Weekend Recap

Friday: Reilly babysat for a family in our ward. (She wants to join a school trip to Washington D.C. next spring, so she is trying to earn mucho moola). Kadie and Aidan played outside with some friends. Ken and I walked to the park, escorting Luke on his bike. I brought Luke's bucket and shovel along so we could dig in the sand when we reached our destination. By the time we reached the park, it was dusk. I discovered I had lost the shovel somewhere along our journey. Luke said we had to go back and get the shovel. Ken told Luke if we went back for the shovel we could not come back and play because it would be too dark. Luke cried and tried to hit us, all the while demanding we go back for the shovel. Ken and I decided we would just tell him we were going back for the shovel, a complete truth, and not mention the part about not going back to the park until we had to. Luke berated me almost the entire trip home because, "people should not leave shovels." I had one brief respite when Ken let him go down a steep hill by himself and he fell of the bike and skinned his knee. Ken only got 1 minute of reprimand for that. (Does that seem fair?) There were more tears after we found the shovel half-way down a steep hill along our route (see, I was so intent on keeping the boy from falling that I lost a shovel, but do I get any thanks?), and Luke found out our true plan to return home. I placated him with banana smoothies.

Saturday: We went to start planting the ward garden. (Yipee!) Aidan and Luke were bored, hot, and tired from the moment we got there. They perked up when they got to ride the horse. (Aidan is perturbed I didn't get any pictures of the event.) Luke insisted I ride the horse with him. Kadie rode the horse for 1 minute, then asked to get off because the horse kept moving around.

We went home and cleaned up. Reilly and I had a Stake Mother/YW activity to attend before the YW broadcast. Ken got the kids some dinner (pizza purchased from the ward Boy Scouts) and headed off to his office holiday party. (The original date of the holiday party coincided with the only big snowstorm we got this winter.)

Ken was still at his holiday party when Reilly and I returned home to chaos. Kadie, Luke, and Aidan were all upset because they all wanted to play on the same computer. Kadie was having a meltdown because her arms were slightly sunburned from our time at the garden. She wasn't upset because her arms hurt, she was upset that the outside of her arms was darker than the inside of her arms and it looked "weird." She demanded that I come up with a solution before she had to go out in public and suffer humiliation. There was also a message flashing on the answering machine because Ken had called to check on the kids and Kadie had been taking a bath at the time. Luke and Aidan were too "busy" to answer the phone.

Sunday: Luke awoke and went to use the restroom. He yelled at me to indicate he needed more TP. When I got some out for him, I noticed that there was still a half a roll left on the dispenser. I insisted he finish that roll first. He refused to use the restroom unless I gave him a brand new roll. I had to place the new roll on a top shelf to prevent him using it. I heard him crying from the other room, "I just need to grow bigger and then I can knock that toilet paper down...I will throw a shoe and then I can knock that toilet paper down." (He is a very determined little boy, but in the end I convinced him to finish off the first roll.)