My 8 year old nephew was talking with Ace this past weekend about their parents’ names. Ace asked E if he knew what my name was.

“Yes, it’s Aunt Sister.”

“No it’s not.” Ace told him.

“I know what her real name is but I call her Aunt Sister!”

***

Liam was sitting in Bible study time with Mrs. S. at VBS tonight. She was talking to them about what sin was. She mentioned how sometimes they hit their sister.

“Not me” Liam piped up.

Or their brother…

“Not me,” Liam said.

Or say mean things…

“My mommy does that,” Liam announced.

Sometimes the truth hurts…the funny thing is, I wasn’t ugly today nor did I yell even once…yesterday, different story but today, almost as good as gold!

So, most of you are figuring out that I’m a big fan of this lady’s blog. I have no clue who she is…Mark knows this and points it out to me. I do know she has a mirror on my life and I can totally relate to her zany stories of her family! I got an idea from her to do Sit Time with the kids and we’ve been working on it on and off for a while.

So, today, it paid off. We had to run into the post office and instead of using the nifty Automated system, I had to go and talk to an actual person to send something media mail. THat meant a lot of things to touch and talk about and break. We got into the post office area and I found a spot where I could see a majority of the kids. Pointing I declared “Sit time.” Zoe, Ace, and Liam all plopped down in the direction I pointed! Granted, Liam did scoot under the table but they sat and were quiet. I have to say for the whole five minutes I was in there, my supreme parenting skills impressed, oh, two people. I just smiled and laughed at their wonderful comments, knowing that the day had just begun.

After swim lessons, which I have a post but not pictures ready so be patient they’re coming, we headed to the best fast food family restaurant known to man…Chick-fil-a. I love this place because they are soooo friendly and take care of their “guests (meaning mama’s with lots of littles under foot).” Everytime the kids go to the dentist they receive a coupon for a free kids meal. So we cashed those in today. As I was trying to order I hear this unruly kid trying to leg drop the more than life sized cut out of a cow. The cashier glances over at this kid with no discipline and then back at me as I try to finish my order. After a couple of more glances, I turn to see why this kid’s mama isn’t disciplining him…oh, wait, it was because this kid’s mama was ordering food and it was me! The unruly culprit…Liam. The cashier was so kind as he told me to have a seat and they’d bring the food out. See…nice as can be…and also not wanting their cow cut outs to be destroyed by a three year old.

Yeah, eating out with five children is great. While Ace was playing with the playground bully, I only had to go in there once to tell the bully to let go of Ace’s legs as he pleaded for mercy.

Fun times. Oh, and Josiah decided to take off in the play area and go all the way to the very top of it. Only to discover/decide, he was scared and scream and cry for several minutes before I realized what was going on. Zoe managed to pull and tug him down a little ways before he hit a landing and wouldn’t budge. Guess who got to go get him?? With Ceili Rain in the sling and my wonderful attire of a very flowy skirt, I climbed Mt. Playground and managed to pull Josiah all the way down. When I reached him, he had managed to wipe snot all over the side of his face among other places, I’m sure. I got him cleaned up. It was also about that time that another mother realized what I was doing and came to see if she coudl help. Unfortunately, by that time, the crisis was over and Ceili Rain still sat snoozing. I managed to pull a muscle though. Yea me!

Here’s a recap:

Monday: Three children had dentist appointments and they were all great. At the dentist that is. When we hit two stores…they were a little wild…the Potty Incident was that day. We still managed a celebration of their achievements in memorizing Scripture.

Tuesday: Josiah is almost two and that means, it’s time for another fun game of Battle of Wills. He decided to try and exert his will to not pick up the crayons he threw on the floor. However, after a seven hour standoff where there was discipline and lots of sitting on the floor by the crayons, they were picked up.

I managed to get a swim skirt made for Zoe and a cute lazy day skirt. Pictures to come.

Wednesday: Mark and I had our anniversary this day. Before the anniversary date, however, the following ensued: I was watching a friend’s 13 month old and trying to get Ceili Rain down, the house picked up and Josiah’s diaper fresh (he was on an antibiotic that…let’s just day, didn’t agree with his stomach). Liam found some push pins I had forgotten to put up. Zoe came to the closet as I was putting up clothes and showed me the empty pushpin cushion. I asked her what Liam had done with them (no need to ask which child). She informed me that he had put them in his lambies. Not one but both of the lambies. At the time, I was steamed, but too mad to yell (that and I had time to pray for a calm spirit as I walked from my closet to the playroom. I got Ace to make sure the 13 month old didn’t come down stairs while I sat at my desk and plucked each pin out of the lambs with Liam standing by me while I talked.

Mark remarked later on the date that there was probably two little lambs somewhere bent over in pain from pokes. Thus, ends our experiment in the ancient art of voodoo. See, school’s not over…we just continue on and on and on.

Thursday: By this day, I was pretty tired but refreshed because of a great date night. We were able to go out on Wednesday night and leave Ceili Rain. We took a date night break to come back and feed her before heading out for the rest of the date. Mark even suffered through shopping with me (something my dad has spoiled me on). Anyway, back to this day…I started feeling a little throbbing in my ear on Wednesday night and by today it got worse.

Friday: The pain was even worse and had moved to the other ear. However, I also had a doctor’s check up scheduled. Went in…got drugs…went home and started with a high fever throughout the night into Saturday. Mark was pooped by Sunday. He’s been daddy and mommy all weekend. No fun, especially when it’s a holiday weekend and he had four days off.

Oh, I also got a new roof! Ahhh yeah! It was raised and laid back down in a nice Autumn Brown color. A little bright but it looks good. I think it’s so drastic because our previous roof had been weathered down. We had hail damage to our roof from last May and this past April, so the roof…was FREE! Yippee! Pictures to come.

See, you all want to be a part of my life! It’s never boring!!!