Productive

Robert decided to ride his bike to work this morning, even thought it was 29 degrees out when he left at 645am (for reference, it's a 24 mile ride, and he's found that his fingers don't really do well in below freezing temps for that long). This meant that the kids and I had a car on a day he was at work, a rarity in the winter/early spring. It also meant that he left home before Zion and Liel woke up.

At 6:55am Zion bounded into my room, ready to get Daddy and play a bit of trains before work. Only Daddy wasn't there. Zion curled up next to me and cried a little bit while I scratched his back. I pointed out that the upside of Daddy riding his bike to work was that we had the car, and we could use the car to go to the craft store and buy more stickers (the kids have "Kindness Charts" where good behavior is rewarded with stickers). Our sticker supplies are non-existent at this point. That perked him right up; he actually sat up and began speaking very fast in his excitement over new stickers. He would choose dog stickers, he told me. Did I remember that little white dog sticker? It was so cute.

I heard Liel, so I got her and brought her to bed, too. She'd peed in her diaper and said she didn't need to pee anymore, and I naively trusted her. She and Zion bounced around the bed for a few minutes, and then Liel fell off and bonked her head, just as I'd been warning her she might if she continued to disregard the edge of the bed in such a callous fashion. Wailing ensued. So I scooped her right up and snuggled her on my lap. 5 seconds later she froze. "I need to potty", she announced, and right at that moment I felt pee all over my legs. And my sheets. So we all got out of bed and I started a load of laundry.

By 9am everyone had had breakfast and we'd made applesauce (from the last of our CSA apples) and granola. By 10am we were all dressed and out the door. We went to the craft store and bought stickers (and I negotiated cart politics since they both wanted to ride). We went to the grocery store and bought supplies for the nursery school (and I negotiated more cart politics, which ended with Zion being asked to leave the cart since several warnings had not produced kind behavior towards his sister. He laid down in the check out aisle for a moment and then got teary and came over for a hug). We came home and hand lunch. We read stories. I put Liel down to nap and Zion and I sorted through all the hand me down clothes our friends have sent for Liel. We filled two boxes of things that Liel has outgrown or that won't fit her next season to return to the Tolls, and made the happy discovery that Liel doesn't need anything for her summer wardrobe other than a pair of flip flops (Zion is a different story, of course. No one seems to send us little boy clothes! And if Zion is any indication I know why: they are all too worn out to be reused). We boxed the clothes, and a package for Becka. After nap time we took them to the post office, and went to the library to get a DVD Robert wants to show in his Religion and Contemporary Art class tomorrow.

And I even cooked dinner.