March 18

Allow me to recap our spring break activities so far:

Butterfly House and carousel with Daddy

spend the day with Grandma

Botanical Garden and a visit to Daddy's office

Today's activity? Screen day. As I planned the week, I knew that I would need a day of rest. I also knew that, since most of our activities were in the morning due to the girls' naps, Caleb would be at loose ends in the afternoons. When he's bored, his default is to pester me about watching TV or playing a video game. In order to prevent that, I scheduled a screen day, during which he could watch as many movies and play as many video games as he wanted.

When I told Caleb, his jaw dropped and he looked at me in disbelief.

"All day?"

Yes, dear. All day.

But before we could get started with the screen time, we had to take Lily to the chiropractor and stop at the grocery store. Daisy held Eli for me while I got dressed:

This little girl loves her baby. The other day, she was keeping him company while I took a bathroom break. He began crying, so she sang to him. Her song? "Daisy, Daisy." (Which I just googled, and learned is actually called "Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)".) Only she changed "Daisy" to "Eli", and it was the sweetest thing ever.

I love this.

Today was Lily's fourth visit to the chiropractor in an attempt to help her ears drain the fluid that keeps accumulating there. She was pretty uncooperative for her first three visits, but she was a rock star today!

On our way home, we stopped by the grocery store. Eli is seven weeks old today, but it was the first time for me to take all four children into a store by myself. Given their behavior yesterday, I was concerned. Heck, given their behavior at the chiropractor's office, I was concerned! Normally I would skip it and go to the store after all of the children were asleep, or just take Eli with me. But I offered to bring a meal to a friend who just gave birth to twins, and I had to pick up some last-minute items. So. Four children to the grocery store.

We rocked it.

I wore Eli in the ring sling, Daisy and Lily rode in the kid cart, and Caleb walked beside us. We definitely got a lot of second glances, but they were all approving glances. My kids were little angels. Hooray!

Once we got home, we began Screen Day in earnest. The three big kids climbed into my bed to watch Cars.  After a lunch break, Daisy and Lily went down for naps and Caleb played Lego Star Wars on the Wii. After an hour of that, I sent him to the basement to ride his bike for thirty minutes before he came back up to play MarioKart. Then it was dinnertime, and jammie time, and book time, and bedtime, so the Screen Day was really not as big of a deal as we made it seem. Still, I think Caleb was satisfied, and it gave me time to cook the meal for my friend.

On my way home from delivering said meal this evening, I stopped by Target. I always have to peruse the baby section, and today I spotted an absolutely adorable raincoat.

It just happened to be in Lily's size.

Just last week, as I walked Caleb to the bus on a rainy morning, I realized that Caleb and Daisy have rain coats, but Lily didn't.

Now she does.

I brought it home and showed it to Lily and she just stared, wide-eyed. 

I asked if she wanted to try it on, and she silently, seriously nodded at me with those big brown eyes.

I asked if she wanted to go look in the mirror, and she immediately turned and ran down the hall. As she ran, she called, "Day! Day!" She wanted her big sister to see her new rain coat.

When Lily returned, I asked if she wanted me to take her picture. Again with the silent, serious nod. 

And then she refused to take her coat off until bedtime. Do you see her purple fleece footie jammies underneath? It cracks me up. 

Of course, then Daisy came out, asking about her new rain coat. I explained that she and Caleb already had rain coats, but Lily didn't, and Daisy began rambling about how if they had size three and a half rain coats, I should get one for her...

And then, bedtime. Chris wore Eli while he read stories and put the kids to bed. What a good Daddy he is!