May 27

It is my 17th day being dairy-free.

It was another day of highs and lows. 

My husband is at the baseball game, and I handled dinner, bathtime, and bedtime all by myself.

I need a drink.

I may have already had a margarita.

I realize that single moms and women whose husbands travel do this all the time, but let me tell you: running the house with four children all by myself is hard work. I started the day with high hopes and lots of patience, but by dinnertime, my stock of patience was all gone.

We started the morning right, though. Before Chris left for work, he made the kids his specialty pancakes: grain-free peanut butter banana chocolate chip. While we were eating breakfast, Daisy drew this:

She said, "Mommy! I wrote your name!" Later she added "Baby Daisy" to my arms, and feet with six toes each. But I was overwhelmed by the fact that my barely-four-year-old is already writing words all by herself. I can't even begin to express how exciting it is for me to watch my children learn to read and write.

After breakfast, we went to the chiropractor. This Friday will mark six weeks since I broke my leg, and it is supposed to be healed. But I've still been having significant pain, and my chiropractor confirmed today that my pelvis is rotated from limping, there is still swelling at the injury site, my pain seems to come from the fracture and not the surrounding muscles, and (per her "tuning fork") my bone is still broken.

Boo, I say.

But she did some ultrasound on my leg, which helped quite a bit. And I am feeling closer to normal today, so I'm going to say that I am on the road to recovery. It's just not a road that ends after six weeks, apparently.

After the chiropractor, we stopped at another new park (our second so far this summer), and then visited the library. Each kid got to check out three books, plus one book at Caleb's reading level. We also chose a movie for tomorrow - Movie Day!

When we returned home, it was nearly lunch time and definitely snack time. Lily was in rare form today, screaming at the drop of a hat. The whole way from the park to the library, she screamed and cried for a snack. Every time she cried, I said, "Lily, I have an apple. Would you like an apple?"

"NO! NO-EEE!"

repeat.

She's not even two, but she is already showing me where the "terrible twos" came from.

When Lily woke up from her (much too short) nap this afternoon, we snuggled on the porch swing. It was so sweet, but the moment I pulled out my camera to document the sweetness, she looked like this:

Can you tell she's shouting, "NOOOOO!"?

Poor Eli doesn't know what to think.

Right after this, Caleb told me that my arms look chubby. We had a talk about how it's fine to call babies chubby, but grown-ups feel sad when you call them chubby, so we shouldn't do that.

 But he's right; my arms do look chubby. I blame it all on my stupid fibula.

Then, while I made dinner, Lily did this:

Aren't her little toes adorable?

Dinnertime involved screaming, too. Daisy  didn't want to eat, Eli was hungry and tired, and Lily kept pushing her chair back from the table, then screaming because she couldn't reach her food. 

Bath time and bedtime were similar. It has been a rough day, and I am so glad it's over!