now what about these two?....

ok, I knew I would miss my big kids when school started. I know I depend a lot on them to help me with the "babies"...but oh my word, we are having a struggle, to say the least! Owen is used to sleeping in until 9 and sometimes even 10, but with all the excitement monday and tuesday, he was up before 8. I don't think he stopped whining and crying all day. Lucy thinks I should devote all of my time entertaining her...On day one, she HAD to color while I was washing the breakfast dishes. All of our coloring books were just recently boxed up in the process of moving out of our kitchen. She persisted, and I gave in. The "fun pad" I found was NOT acceptable, so I had to find the box, untape it, and dig way down to find a book for her to color in. Keep in mind little Odie was crying and whining and I was holding him most of the time throughout the searching. And my dishwater was getting cold. After coloring for 15 seconds, she HAD to do a puzzle. I put her off long enough to finish the dishes, but in the mean time, Odie had plastered his face with glue stick. Next, Lucy really really wanted to blow bubbles. I agreed with that activity, because it would entertain Odie and take them both OUTSIDE. That also lasted mere seconds. Then as Lucy and I were cleaning up her puzzles, Odie dumped the rest of the bubble solution on the kitchen table and drenched his shirt with the soapy mess. My kitchen table is now shining clean. Anyways, by 10 a.m. I decided it was time to check out the fall line-up of toddler shows on Playhouse Disney. I've never been so happy to see Handy Manny in all my life!
Day two wasn't much better. Odie started wailing "NOOOO......!!!!" when Phoebe and Will got on the bus, and kept up the whining and crying all morning, until I was wondering if he was sick, or teething or something was seriously wrong with the boy! The good part of that day was the fact that Lucy had a nap, something she hasn't done all summer long.
And here we are at the end of day three. Odie slept until 8:45 this morning, so we were off to a better start with him, but Lucy had got up with me at 6:30. I took them both to library story time, thinking maybe some time out of the house would be good for us. It was...and they both napped again when we got home. Things are looking up, it just takes some getting used to, for all of us, I guess.
As far as the school kids go, Abby is LOVING jr. hi. After our rough start with the bus business on the first day, she hasn't had a bad moment yet. Her flip flops broke on tuesday, which left her barefoot for half the day, but I don't think she cared. She did tell me she wasn't ready to deal with taking a water bottle yet, she had too much other stuff to figure out before she would be able to do that! Funny girl!
Phoebe is loving it, also. She thinks her teacher is great, and has some cute friends in her class. She is more worried about how she looks each day than anything. She has also been a little sick with the same dreaded sore throat that I have had for over a week now. She did not want to miss a day of the first week of school, though. Hopefully she's not contaminating too many classmates! Ugh, what's a mom to do?
Will's first words off the bus on his first day were, "Mom, I LOVE school lunch!" We are not surprised. The kid loves to eat. And he was thoroughly excited about the fact that he got a planner. And today he came home with a TCW (totally cool windjammer) ticket for good assembly behavior. He is the model first grader, I'm sure!
So we're slowly sinking into the routine of it all. I'm sure we'll get the hang of it eventually, just in time for dance, soccer and softball to start and throw us for a few more loops routine-wise! Yikes...5 kids=chaos!!!!