A Day in the Life...

Ever had one of those days where you take one step forward only to take two steps back? That's what my days felt like this week... the good news is that my older two have been playing very well together, so well that I haven't felt the need to go to playgroup or find a play date to get us all out of the house. They've enjoyed playing their various pretend games in one section of the house, while I was able to work on something productive in a different part. My feeling of success was often short lived as I would later discover the mess involved in their pretend games...



One day I was able to clean the upstairs while they played nicely downstairs. Turns out they had invented a game they call "junk". Playing junk kept them occupied for a good 30-40 min while they took toys from the toy room and hid them under the table in our entry way. Seems innocent enough, till I go downstairs to take a look under that table. It took over an hour of my undivided attention to get them to clean up from junk as they took the toys one at a time back to the toy room.

During another afternoon, the kids were playing a game they called "monster truck" in which they were jumping off the toy box and crushing an empty water bottle. This too appeared harmless,so I went off to do other things. Then I heard, "OK you jump on the banana and I'll crush the bottle" I looked over just in time to see an already partially smashed banana on the floor which I prevented from being completely mashed into our carpet.

Yesterday I was putting away laundry (a rare accomplishment in my house) while the kids were playing in their room. Since I didn't hear any screaming, crying, or fighting, I assumed they were ok. Turns out they are playing "Shower" which is a new game that involves taking all the blankets, pillows and stuffed animals off of their beds and putting them on the floor while they stand half naked on their beds pretending to take a bath. Nice.

While we finally had some warm, spring like weather here this week, it wasn't exactly swim suit weather. No problem, they dived off of the toy box and went "swimming on our floor."



Today I let the kids float corks in a bowl of water on our deck. Needless to say this quickly turned into a splish splashy mess. I realized they were involving our baby in this mess, when I heard "Let's baptize her." I looked over to see them cupping their hands with water and pouring it over her head. I quickly put a stop to this. Meanwhile our baby was releaved that we are Presbyterian, thus saving her from having been dunked.

So, while I am grateful my kids have an active imagination and are learning to play well together, I now need to work on getting them to more quickly clean up the mess they leave behind.

Oh, and one more.....

Yes, that's milk that my daughter poured all over my couch. Nice, huh?