Life goes on

Q started the next higher dose this morning. He's having a snuffly nose, so I gave him Benadryl also--between the two he was out hard for a looong nap. I got some laundry done, some organizing of itinerant stuff (and it is, not merely ubiquitous, but also itinerant), a wee bit of research for field trips. The kitchen is cleaner, the trash is out (thanks to the G and S team), the bathrooms are spiffed up (thanks to E), K is organizing the shoe racks by the front door and putting away the flotsam that accumulates near the stairs. S is on a mission to collect all the shoes that aren't where they're supposed to be. Q is stretched tum down across my lap, drooling over my leg, kicking like mad. "We're All in This Together" is playing (mix courtesy of my brother) and we're dancing while we work. I'm sitting now because vacuuming whilst carting the punkin is difficult and requires breaks. My left biceps must recover sufficiently to man the machine while I go on to wear out the right side.

While I'm typing, the second load of sheets are running. The dryer vent is outside the open deck door. My self-administered reward for surviving last week's events was the purchase of ridiculously expensive fabric softener sheets. Mrs. Meyer's Geranium. For those of you who don't know, my girls have eczema which is not too bad most of the time, unless their clothes/sheets are washed with scented detergent, dried with full sheets of fabric softener, or they bathe in or spritz with too much "smelly stuff." On the one hand, it's a shame, because there's some really nice smelly stuff out there. On the other, it makes it easy to limit severely the amount of smelly stuff in the house because most of it (in my/their price range) is wretched and makes me sneeze. So I use the occasional half sheet of fabric softener, just to keep static down, and we're trying out the new stuff on the grown-ups sheets first. It's made with geranium, rose, and clove oils. Ahhhh. The air wafting up through the screen door is luverly. Hope it's the same on the sheets themselves.

Q is becoming somewhat less enamored with his position. The CD has moved on to "What a Beautiful World." It's warm here. Sunny. We had sliced Honeycrisp apples, veggie corn-dogs, papadum chips (TJ's) for lunch. Big drinks of water to keep the busy little people hydrated while they dance and clean.

Yesterday was fun--we walked through a National Wildlife Refuge (birds), stopped in at the visitor's center where my parenting was complimented--always nice, but it makes me blush. We walked a loop trail, then sketched the scenery, frogs, birds, each other, while enjoying gingersnaps under the covered observation area. (Now "Yellow Submarine" is on--"Eric the Half-a-Bee" can't be far behind. Love it.) While we were driving yesterday, we listened to "Sing a Song of Tuna Fish"--a CD of the book by the same name, read by the author. I recommend it. I had to squelch my own laughter in places where the kids were clearly taking the story quite seriously. Better go put the fussy teething baby down. More later. . .


Well, in the meantime, I've fed the kids twice (swimming requires an extra meal), done the swim lesson run, gotten Q down, only to have him wake up again, read stories, and dropped a twelve inch square piece of slate on my foot. At least it wasn't my toes. Bring on the arnica.

After looking at the photos from the last week, I thought I'd upload some to share. I tried to make an album with MSN, no luck. I tried to make an album at Yahoo, no luck. I've tried four times to post here a picture of the lovely scene we were sketching yesterday and Blogger won't do it. I'm out of patience. If it weren't so late (after midnight now), I'd try to set up something on Photobucket. It comes highly recommended. (Thanks, Amy.)

While I'm busy reveling in the perfect moments, strung together, life creeps in, eh? No such thing as perfect anyway. Sigh.

'Night all.