Last night was a pretty good sleep. None of the nocturnal happenings of the past few nights except the gymnastics by Emily. Kaitlyn decided that she wanted to sleep in her own bed since her room was tidy. I think she was trying to make sure Abigail didn't wander over to her things and start getting into her lip gloss. She did appear at some point in the night but as I have had the girls trained from birth to only disturb Daddy in the night I didn't know about this until I woke up in the morning.
As the week has rolled on we are getting up later and later in the morning. This morning we all kind of dragged ourselves about and I finally found myself standing on the doorstep yelling for Emily so she wouldn't miss her bus. The bus was waiting for her at the gate and she had to run across the lawn to catch it.
Abigail and I had errands to run after dropping Kaitlyn at school and we first went to the bank. I got her out of the car and realised that I had inadvertently dressed us in matching outfits. Now I am not at all the kind of person who likes to have people matching. I didn't like my sister and I matching when we were kids (mercifully it was not all the time) and I don't inflict such torture on my own children. I would be the mother who, if she had twins, would purposely dress them differently (especially if they were a boy and a girl). So you can imagine how I felt about parading through town looking for all the world like I had decided to have a 'mummy and me' dress-up day.
We went to the pharmacy and while we waited for a prescription we looked at the greeting cards. Abigail went up and down the aisle saying "what's that" and pointing to a card to which I would reply "its a card" and "its another card" and "oh that looks like a card". Finally she decided to move onto the pantyhose section but not without stopping to wave and chirp out a friendly "gudbye" to the other card shoppers (much to their delight).
It was a half day at school today for the older girls and Emily had a friend over for a play date just after lunch. I used to get all worried and stressed out when the girls had a play date. I would scurry around and make sure the house was in pristine condition and that there was nothing out of place. Then I would wonder what you were supposed to do as a mother host of a play date. Was I supposed to have an activity prepared for them to do? Was I supposed to play with them? What exactly was I supposed to do? Would the child go home and tell their parents that I was weird? Would they mention that the cupboard under the sink was untidy? Would they notice that I hadn't swept the front porch?
Well when Emily had her very first ever play date a while ago I found out in about 3 seconds that none of that mattered. Not only did the pair of them barrel into the house chattering non stop but they disappeared up to Emily's room before I could even get the front door shut and there they stayed for the entire play date having a grand time.
All my primping and cleaning and trying to figure out if they'd like to bake cookies meant absolutely nothing. I'm not sure if she went home and told her parents that I was weird or not but they did ask Emily over for a play date later on so it can't have been that bad.
So this time I made sure things were in a reasonable state and I was happy that the floor of Emily's room was totally visible but apart from that I was happy to let them play and tried to keep the baby from disturbing them too much.
Later for dinner I made a very simple version of nachos and I opened a large can of black olives as part of the dish. I put them in a small bowl and thought we could put the leftovers in the fridge. Apparently the Italian part of my children's genetic makeup is very strong because that whole can of olives was completely devoured in the space of about 5 minutes. I ate one of them but the rest the kids polished off. I'm not quite sure how Italian it is to put one on the end of each finger and bite them off and I'm not sure how they act on the digestive system but I guess I'll find that one out by tomorrow since the older girls saw fit to help the baby enjoy her own stash of olives.
Both older girls had showers before bed and as soon as I mentioned the word 'bath' to Abigail she was running for the stairs trying to wrestle herself out of her clothes yelling out "I stinky" at the top of her lungs. It was a busy day for her and unfortunately she didn't get a nap at all so she happily went to bed early tonight.
Emily and Kaitlyn are now sleeping peacefully in my bed after nearly starting world war 3 over who was leaping about and who was sleeping in the wrong place. Have I mentioned how much I love melatonin at bedtime?
The state of the house has diminished a few points over the course of the day but I struggle to find the strength to care about it.
I mentioned to Kaitlyn that we would be having dinner with friends soon and she got all excited and said "I'm going to go and practice my manners then". I really hope she does remember them, she is most likely of all my children to announce the fact that she is using a manner at the dinner table. For example she would be highly likely to say "I'm just putting this carrot on the side of my plate because Mummy told me if you don't like something on your plate you should just put it on the side and not say 'yuck, I don't like carrots'". By the way she does like carrots.
I noticed as she was going to prepare for bed that she was carrying around a Pilates mat. It's a child's version of a grown up one that she got as part of a play set. Anyway, she proudly announced that she was going to set it up beside the bed just in case she woke in the night and felt like doing some stretches. I have no idea what goes on inside that head of hers but it sure is random and amusing when she gives us a glimpse inside.
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