Random and Rambling

This week has been one of 'those' weeks. The kind where we seem to be going non-stop forever. That partially explains the lag in my posting I guess.

Today we took Sir to work and then came home before heading off again. We had just enough time to re-pack the diaper bag, switch reading card sets, and turn the bird light on downstairs. Then it was off to the Public Health for Emma's latest round of shots. She did very well, and has stabilized on the 10 percentile line of the growth charts. For a while she had been following a downward curve that the doctors didn't like and it resulted in lots of extra tests and doctor visits, but I think we're out of the woods there now. We have two more doctor visits week after next and then I believe we're good to go until Emma hits the 1 year mark.

After we left the P.H. unit, we stopped by a Mac's corner store and the kids picked out a Gatorade and chocolate bar to go with the pizza we were having for lunch. We ate at home, and everyone was finished in decent time so we had time to tidy up the house before naps. Recently, Dolly has been skipping her afternoon nap in order to help her sleep better at night, but I was tired today and everybody was going to have a nap. While we were tidying up, I got lost thinking.

I spent the better part of an hour managing me times three - well, at least in my head. It was more like a memory game than a management game, but it might help if I explained it a little. I started out with me. There's only so much I can do at once, and there's always much more that needs to be done, so while I helped and directed the kids in clearing their bedroom floor, I had 'me' emptying the dishwasher in the kitchen. Now, I guess 'I' would be 'me #1' and the 'me' in the kitchen would be 'me #2', but here's where the management part comes in, I have to mentally empty the dishwasher in a realistic amount of time and plan out the next job for 'me #2' all the while not forgetting about 'me #3' who I'd assigned to folding the laundry in the living room. 'Me #1' is easy enough, because that's what actually gets done, but 'me #1' gets sidetracked changing dirty diapers and blowing noses and fixing princess crowns. I had lots of fun while I vacuumed this afternoon because since I was in all parts of the house the jobs were just jumping out at me right and left. Once 'me #2' was finished unloading the dishwasher she could reload it and hand wash the things that needed hand washing while 'me #3' was then putting the folded laundry away before proceeding to dust my bedroom and then the rest of the house. By then I was helping Dolly in the bathroom and then I had to nurse Emma, but somebody had to clean the bathroom and bring in the mail and since I really wanted to post today I had a 'me' doing that and a 'me' putting the older kids to bed, and a 'me' soaking my foot and a 'me' taking a nap. And by then I was actually getting my kids to bed for real and soaking my foot for real and was too tired to keep playing my mental game and so finally took a nap for real.

And then I woke up from my nap in shock because my kids were being exceptionally good. They had woken up before me, but instead of making lots of noise, or waking Emma up, or barging into my room to find me, they were silently standing at my door watching me! I rolled over to wait out the last minute and a half before the alarm went off and they disappeared to the living room where I found them peacefully standing side by side on the couch watching the 5 o' clock traffic go by.

So, we grabbed some more reading cards, put our shoes and socks on and headed off to pick Sir up from work. And now I should go because there's all the work that my imaginary 'me''s left undone for real that still needs to be done, and since there's not very much time before I should be sleeping, I have to carefully chose which things are highest priority. And I should really go before I let myself ramble on for another six paragraphs - I'm in a rambling mood tonight. Maybe some of it will end up in another post when my wits are a little more collected!