So this is what weekends are supposed to feel like - it's been a while since we had a 'real' one, one not filled with errand-running and house-cleaning and general stress. Maybe that's what it comes down to, my stress level is considerably decreased what with there being light at the end of the financial tunnel and so forth. So I don't think it's so much that I don't still have all that stuff to do - because I do - but I'm more capable of relaxing and being a mom. And I've missed that. A lot. The past seven or eight months have been taxing on all of us, in lots of different ways - but I've always thought that my kids will be okay as long as I do the things I need to do to make sure they know they're loved and the very lights of my life. And sometimes over the past half-year we've gotten so jumbled up in the hectic come-and-go of packing and unpacking our lives for moves and weekends, that I've forgotten how much fun it is to let loose and be a big kid with them. Resurrecting "Rhyming Friday," for instance. It's a thing I've done with them for probably about a year - every Friday, we turn into Dr. Seuss wannabes and try to make everything we say come out in a rhyme. Goofy, I know. But it's a blast.
And last night, we played a great game the kids got from their Uncle Brian for Christmas: it's called "Totally Gross: The Game of Science." It's basically a science trivia game that's filled with enough disgusting factoids and act-it-out scenarios to keep everybody's interest. You keep score by stretching a green slime booger from your kid's nose along a score line - and if you land on the right spaces you get to do a 'gross-out.' Some of our gross-outs: Kyle had to look up and let us see if he had boogers, and then we learned about what boogers are. Hayley and I had to pretend we were dogs greeting each other and thus sniff each other's butts, and then we learned about what dogs can tell about each other from that first initial sniff. Kyle had to pretend he was a dung beetle and lay his eggs in balls of poop. Stuff like that. It was fun.
We've almost got a penguin puzzle whipped... the first jigsaw puzzle I've concentrated on since Dad was in the hospital for his stem cell transplant.
And I've re-remembered how therapeutic that kind of concentration is. Can't quit going back to the damn thing. And we're going to start in on Iguazu Falls as soon as we tear down the penguins.
And I think we're gonna make some cookies, too. And watch it snow outside. And try not to whine about what a brutal freakin' winter this has been. Because today, it's all good.
And last night, we played a great game the kids got from their Uncle Brian for Christmas: it's called "Totally Gross: The Game of Science." It's basically a science trivia game that's filled with enough disgusting factoids and act-it-out scenarios to keep everybody's interest. You keep score by stretching a green slime booger from your kid's nose along a score line - and if you land on the right spaces you get to do a 'gross-out.' Some of our gross-outs: Kyle had to look up and let us see if he had boogers, and then we learned about what boogers are. Hayley and I had to pretend we were dogs greeting each other and thus sniff each other's butts, and then we learned about what dogs can tell about each other from that first initial sniff. Kyle had to pretend he was a dung beetle and lay his eggs in balls of poop. Stuff like that. It was fun.
We've almost got a penguin puzzle whipped... the first jigsaw puzzle I've concentrated on since Dad was in the hospital for his stem cell transplant.
And I think we're gonna make some cookies, too. And watch it snow outside. And try not to whine about what a brutal freakin' winter this has been. Because today, it's all good.