Rumors

No, I did NOT fall off the the face of the Earth.  I was NOT abducted by aliens.  I did NOT just wake from a coma.  I was busy.  Yes, too busy to Blog.  Tax season was here in full force, but my season is now almost over.  I am even on Spring Break along with the kids.  Today I took 3 of the 4 (4th one stayed home not feeling well) kids shopping in the city- amazing that when they have money in their pocket to spend they will even consent to be seen in public with me.  I started working as a part-time receptionist 3 years ago, and this year I worked 60 + hours a week.  I must say  that now I will be continuing part time a couple days a week through out the whole year.  But the good news is that I have time to blog again!!

Molly is developing fast..... She is walking running all over now. In fact, she has only been walking a couple of months and the other night she was cruising backwards through the living room. Silly Baby!!  She also likes to help clean up - so much in fact that she throws everything away.  We had to finally install child safety locks - not to keep her from getting into everything in the cupboards, but because she keeps throwing things away: phones, remotes, sunglassses......  I don't like having to go through the trash before we can change the bag to make sure it is only trash in there.  The big boys think this is a pain to have to unlatch things, but Mike had to point out to them that things were child proofed when they were little making life a bit less convient for everyone else.

Oh well.  Watch for more regular updates from now until next tax season begins!!

Sorry, Guys

Well, I have finally  dug my way out from under a HUGE pile of tax returns.  Every week has been  bringing 15-30 hours of overtime since tax season kicked in.  That just depends on if I need to take a day off for silly things like taking kids to doctors appointments or such. 

Let's see, Zach has had a couple post surgery appointments and is good for 3 months now before he needs to go back to the doctor.  He is cathing all by himself now, home and school.  He is on a preventative antibotic to help keep infection away while he gets his routine down for cathing and making sure he keeps his hands clean.  Today he woke with a fever of 102, so he stayed home from school.

Peter is doing pretty well.  He is getting ready for his confirmation at church.  He is working today on picking his saint.  His aunt teaches confirmation class at her church and has sent him a list of saints she thought he might like.  He now has it narrowed down to three that he is researching tonight.

Steven had a very nasty bladder infection that spread out to his skin.  Two rounds of antibiotics later, and missing 7 out of 10 school days, he is finally better.

Molly is a full fledged toddeler now.  She walks a little more than she crawls, but she is definately mobile on 2 legs.  She knows the word "map" now, since we have a huge map haning in our living room, but she thinks all pictures are maps.  She LOVES looking at family pictures.

I will try to blog more now that things are slowing down at work.  See ya all soon!!

Boys!!!

Last week was a very  busy week for me.  I'm back to work at H&R Block, but this year I am doing the taxes instead of being the receptionist like I was the last 2 tax seasons.  I had spoken to the boss about working day shifts at the same office I was at before which meant shifts of 9-4, so I could be home with the kids after school.  My in-laws agreed to watch Molly during the day - and from what I can tell they are loving having her.   BUT..... while we were in China,  the boss bought another accounting/tax business (which is actually closer to home for me) and now I am working much longer hours than planned.  Last week I had my 40 hour work week PLUS 26 hours of overtime.  My kids think I am avoiding them.  My husband has new respect for my ability to get the kids up, take care of them all day AND get things done around the house.

Yesterday I worked a half day and in the evening the kids and I started picking up the house while Mike did a couple of projects getting Pete's new room finished.  I sighed when I saw the 3 boxes of cereal on the counter - they belong on top of the fridge.  Let me point out they were walked PAST the fridge to put them on the counter.  I grab them to put them away, and they are all empty.  Sitting on the counter on top of where the burnable trash goes.  So I open the cabinet and put them in there.  Mike's been doing the laundry, so Steve was told to take all his hanging clothes to his closet.  He comes back up
aren't those yours too??
Oh, yeah. 
He comes back again - what about this stuff?  Looks like yours to me... 
Oh, didn't see those. 
Thank you Mr. Oblivious. 

Pete was told to match and fold socks.  When I checked them I found pairs that are not pairs (let me point out that Mike has several different styles of black work socks from all the times we replace bad ones)  Hmmmm, this pair is unique - one dark black new sock, one off black old sock -totally different styles.  Wow!  Not so unique- here is another pair just like them. 
"Um, Pete, you better fix these before they get put away"
Oh.

AHHHH, maybe there will be new respect for all mom does for them when the tax season is over.

A Big Week!!!

Let's see.... this past week Molly added a lot of new words to her vocabulary.  Morning, Thank You, Milk to name a few.  The boys are impressed by how fast her words are coming now.  Soon she will be jabbering away at us like the other kids. 

Today Zach went back to school for the first time since his surgery.  He had a desk full of cards from the other kids when he got there and had a good day.  But tonight he is VERY tired, so I will keep him home from school tomorrow to rest.  We will have to ease him in to full time school again.

There was also a heat wave today.  Yesterday school was delayed 2 hours because wind chills made it feel like 16 below zero.  Today there was still a 2 hour delay, but it was only 6 below - much better.

And tonight, after I got home from work, Molly started standing up on her own.  After she got up a couple of times on her own and we clapped for her, she kept doing it, and clapping for herself.   We tried to coax a step out of her, but nothing doing.  It won't be long before she's walking!!

What Did You Do Today??

Zach was going stir crazy today and kept asking what he could do.  He tried to go into Molly's pop up castle, but she kept going in to play too.  That did not go over well, and Zach said "I wish I had a house to play in"  Which got me thinking about this space ship we bought on the after Christmas clearance.  45 minutes later Mike and I had it put together (much assembly required) and Zach began to color it.  He then decided it was too much work and went inside it to play.  Right after that, Molly found a pencil on the floor, knocked on the door of his space ship and wanted to help him color it.  Soon they were inside together watching a movie on his portable DVD player.

 

 

Then the rest of the family went down stairs to put up the wall to make Peter a bedroom out of the existing family room in the basement.  I had already painted the walls I could (no, I did NOT miss part of the wall, based on where the bathroom doorway is on the other wall, this is where it stops on this side.... of course Pete suggested Mike build him a diagonal wall to maximize the space, but that idea was quickly shot down).  The wall is now up, the drywall up on Pete's bedroom side, boxes in for 2 outlets, a smoke detector, and a light switch.  More work tomorrow ......

Life

So, just as Zach got home from the hospital, I was off to start working again.  Literally, we got home late Friday night and I had a meeting at 9 AM Saturday.  I am now in my second week back to work, in the land of talking to grown ups through the day, having intellectual discussions that don't involve teenagers who THINK they know what they are talking about.  Plotting a career path.... ok, maybe not that, but tax season is underway and this is my first year doing tax prep.  I have spent a week checking files that were transfered to a new system to make sure all the important stuff was there and to fix what was not.  Yesterday I thought everything I did in week one was somehow wiped off the computer system, but thank goodness for the I.T. department, it was found and restored - darned power outage over the weekend messed up lots of stuff at work, but luckily that one was not too bad.

The little kids are surviving grandma babysitting all day while we both work and the big kids are in school.  In fact they like getting a little spoiled while I am gone.  I am warring with myself on sending Zach back to school - lots of good reasons to do it, lots of good reasons not to..... tune in later to see which me wins the fight.

Sadie is back home with the family tonight, and eating blandly for the next week to get her ulcers under control.  The kids have strict rules to keep people food away from her- and we will just have to keep her away from the table when Molly is eating so our little princess does not feed the dog her meals as she likes to do.

Other than all that, things are back to our crazy, "normal" life around here, and we wouldn't have it any other way!!

The Worst

What is worse than a sick male, of any age????  A sick 120 pound St. Newfie.  Yep, got a call from Mike today when he came home at lunch time to check on Zach, telling me that the dog was throwing up and has diareah.  Great.  Throw in a couple of other maladies that I will not gross you out with, and I left work early to run the dog to the vet, where they are keeping her overnight for observation.... They think it may be the table scraps and doggie treats causing ulcers (who knew???  our dogs when I was growing up and mine as an adult have ALWAYS eaten table scraps and treats), but if she's not better tomorrow morning, more tests will be run.  Otherwise the poor doggie is on dry food only, with milk bones thrown in for her treats.  :(