so to finish

sophie got up at 6 to finish homework, penny was up at 6 and for about 2 hours she cried at the drop of a hat. I thought...oh no. i am in for it. late nights, early mornings don't go over so well with penny

everything made her sad. she just couldn't be happy. after we took sophie to school, she was sitting in her carseat waiting for me to get simon out and she said, 'mama, penny awake now.' hahaha, if that isnt the truth. it was like her mind was still asleep but her body was awake and it was very tragic combination.

she feel asleep around 11:30 in her carseat when i drove them around. both so tired. she would ask. mama, where you going? id say, not sure. i'm going to drive around for just a little bit until i can figure it out. and that was enough for her. "ok." and then she crashed.

brought both kids into the house, put them in their cribs and was trying to decide if i should take a nap or clean up. so i went back to my room laid down and immediately fell asleep. penny woke up at 1:30 (again really, really sad. nothing to make her happy) and we came out to the family room and i realized that i feel asleep with both car doors open and the front door to the house open wide for and hour and a half. wow, i guess i was tired. haha.

penny says "somp a ding" for something. and she's usually says it when she wants to play on my computer. probably copying me when i say i just need to look up something.

kkky

sometimes i think i'm making this harder than it has to be. this being a single mom to 4 kids. i feel like i'm pouting about it and get stuck in a sour mind frame and that causes the chaos. well, today i decided that NO. that's not it. it really is this hard and this tiring.

There are so many things that happened this morning i almost can't type it. from owen still being sick, trying to get him in the bath, making an dr appt for him, calling the ins company to see if we have coverage (our cards had expired) to penny dumping salt all over the table, simon pulling penny's hair. jason adair called and i took it and gave up on the day. that was at 10am. we chatted for a while and i looked at my watch and had to run to get everyone to the doctor in time. we saw the dr, got back in the car and i realized i was an hour earlier than they had told me. got mcdonalds. took owen back to school. his cough is still kinda bad but he had missed 2 days already, i figured i had to get him back.

(now i am writing the next day)

so owen had his team party at 6:30 and sophie's holiday concert was at 7:00. i only had a babysitter from 6-7 and nothing, NOTHING was working out. so i was talking to jami for her birthday and we figured out that the best solution was to just take the babies with me to pick up owen from scouts, go to the party, stay for a half hour and then get to sophie's performance a little late and just have the babies sit on our laps. i had two tickets. perfect. settled.

when i proposed the plan to sophie she freaked out.... dont bring the babies, mom. don't! we only have two tickets. and then her friend called because earlier sophie had told her that she could have one of our "extra" tickets. so sophie and i went round and round trying to think of other babysitters, other plans, to no avail. Doug called to check in and i totally broke down. it's just too hard.

he called whit and heidi and so they came over and stayed with the babies but had to be gone by 8:15 to pick up their christmas tree.

so everything works fine until we get to the party and the team mom tells me that Owen is getting the spirit award! whaat? crap. we can't leave now! how awesome, he got the spirit award! crap. what am i going to do?? so we stayed until the awards. was able to leave by 7:45. got to the school just as the madrigals (i saw their black dresses were leaving the stage) were ending and just in time for intermission. so owen and i waited and waited...looking at my watch the whole time. i could see by the program that sophie was going to be in the next 2 or 3 numbers and then girls in green and white started lining up. but they took too long and i had to leave at 8:12 to get back home. i missed it all.

so, i felt so bad, after whit and heidi left, i threw all the kids in the car and ran to Vons and got the girls flowers. came home tied them up all pretty. by 9:15 the babies were still awake, i was back in the bathroom and sophie was home. robin had dropped her off and took off before i could get out to the door to give her the flowers. so, i presented 20 dollars worth of flowers to sophie (crap!!) and then listened as a disappointed looking sophie told me all about how robin was super controlling and ordering her around all night. she didn't look like she had a lot of fun. i tried to cover up that i didn't actually see any of the performance but she was asking to many questions. it became obvious. so i had to break the news. she took it pretty well. i finally got everyone to bed at 9:45. stayed up until 1:30 doing tracy anderson webisodes on you tube and watching glee, raising hope and running wilde. i was also trying to make a game plan for christmas.

Things ive noticed

penny and simon on a walk.. penny will stay on the sidewalk. simon cruises into every yard on the block. tromping around discovering. always have to bring him back to the sidewalk (no striaght and narrow metaphor, please.)

Penny likes things all better and perfect. she really tries (maybe a little too quickly) to make things "all better". she hurried to give a pink electric toothbruch back to simon this morning so he'd stop crying and said. simon all better, mommy!

just as i typed that last sentence, she grabbed it back away and made him cry

saturday

the day we did nothing, and loved it. cancelled everything. the kids hadn't even been out of the house until i took them for a walk this evening. the babies, that is. the big kids haven't stepped one foot. my theory is we rest all weekend, hibernate through sunday and hopefully we will be healthy and ready for a new week. so the christmas music has been playing and we have been watching movies. sophie was going crazy until she found a Harry Potter Marathon on ABC family. she's been in my bed or hours!

got a christmas card from the puente's. she has started a blog about parenting. it's so great. at first i got a little down and then, right then and there, i decided on my new years resolution:

No jealousy. be truly happy for others. i have been so so blessed. No comparing.

today

today, trumps all other days in the difficulty spectrum. dont even know if that makes sense, but last night, i foolishly did a little tracy anderson work out while watching thursday night tv. that turned into wed and even tues night tv and i finally went to bed around 2. by 3 simon was up and wanting a bottle. i gave it to him and came back to bed and sophie was all shakey and fevery. she was pretty needy, understandably. up and down for medication, drinks of water, lip balm and then penny woke up with another pee pee accident. she had one while i was still up and another just as i got back to sleep with sophie. changed her, laid by her, came back to my bed and owen came in from where he fell asleep in the living room. he was shakey and fevery too. he laid by me in the bed, penny came in and all of them, except simon were sick and piled up on me. penny then woke up at 6:15 and so the morning began. nobody has gone to school, i called the cleaners, they came this morning and cleaned our filthy germ infested house. i am angry. we have a lot of plans that we will have to cancel. owen's last soccer practice and game. ( i really felt it was important that he finish out the season.) a playdate with donald that he has been waiting for forever... and had to cancel the last time because he got the flu. both basketball and soccer for sophie. i hate that we cant play with rachels kids, we are supposed to go see temple lights with everyone on sunday. who knows if we can even do that. i am nervous to venture out too quickly for fear we will infect everyone we meet, just like last time. penny has a birthday party on saturday, which i normally wouldnt care about, but it's layla's party and i'd really like to get to know her mom better. i cant say that about many of the other moms in there. plus, we havent' been to maggy haves in a month, it seems. i texted doug about it this morning and he made a joke about adam coming to stay on our couch and help with the kids in the night. i took him seriously ( because that's exactly where i am right now) and then felt like angry for giving a serious answer to his joke. not his fault, he' s far away. it's hard to take a temperature over text. made me mad anyway.

upside: house is clean, we can go find christmas boxes, i guess. washer is still broken, need to call jimmy back. laundry is piling up.

the days are going so slowly. cant wait to go to new york. having everyone home reaffirms that i need some space.

yesterday was hard. i had a big headache (probably from caffeine withdrawls) the babies are both super snotty and stuffy, sophie got sick and then owen had 3 friends come home from school to play today. i love that he has friends coming to our house so i don't want to kaibosh it, but it was a little much. or a lot. plus, our disposal broke, the washer is showing a sign that reads. blocked pump or suds, penny pulled down the shades in her room too much and broke those and then everytime i leave the room simon climbs up on the kid table in the living room and nearly falls to his death. like i said, yesterday was hard. i texted with doug and carter and that lifted my spirits a bit. was able to talk to doug last night all about the show and got some good details and stories. that helps too. but he had to jump off the phone when we started talking about me and my day and then he never called back. sophie has been shivery and sick all night, penny woke up at 4, simon at 5, sophie was awake at 4 and kept talking to me. didn't get to sleep much. i feel ok this morning, though. headache is gone. called jimmy the plumber to fix my broken things and ive been toying with the idea of hiring the cleaners on friday. that always makes me happy.