A Good Day

Some days are fantastic. This was one of those.

It started with James heading off to preschool without complaint. They were going to see a pumpkin patch. Then Matthew and I did all the grocery shopping and most of the laundry before James came home. My time shopping with Matthew was relaxed. One-on-one time is the BEST. We checked out the fish and he got to ride the horsey twice. He got to walk instead of riding in the cart. When I'm only wrangling one, I've got so much more attention to give! He could walk ahead and turn corners and touch stuff and it didn't drive me bonkers. We had a good time.

Matthew checking out the fish at Meijer.

After shopping and laundry, we picked up James from school and came home for lunch. Lunch isn't usually exciting, but we had splurged on strawberries and that made both boys very, very happy.

Then Matthew asked to play with a friend...by name!! I was shocked, again, 'cuz Robert and James don't ask for such things. Ever. Not too surprisingly, James was very much against a play date, but maybe Matthew's friend ('s mom) would allow him to come over to her house instead?

I begged. I pleaded. We made it work. Matthew was over the moon!

James came to the hardware store with me :) We both loved it. He found the enormous, inflatable Halloween decorations quite interesting, and the talking decorations pretty "creepy." I found a few things I needed for gutting the garden and repairing the lawn mower that I had run over with my car. It's a dumb story. And it's still not fixed :(

Anyway, I loved the one-on-one time with James. Neither of us had to compete with other voices to express ourselves. James was cheerful and talkative and curious. After we checked out, we spent a good 20 minutes exploring the riding lawn mowers out front. He tried out every one. We talked batteries and gas tanks and ignition switches and seat design.

Then it was time to pick up Matthew. I just had to tell James, "I'm so glad you came with me on this trip. I love spending time with you, just you and me."

He grinned a sneaky grin and asked, "'Cuz I'm your favorite?"

"Well, you're my favorite James, that's for sure. And I love spending time with you."

Matthew was delighted and rejuvenated after his play date with Sarah! The after school time got a bit hairy: noisy, contentious at times, and kinda chaotic, but we made it through. I think everyone enjoyed dinner (a rarity) and somehow we ended up teaching Alice how to calculate exponential numbers. I think it started with Robert asking a tricky math question like, "What's 2 plus 2 times 2?" No, he only did that after James asked if 6 plus 6 made 12. James has been doing simple arithmetic in his mind lately and asking us if he's correct. Anyway, Robert thought it was cool that his tricky math question actually had TWO answers depending on which rules you followed and Alice figured out 5^3 and the square roots of 25 and 100.

This never happens. Dinner is most often a mix of whining and eating, kids scrambling to say something first, or jinx each other, and sneak in as many potty words as possible before getting excused from the table. This magical math thing only happens when EVERYONE is in a good mood.

After dinner, it was Monday Night Fun. Robert had selected an "Egg Drop" contest for us. Each kid had a small cardboard box and newspaper to design their egg-shuttling case. We also let them choose which surface the box would land on.

James--the first to finish his box. He put the egg on the landing bottom and some newspaper on top to keep it smooshed against the bottom. He had purposely designed it to BREAK the egg. Big grin.

Matthew--had some help from Bobby.

Alice--designed her own bed-like mattress inside to cushion the egg from the landing surface.

Robert--stuffed the box to bursting, then created a parachute out of tape and newspaper.

We dropped them from the top of our ladder and not one egg broke. I should also disclose that the eggs were from our new chickens who are currently laying incredibly sturdy small eggs. We chucked them in the air, and none broke. We spent the rest of the daylight trying to break those eggs.

When all the eggs were broken, we unrolled more newspaper and had a coloring party on the floor.

Pajamas, tooth brushing, scriptures, prayer, stories, and off to bed. Strangely, we remained in good moods, so even bedtime was not the chore it usually is :)

Just one of those crazy fantastic days that happens to work out sometimes.