October 22

Today was... I don't know. Today was a day, and it's over, and I'm glad. The kids were fine, they all napped, I even got some alone time in the kitchen with a cup of hot coffee and a homemade cinnamon roll (courtesy of my MOPS mentor, Liz) while the kids slept. 

Then I had a temper tantrum at dinner time because there is always junk all over my floor because we have way too much stuff and my children like to just leave things on the floor instead of putting them away. It culminated in me accidentally knocking a jar of salsa off a shelf in our pantry (which is obnoxious and disorganized and a whole other problem). The glass shattered and the salsa splattered and it was all a disaster.

Thankfully, my husband is a saint. He calmly stepped in and cleaned things up while I sat down and ate dinner and the kids - all on their own! - apologized and thanked me for dinner and prayed for me and  came up with plans for how they could help keep the house clean.

They may be irresponsible and treat their possessions poorly, but they are sweet sometimes. 

But much too soon dinner was over and Chris and Caleb headed off to Boy Scouts, leaving me alone with the little ones. Again. 

It was Caleb's turn to bring snacks; do you remember the spooky juice pouches we decorated over the weekend? Today we also made ghostly chocolate-dipped pretzels. (Luckily, Caleb and I made them right when he got home from school, before I had my temper tantrum.) Caleb actually helped me make all of them, and he was so excited to share them with his friends! We had a few extras, so the girls got to sample them, too.

Boo!

They were delicious. When Caleb came home, he informed me that his friends all liked the pretzels, and that one dad was scared because the juice pouches were so scary. Ha!

While the big boys were gone, Daisy held story time in Eli's room.

She is preparing to read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Then she realized that she didn't really know the story well enough to retell it, and she can't read. Oops. But she did really well holding the book up and showing the pictures!

Overtired, crabby Eli definitely enjoyed his sister's reading.

Why was he overtired and crabby? I tried to put him down before the boys left, but Daisy and Lily were running up and down the hall screaming and he couldn't fall asleep. Also, he's a jerk and won't sleep in his crib at  night, no matter how tired he is or how hard Mommy tries.

This was when I finally got the girls down and I could fully attend to Eli again. He was beyond done at that point. Poor baby. He may also be crying because I was trying to see if he could stand when I propped him against his crib, and he could! But then it's possible that I might have turned to grab my phone to take a picture and while I was turned he may have fallen and bonked his lip.

Theoretically. 

But hey! Gross motor milestone! One more thing to check off on my Ages and Stages Questionnaire for his 9-month checkup next week.

And now he's asleep in the Ergo with Daddy. 

Also, hi Jen! Thanks for faithfully not stalking my blog. Love you, and all of my other devoted readers! Do you know that in just over a month, I will write my 2,000th post? I think a celebration is in order. Let's brainstorm.