went down for naps. I actually got to sleep for over an hour. Crazy! We have been trying a lot of new recipes lately, and for dinner, I managed to find an awesome recipe for stir-fried chicken and broccoli. I let the kids play outside after dinner, and I felt horrible when I realized I had no idea when I last took them outside to play. It's been a LONG time.

Sunday morning Ree and I went to the grocery store to pick up stuff on sale this week and to a party store to get stuff for her birthday party. (She is having a luau-themed party with a small group of friends from preschool and kindergarten. I am very excited about her birthday cake. We shall see if my version even remotely resembles that.) Jeff left for soccer again at noon. Although the kids tend to be too wired to nap on Mommy Days, they managed to take naps again on Sunday. Even Ree slept, and I managed to work out while the house was quiet. I tried another new recipe for dinner, and it was not that great. (I seem to be having one great experience and one "eh" experience a weekend with new recipes.) It stormed all afternoon, so playing outside after dinner was not an option. So, instead of getting exercise and fresh air, I took the kids to Dunkin' Donuts for dessert. (I had planned on taking them for ice cream, but Michael always picks donuts over ice cream, and in the scheme of things, donuts are much cheaper and probably less sugar since they are each only allowed to eat one. At least that is what I tell myself while licking the icing crumbs off my fingers.) Sunday night I actually remembered it was a school night (I've been having trouble with that on Sunday), and I got the kids AND me to bed on time.

Monday was my super mommy errand day. I took Leon, Michael, and Natalia to Dollar Tree, the library, a hippie grocery store, and to Walmart, and was back home by a little after noon. It was all good except Walmart which was, well, Walmart. But that is to be expected, I suppose. After that it was time to make lunch for the kids, pick up Ree from the bus, and hide and work since I work a half day from home on Monday. And another week of life began...