September 2: Starting the holiday early with Big Bro

Today is a holiday for me company – the entire firm has off today and we get a special 4 day labor day weekend. So I’ll keep this note brief.

Hubby mentioned that the highlights while I was away on my trip included:

• multiple breakdowns from Big Bro – is extremely tired at night
• Twin Husky biting Red on her hand
• Twin Crazy playing with toilet water with a cup and then drinking it

He asked me never to do that to him again. 🙂

For today, I want to figure out who I want to spend the day with my kids…. I think about keeping the Twins and Red, but dropping Big Bro off at Kindergarten with all of them would have been too tough. Hubby also says that he prefers that Red go to school since its long weekend and he wants to make sure she further acclimates into her new school. So, I decide to pick up Big Bro after kindergarten – at 12 PM and spend the rest of the day with him, instead of him going to “after-care”.  We can then pick up the rest of the kids when we want to.

Highlights of the Morning:

• Red wakes up early and smiles ear to ear when she sees me in bed.
• She wants to fix her hair with water and she wants to pick out her clothes for school today. She picks out a dress.
• Hubby and I go to get the Twins. They both seem not to notice me. They both want Hubby. Then I think Twin Crazy figures out who I am and comes to me. She wants ALL of her blankets/loveys. Twin Husky doesn’t seem to notice me at a all.
• We head downstairs and Red eats two bowls of oatmeal. Twins eat bananas and cereal. Twin Crazy eats some yogurt and keeps it under control.
• Both Twins are acting a bit strange today – lots of whining/crying. This just might be the new tantrum stage we’re in.
• I diaper Twin Husky and kiss his belly and he laughs and talks.
• I try to diaper Twin Crazy but she is upset about something.
• Big Bro gets up and has banana yogurt with bananas. He moves VERY slow in the AM.
• I pack both lunches. Big Bro’s real lunchbox is at school (forgot last night) so we have this big old mongo lunchbox that he is not excited about.
• OK time to go!!!! Vitamins in car.
• I drop off twins first.
• Red and I drop off Big Bro. He asks (whispers) while we are in line if I can swap out his lunch into his “real” lunchbox. I say OK. Peer pressure, already. His teacher brings over a folder to me since we missed “back to school night”. I feel guilty about that but I tell her I was on a business trip. I let Big Bro know that I will pick him up after lunch – he requests that I come with his scooter because he wants to scooter home. How cute.
• Big Bro goes into his classroom without a problem.
• Red and I fetch his old lunchbox in his after-care facility. We sit down together and swap out the contents between the lunches. She carries his “real” lunchbox (Transformers) outside of his class and we quickly drop it off for him.
• Red and I hold hands and swing them on the way to the mini-van. We take turns counting to 10. We swing our arms and hands and giggle.
• I drop off Red and the teachers say that she is opening up to them. The “real” Red is coming out of her shy self. They are seeing more of the playful, lovable, giggling girl that we adore so much.
• By the time I get back it is 9 AM. A very leisurely morning with the kids.

After that, I do 3 loads of laundry (all waiting now for the mothers helper to fold tonight), catch up on some emails, have a long phone conversation, and then before you knew it, it is time to get Big Bro.

I scooter over to his after care program. He was reading a book with a group. He runs over to me and all of these kids said “bye [Big Bro]” – how cute. He has new friends already. We scooter back home, sit on a dock and talk about the water, and make a pit stop at a playground.

Big Bro scootering back from Kindergarten

Mama K and Big Bro "sitting on a dock of a bay"

My monkey

We try to rest our bodies for a bit, and then play a dinosaur bingo game and memory game. We are now outside and he is playing with water. I am thinking about getting the rest of the kids. We may take a road trip to a beach this long weekend. I found availability at a place and now Big Bro is excited about our potential road-trip. I had a great day. And there is still more to come. I know I want to have more of these days. Big Bro liked his 1:1 time with me and I felt good. It felt right.

I”m going to sign off now since this is a holiday for us right now. My weekend has officially started.

Have a great long weekend everybody –

Til Tuesday,
– Mama K