2/19/07 A holiday?

There is no such thing as a holiday for full-time moms. Today was very much like other days -- Dave even went into work!

But Julian went to Tonya's today, and all day. Whew.

Or was it really Julian? Dave dropped off Julian's evil twin, fussing and protesting as usual. But in the evening, Dave picked up a sweet, helpful, funny, generous, charming little boy handing valentines out. What happened?

Tonight was Spaghetti Night and Thomas Night, when the boys have to clean up the whole family room before watching their one half-hour of video a week. As per usual, they putzed around cleaning, and I had to set a time at which Thomas started. When that time is reached, I start the video and close the TV doors. They miss as much of it as the time it takes them to finish cleaning up. If they miss the entire half hour of Thomas, then they go up for bedtime without video, and the remaining toys in the family room go into the garage. They know this routine well, and miss the first part of Thomas just about every week.

Funny kid comment of the day, spoken while cleaning up the family room with Thomas playing behind closed doors, by Julian to Gabriel in what he thought was secret: "I don't like Mom!"

Last night, Katrina took what I thought would be a short nap, starting around 5pm. But she didn't wake up until **11:30** ! Was that a nap or a super-early bedtime? Answer: neither, because, not surprisingly, when she woke up, she was starving, then after nursing, she was in a fabulous, cheery, well-rested mood. I played with her a bit, gave her a bath, and wondered if I should have woken her up sooner. Mercifully, she went to bed at 12:30am, and woke up once more around 4am to nurse.

Tonight: same thing. I put her down around 5pm, when she was absolutely beside herself with eye-rubbing, swollen eyelids, a red raccoon mask around her eyes, crying, burrowing her head. I was expecting a short nap, but now, at almost 8:30pm, she's still asleep. But tonight, I'm waking her up before it's my bedtime. Come to think of it, her screaming, protesting, fighting brothers will probably take care of that during their chaotic bath-bed process.

Gabriel's pre-K was closed today, so I had him and Katrina all day. Not having to pick up Julian at 12:30pm allowed us to go to the Y after Katrina's morning nap, where I made the most of my 50 minutes. I almost looked forward to running on the treadmill. I never thought I'd say that.

Later in the afternoon, I had fun sitting down with Gabriel and playing Travel Blokus, a gift he got for his birthday (from the Engels, I believe!). It's a little more complicated than I thought, but to my surprise, he quickly understood the rules. He'd been playing with it on his own, by putting the square pieces down on the grid in various patterns, and I assured him there's no reason he couldn't keep playing with it like that. "You don't have to follow the rules if you don't want, Gabriel," I told him. He looked at me with wide, sincere eyes and said quietly, "No, I want to follow the rules." Silly me.

Chipping away at moving back in upstairs, half of which is done with one hand while I hold baby. It's going to take two carloadsful, of my substantial wagon space, to clear out the numerous bags of clothes I'm giving away. It reminds me of viciously pruning the roses yesterday, clearing out the undergrowth. Ahh.

2/19/07