Keeping It Real

Today was one of 'Those Days'. You know the kind you wish you could rewind, or start over, or skip entirely. The kind of day you don't want to repeat anytime soon. 

 It began with the child responsible for making breakfast wouldn't get out of bed. Finally, he got out of bed and immediately went outside to take care of his farm chores, but got sidetracked by the basketball hoop and sucked his brothers in to his game of PIG. 

I love to see these relationships grow and I am guilty of taking over their chores so that they will have time to develop their friendships with each other. I made breakfast. At breakfast, Liberty pushed herself out from the table and the chair got stuck somehow and cracked one of the bracing for the chair legs.  I then corralled the Erik and Ian for our Skype Math Lesson. I am loving teaching another student and have found myself more prepared and like the accountability with both my time and my attitude. 

Little Miss Independent

 I am enjoying the fact that the math lesson does not drag on for hours or even days. I digress, My boys were irritated that they are having to perform in front of one of their friends, and that sometimes they are not the best, or they have to work a little harder than the next person.  Aaron was fascinated by the Skype and wanted to stay as close to us as possible. This does not work when you are quizzing a 6 year old on her math facts. He then got extremely offended when I asked him to take it somewhere else!
We moved on to circle time and I had this great game "Nine Men's Morris" that we were supposed to play, it went along with the time period we are studying. I set my coffee down and went to get the game off of the counter. In that time, Ruby climbed up on the cabinet grabbed a toy, got her foot stuck in the piano cord, knocked my coffee flying (there was coffee on the ceiling) smacked the hermit crab tank and fell into a chair, knocked it over and started crying. I calmly left the room, then told Liberty to leave me alone when she followed me into my room. After dropping to my knees, crying and praying for the strength to raise these children in the admonition of the Lord, I returned to find all the bickering, bad attitudes, and coffee (except what is still on the ceiling), cleaned up and the children reading and playing the game. So much more effective than if I had yelled at them.

Erik, Taylor and Aaron September 2005

I made lunch, we had our reading tutor come,(while I was occupied the little ones dumped the entire Rubbermaid bin of Playmobile, and disassembled a majority of the 39,000 tiny pieces)  then a friend who is trying to train her dog around children came over. In between making a new recipe for dinner, helping the children behave appropriately around the dog, and keeping Liberty off the counter, I placed a hot 11 X 17 Pyrex in my sink and it exploded! tiny shards of glass were mostly contained in the sink and nobody was hurt. But I am out my best fudge pan! 

I got the Ox Tail Soup in the oven, got my Pioneer Woman Crush Potatoes Ready, and the Caramelized Winter Vegetables all ready.  We had Turnips, Pearl Onions and Daikon. 

Surprisingly what took me 4 hours this afternoon to prepare was not nearly enough food for the family. 

Liberty spilled her water, in it's entirety, in my lap. Erik and Ian detested the potatoes, Sean asked for more, and Taylor asked to be excused! 

I heated up some Pioneer Woman Chicken Tortilla Soup and on my way to the table, spilled it all over. As I was cleaning it up, Sean asked for a spoon and crackers. I jokingly called him My Lord, and the name stuck.
 

Ian, September 2005

I felt like pouting like Ian in this picture! We are not a clean your plate club type of family, UNLESS, you make some snide, rude or otherwise ungrateful comment about what we are eating. Tonight we had 3 that had to finish their meals. We won the meanest parents ever award. What made it even worse was that Liberty and I had made Ginger Cookies tonight and they were fresh from the oven, waiting for those that were thankful for their dinner.
I finally sat down to register for a class that is going to keep me updated on my CEU's for both my Childbirth Educator Certification and my Doula Certification. The deadline to enter was today and thankfully I made the deadline, but I had to laugh at my confirmation code: Regionalass. Thanks. I think that pretty much sums up my day. What about you, how was your day?