New Year, New Adventure: Day 1

It's the beginning of 2010 and I figure it's a good time to start posting again.

The main reason? Well, I figured that since Jon will be blogging regularly to journal his experience at the fitness ranch, I ought to do the same, only I will journal about my experiences here at home without him.

Day 1
I sent Jon off early this morning after a late night. He (we) was up until after 11:00 or 11:30 packing (and I'm surprized there's anything left in our room with all he took). So after getting to bed WAY too late, we were up WAY too early (somewhere around the 5:00 AM hour). He got all the kids up, said his goodbyes, Jillian sleepily shuffled herself back to bed, and we sent the rest down to exercise while I dropped him off.

We met two trainers, Austin and his wife Eve, when we got there and they were quite pleasant to talk with. I left knowing Jon was in good hands.

As for me, I got home shortly after 7:00 to make sure the kids were ready for school. I ended up helping with a few lunches to move things along, lectured some kids on getting their late work turned in, we had another family prayer, and slowly children started disappearing. Now if this all happened quietly, it could have been nice, but nothing happens quietly around this house, so I was entertained with the sound of children and the hustle and bustle of getting out the door for the next hour. (Why is it that no matter how early you get the kids up or how prepared you think you are to start the day, there is ALWAYS drama getting kids out the door? Today Jacob lost track of his backpack and we finally found it in the bathroom....go figure.)

Once they were gone I walked/jogged 3 miles on the treadmill and planned to do 10 miles on the bike, but work called to say my computer arrived. Yes, my other computer died on me last week and instead of sending the replacement to my home, they accidentally sent it to the Sandy office. Fun for me. So, sweaty and all, I jumped in the car to go retrieve my computer. Kristin is still here so she stayed with Jillian. Grandma Brady said she'd take Jillian today but after waking Jillian up to ask if she wanted to go to Grandma B's, without opening her eyes she lazily replied, "No, thanks," and drifted right back off to sleep.

What I thought would be a quick 1 hour trip into the office turned into about 4 or 5. I decided loading all my necessary applications while in the office would be faster, but I didn't realize how long that would still take. But I'm not up and running, which makes me happy, but I'm a bit overwhelmed because I have some major deadlines this week that I MUST get done.

On the way home I stopped at WalMart to get Science Fair poster boards (for the three that are due this week.....which haven't been started...can I cry now). Had some trouble juggling the boards at the checkout so the cash moved them to the side while I purchased the rest of my stuff. It wasn't until I was 5 miles up the road that I realized I'd left the poster boards with the cashier and had to go back and get them. Of course, the kids had called on my way home and I said I'd pick them up on the way home, so I had to go get them first, turn back and go to the store, the head home again. Jacob fell asleep on the way home, and I think Deanna was close. I then tried to encourage the kids to do homework. Not sure how that went. I think I had to remind Jacob about 5 times before he finally finished his spelling page but at least he got it done. I'm not even sure if the other kids had even started homework. I ended up spending another 15 minutes with the older two explaining that a ZERO on an assignment means that are NOT done with their homework. Then Jacob wanted to read but I had to get Dani from play practice, so Kristin took over with the reading.

I'd promised Dani some time out together, so we ran over to the shoe store to buy some moccasins for her play (she's going to be Sacajawea). Then we ran over to the library to get some books for her science fair project. While I was there I decided to check the shelves for a book Deanna has checked out. I've looked EVERYWHERE for it and it's over a month overdue. I figured it was worth a try to see if it got returned but never checked in. I found the book (or should I say books) on the shelf. There were 6 copies: 1 hard and 5 soft covers. I thought it was a soft cover she'd checked out so I left the one copy and took the rest up to the front desk to see if any of them could have been the book she had checked out. No luck. I was about ready to just walk away when I decided to go ahead and grab the hard cover, just in case. Guess what. That was it. She checked the book in and removed all the fines. So now I'm square with the library and I can rest easier at night. (May sound funny, buy Jon knows how I stress about those things).

We picked up pizza on the way home (easy dinner). It was pretty much chaos when I got home. Ben was doing listening logs for his orchestra class so we had to listen to 2 hours of Christmas and orchestra music he found interesting. There was a mess on the table and homework scattered about, so dinner ended up being all of us standing or sitting around the one clear end of the table and eating.

After that we had Family Home Evening (FHE). Perhaps I should rephrase that. I attempted Family Home Evening, but I think what I managed to get out of it was Family Stress and Chaos Evening. The older kids were okay, but the younger ones would not sit still. They laughed and played and wrestled and fought and toss things around to the point that I was about to go crazy. I must confess. At one point I'd lost it when Jacob and Jillian were on to their third fight over something she'd taken from him. Jacob was very emotional tonight and he said, "Mom, I'm having a bad day." I told him I was too but let just be glad it's almost over and hope the rest of it is good.

At this point I decided ending FHE was probably ranking #1 on my list of "good things to do". I then sent kids to brush teeth, say prayers, then spent the next 45 minutes playing kid hockey, shuffling them back to their beds after clever escapes. Of course, when you get a kid from each room sneaking out while you're shoving another back in, it's pretty easy and fun on their part. Had to make the girl's bed again and thought I'd be brilliant and wash my sheets. Now here I sit at 10:00 at night with no sheets yet. What was I thinking?

Well, I'm still alive. My kids are still alive. And my house is still standing (although I think that one might be pretty easy to do since all the junk laying around the house is probably what's keeping it up).

I'm not sure if I'll ever be hip on the one parenting thing. I can definitely see the wisdom of partner and tag team parenting. But we're all excited to see 'Dad' start his new life. I had visions today of a fit and trim man walking back into our home in a few weeks. It should be exciting.

Good luck Jon/Dad!!!