The Day After Mother's Day

Let me just start off by saying that I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. On Saturday I slept in, was cooked for, wore a beautiful Mother's Day crown, was given lovely written, drawn, and verbal messages of love and appreciation, enjoyed a living room picnic (because a violent thunderstorm eliminated the outdoors as an option), ate banana cream pie, and watched home videos, all with Ramsey and the kids. Sunday included a cookout with the in-laws and a walk down to my mother-in-law's childhood swimming hole (which my kids ended up putting to good use in spite of not having brought swim suits)and a visit with my parents. Rams and I ended the weekend chilling on the couch with a movie after the kids went to bed.

This weekend, we took pictures like this one.

And this one.

And this.

It was a great weekend.



Yesterday was Monday.

I started the day off on the right foot by burning breakfast- not productive. I followed that up with successfully getting through to a health insurance representative and getting the information that I needed- productive. I then spent the next three hours ignoring the housework that had piled up over the weekend, and scanned 522 old family slides onto an SD card, instead- a productivity draw.

I discovered that two of my children (who shall remain nameless) had been engaged in some intentional deceit and disobedience over a period of a couple of weeks. I preached a message involving the verse "your sins shall find you out" and doled out the consequences (loss of friend, movie, and computer privileges for the next 3-4 weeks. And extra math lessons on Saturdays.). I decided to stop assessing my day in terms of productivity.

Zuzu engaged me in the so delightful "happy-baby-stompy-dance", which involves holding each other's hands, stomping your feet, and grinning at each other with glee, then wandered off in the direction of the bathroom.

A few minutes later, I disovered that someone had left the bathroom door open. I fished the baby's hands out of the toilet, then washed her off and changed her clothes.

I fished two game pieces out of the baby's diaper, then washed them off and sanitized them.

About this time, I realized the direction the day was heading and began to take pictures to record it for posterity.

(The none-the-worse-for-the-wear game pieces.)

I called Ramsey at his office to congratulate him on what a productive day he was having. When I hung up eight minutes later, I found this:

and this:

I developed a strong craving for chocolate pudding.

A very strong craving.

Throughout all of this, my four old-enough-to-know-better children were behaving like hooligans. And the baby lost her pants. And one sock.

I decided to make supper.

Ramsey, who had arrived home from work somewhere around the middle of the pudding making, took the four hooligans and the baby outside to burn off some energy while supper cooked.

Aviva popped back inside to bring me this:

She and Gideon both also informed me that I was the best Mommy ever.


I was pulling supper out of the oven out of the driveway to pick up the pizza when Ramsey and the kids headed back into the house because the baby had gotten hit in the head by the tire swing. While a sibling was receiving an underdog.


Everyone survived supper (including the baby, who was also none the worse for the wear) and all of the children went straight to bed, without chocolate pudding which was still chilling in the fridge.

Ramsey and I sat down at the computer to view the 522 slides that had been scanned, and to eat chocolate pudding (which had finished chilling soon after the kids were put to bed).



All in all, not a bad day.