Saturday

Dave is out of town…again.

This is what he missed out on this Saturday:
-waking up early to the sound of our kids jumping and yelling (nicely but loudly) on the trampoline…I’m sure the neighbors were pleased
-the Saturday job routine
-a morning photo shoot
-cleaning up the disaster in the kitchen following the photo shoot
-listening to uplifting conference while editing tons of pictures
-cleaning the kids’ rooms with them…making sure they did every nook and cranny of their jobs (I’m a mean mom)
-listening to Gracie explain to Claire and her friend how FUN it is to clean bathrooms (trying to win over their help)…oh my word it was pretty cute. “You guys want to help me do something SO SO fun? You get to spray this stuff on the counter and clean it and it is so great!! Then you get to pour this cleaning stuff in the toilet and swish it around. Oh my gosh you guys can’t believe how fun it is! Do you want to help me?” Man oh man were those kids excited to help her out. And I must say the bathroom looked awesome when they were done.
-neighbor kids pouring in and out of the house all day
-a lemonade stand that the kids promised to clean up
-cleaning up a lemonade stand myself
-another lemonade stand with a different group of kids who also promised to clean up when they were done (I think we’re definitely wiped out of my jumbo pack of lemonade mixes from Costco)
-reminding the second group of kids about forty-five times to clean up their mess
-a “brownie stand” if there is such a thing as that (Max and his friend made the brownies themselves…very impressive except for the traces left of their creation all over the kitchen and all over Grace and Claire’s faces)

-a run with Claire & Lucy in the double jogger to the grocery store with Elle and three other neighbor girls in tow on their bikes…I hadn’t gotten to the gym yet and figured that would be good exercise since these girls were dying to go on a biking adventure and I wasn’t ready to let them go by themselves. (Note the nice chocolate face and day-old, post-swimming hair-do on Claire.)-spending a half hour trying to make Lucy happy at the grocery check-out while these four girls decided which kind of candy they wanted to buy

-cleaning up the kitchen again
-a trip to the park right as it was getting dark to collect my other two straggling kids
-did I mention I cleaned???
-tucking the kids in bed

Boy did Dave ever miss out!

**Edited**This post does not, as some of you have been so kind to say, mean I am a good or fun mom…I’m overwhelmed and I’m trying to figure out how when I left Dave with the kids to run some errands last Saturday I came home to find him peacefully watching baseball with all the kids at friend’s houses and Lucy sleeping. I was in awe. That’s just not my Saturday. I just don’t have the knack to make things more calm around here!