the sleppys

Today was a great day. One of the best days we’ve have in a really long time. The kids were a little late in their morning routines, but “Little Einsteins” comes on twice on the weekends, so they caught the last half-hour show. Dad got ready to go to work – turned out that one person cancelled and another didn’t show up, but he and his business partner got a lot of paperwork and little tasks done, so it evens out, I suppose.

Well, the kids and I went to the library. We went for storytime. Afterward, they saw an old Disney “Silly Symphonies” movie titled “The Flying Mouse.” The mouse wishes he could fly, attempts to fly, saves a butterfly who is actually a fairy, gets his wish, realizes that his new bat-like wings are scaring his family and are a magnet for real bats, regrets his wish, butterfly/fairy revokes his wish, goes back to being a wingless mouse, the end. (Sort of off topic: Ty has been reading up a storm lately. He sits at the dining room table and reads the “Reader 1″ books that we borrowed from the library. Each book has a theme and a letter sound that is practiced by the reader. Three-letter words and an occasional five-letter word make the book easy to memorize – for parents who are washing dishes while the boy reads the book aloud. He has already read, with help, four books: The short “o” and “u,” “h” and “s.”).

We came home to watch “The Magic Schoolbus ‘For Lunch.’” Twice. The kids fell asleep, and Dad and I played chess. We each won a match (I won on a technicality) and thought that the avocado that was purchased today was not ripe enough to make guacamole. It’ll be better tomorrow anyway.

I really liked that we got to hang out together, in the house – not tucked away in our room or in the office – in the peace and quiet. It was like being on a date (then Taylor woke up toward the end from a nap). We haven’t had a date in months, and before that, it was a year.

The boys woke up. We took our afternoon stroll in the neighborhood later than usual. I made them a quick dinner, and we ate pretty peacefully. Had dessert. Played with some jigsaw puzzles in the bedroom for almost an hour. Dad went to bed at about 9:30, and we stayed up to watch Great Balls of Fire. That Jerry Lee Lewis sure can play the pian-a. It’s past 11, and I’m falling asleep as I type.

I think the kids may be affected by the time change differently than the adults around here.

Overall, it was a nice day, not too hot, a little cloudy, rained some, read books, played games – oh yea! I started teaching Ty play chess. He was more interested in making his pieces behave like a real horse and a real king, et cetera, but it looks like he understood how to set up a chessboard. We’ll just have to practice. So we had a lot of educational and bonding activities today. I enjoyed it very much.

AND we played with homemade play dough – made with real flour, water, and food coloring. Golly gee, what a busy day – but so relaxing! *ahhhh* Of course, no housework got done, but WHO CARES!! Life is for living, not cleaning.

After a morning of doing basically nothing and a little housecleaning, the kids and I got ready to go to the mall. We would normally go to the playground, as I’ve mentioned before, but it gets really hot in South Florida around the summer time – duh. So we hung out at the play area where some of the girls there were enamored with Taylor. Their moms kept telling them, “Go play with the other girls,” (my boys are mistaken for girls because of their long hair). One little girl had snot running down into her lip. I kept pulling her away from Taylor and telling her to go to her mom to get her face and hands cleaned. I looked up to get her mom’s attention, but Mom was busy talking and ignoring her daughter. I wanted to pick the girl and take her to her mom, but you can’t do that in this town because people will mistake that for either a kidnapping attempt or, worse, your telling them how to rear their own child. The saddest part was when the mom wanted to leave, told the little girl to get her shoes on, but the girl didn’t listen. So, well, that would frustrate any parent, I understand. Then the mom grabbed the girl’s shoes, tried to get the girl to walk with her, but the girl wanted to sit. So the mom ended up carrying the girl by ONE arm. Unless my kids are in danger of being run over by a car and I have a kid in my other arm, I never carry kids by one arm. That’s just rude. And the poor girl also let out a cry. I thought the mom would stop, but she continued dragging the child a few more steps, until I interfered with my Army voice, “Excuse me!”
“Eh?” She had such an innocent look on her face.
“You’re not allowed to do that in this country.”
“Eh?”
“I see you doing that again, I’ll be forced to notify the authorities.”

Thank heavens for body language and tone of voice. For some who didn’t understand English, she sure got the message loud and clear.

We sat down at the food court for a raisin and Cheerios snack. I didn’t pack the kids’ bowls, so I went to the Subway and asked for a couple of their disposable bowls. The lady was about to give them to me, but her manager started mumbling something…
Mumble mumble mumble mumble. They looked up at me. I’m like, “Yea?”
“Rocoto moroto panales tutanes,” said the manager lady to me.
“And in English, that means…?”
“We hab to pay you por de plates de soup.”
I laughed out loud. I mean, I didn’t mean to, but it was just so funny! “You mean, you have to charge me for the bowls of soup… yes?”
She nodded.
“You’re never going to prosper without learning English.”

The boys napped in the car, and we got to my piano lesson just a little bit late – I thought they could use a few more napping minutes. They were introduced to Mrs. Milian and her three kids, a girl and two younger boys. Kyle sucked his thumb and was shy the first half-hour, but he slowly got acquainted and decided that it’s more fun to play than to sulk. Ty was having trouble with the Lincoln Logs, with which he had never played before. The nanny came in with take-out, whole, organic grains and vegetables. yum! All the kids ate and made a mess, a grainy mess of rice all over the floor, but the family was in the process of moving, so there was no furniture to have to move around or rugs to vaccuum to get the rice picked up.

Mrs. Milian’s two older kids got their piano lessons in, which was pretty amazing due to all the noise that was going on, but the kids paid good attention. Ty and Kyle hung out with the youngest boy, who will turn five in November. Ty turns four in November, so they hit it off well. The oldest, a girl, played with Taylor. It was over-all a fun time. We got home a little later than expected, but that was because the kids (and adults) were having such a blast.

The boys had dinner and dessert, brushed their teeth, and cleaned up their room for bedtime. Ty read half of his book, then started acting tired. Kyle played with his new sloth that his new friends gave him, and Ty couldn’t go to sleep without his dolphin that was also given to him by his new friends. Taylor nursed to sleep, and the boys didn’t stop stepping out of their room (”I’m thirsty. I need to pee.”) until well past 10. I read an American history textbook. Dad watched TV. Ty woke up in a cry, saying that he was cold, at 11pm. I was falling asleep, and his cry woke me up. After that, I fell asleep. Totally zonked.
At 3am, Kyle woke up crying. He likes to walk into the living room and finish sleeping on the couch. So I let him. At 6am, Taylor woke up to eat. And I stayed awake…
And at 7am, the whole thing started all over again.

At least we take breaks from 10-noon, then it’s non-stop until 10am again.

Doing nothing is a lot like doing something, especially when it’s tiring. Maybe you don’t know what I mean. Yesterday, we took the day off from doing anything. I decided to clean house. I made a list of chores and was really amped to get things done. Then Ty needed his hair brushed. Kyle wanted to play with Taylor. Taylor has been eating more solids (breads, mainly), so her diaper was insanely nasty – as opposed to the nice, gooey, rice-smelling breastmilk poop. They boys couldn’t decide what movie to watch. The bread needed to start being made. The dog came back inside with muddy paws. Nobody wanted to color or do any homeschooling work.

Of the twenty things I had to do, I only dusted the light diffuser in the living room. And that took twenty seconds! *forehead slap*

Dad came home later than he said he would, and he was in a pissy mood. “Waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting all day long. I’m tired.” Okay. So we left the house so that he could recuperate and headed to Publix to buy disposies for Kyle. There’s a Tae Kwon Do institute in that strip mall, and I’m always encouraging Ty to get into the martial art. As we passed it while on our way to the grocery store, I pointed to some big kids in their smart uniforms and to some other kids spinning the bo around, which intimidated Ty some so he pretended to ignore them (but I could see his interest when his head turned to get a second look). Diapers were purchased. On our way back to the car, Kyle pointed to a flag that was hanging off of a bicycle.
“That’s the Cuban flag,” I informed him. Then some old dude approached the bike and put the flag in his hand, “Cuba?” he asked.
“Yea, Cuba.” I know my flags.
“Yes, Cuba good,” he said in broken English.
“Oh yea?” I hmph’d. “Sure, Castro is the man.”
“Yes, yes,” the man smiled. Maybe he didn’t know what I was talking about. People ought to learn English – even if they LOVE Cuba.
Off to the library… except we weren’t allowed in: It was closing. Then we went to the mall across the street. I was hoping that the running around in the play area of the mall would tire the boys. We got home at 7 pm, and I started dinner. This is later than usual, but yesterday was not a usual day. Needless to say, the boys were NOT tired – even though Ty was beet red from running 100+ laps and Kyle perfected his running stride in the play area. Yappa pa yappa pa yappa pa from the boys all through dinner.

I fell asleep on the couch at 9 pm, and the kids were still up. The boys went to sleep a little while later, and Taylor stayed up until 10:30 pm making noise with her maraca toy, which annoyed Dad. I nursed her twice to fall asleep. And Dad and I finally got to bed at 11 pm. I usually wake up at 6:30 am, but I ignored my alarm and got out of bed at 8 am. AT EIGHT!!! I better get something done today.

I’m going to take a picture of this lemon-garlic hummus I made. Dad gave me verbal instructions this morning on how to make this hummus. But giving me verbal instructions is a sure-fire way to get me to forget whatever it is you’re telling me. So he called just a few minutes ago and gave me instructions again.

Totally should take a picture. Extravagant. Very lemon-garlic-y.