Real Fairy Tales are Creepy

Once upon a time, about a year ago, a lovely princess thought something was wrong with her new kitchen floor. Occasionally she would smell something nasty as she washed dishes but shrugged it off to the zoo of children she was attempting to maintain and grow and she would throw some vinegar in the dishwasher and some baking soda in the garbage disposal. Eventually the dishwasher started making such loud sounds you could hear it all over the house and one could barely keep a conversation while it was running.

Then one dark Saturday morning, her Prince Charming pulled out the dishwasher to install a new recirculation pump (after researching the sound they were hearing) and found.....mold. Lots, and lots, of  mold. The floor beneath the dishwasher, the one installed just a year ago, crumbled in his hands. Mold saturated the walls and cabinets surrounding the dishwasher, and it covered the floor further than he could see. It was bad. Very bad.

That, my friends, was us last weekend.

Don't worry it's not like we had company in town......oh, wait, we did.

Our loyal contractor friend, the one who fixed our hosue last year, (why yes we just did this last year), stopped by to assess the damage but we'd have to wait about a week to really see how bad it was.

Today was our day.  I spent the morning cleaning the kitchen and emptying the counters, etc. We even moved the kitchen table to the dining room. (Novel idea)

At lunch Rooster kept saying how the pizza gave him a headache. Happy and I thought it was a ploy to get a different lunch, as if cheese pizza was an unpleasant option, so I said, "If you have a headache you should lay down." I remember Rooster say, "Yeah. I should lay down." but didn't think much of it.

Life went on.

Then at one point when I was changing batteries in a remote control truck (this happens five times a day) I realized I hadn't heard Rooster in a while, not a request, a fight, a scream, nothing. So we started looking for him. I looked EVERYWHERE. We rang the dinner bell ,we called out for him, everything. Finally, and I was moments from calling Mr. Sloth seriously concerned, I thought we should check all the bathrooms again. I walked into our bedroom and just barely noticed his face under all our decorative pillows. The poor guy, all on his own, went to our room and covered himself in pillows and fell sound asleep.

So now it' s naptime, clearly, so I put King down and start some school with Demand and Happy. Then our friend shows up and starts setting up for demolition.

It goes downhill from here.

Not only was the water damage worse than we thought but Rooster woke up still not feeling right and me and my mommy-spidy sense took his temperature and he had a 101.5 temperature.

I couldn't make this stuff up.

Happy First Week of School!

Ok, so our kitchen needs to be reconstructed. At least it's not our entire house like last year, (and last year I thought well nothing of value was damaged just floors/ceilings/walls, etc) Ok, Rooster is sick, but it's just a fever with a headache. We have no plans, we aren't traveling, he's kinda cute when sick, it's ok. So much more could be wrong in our life.

Plus and for me its always about the upside in a not-sugary-Pollyanna-way, I'm getting a new kitchen. Countertops, backsplash.....this was not in the plan but now is the time. This is happening, like it or not. What's somewhat funny is that I was very content with my kitchen. I was happy with what I had and it was nice. On the rare occasions when it was clean I liked what I saw when I entered the room and felt peace. Now I'm getting upgrades. Upgrades I didn't really desire, but ok, here we go. Unfortunately this means a few weeks of 'inconvenience'.

But my kitchen will sure look purrrty.

Not right now though. Right now it's creepy.

...And they lived happily ever after.

First week of school: Part 1

First week of school, or so I'm told.

A few weeks ago I decided it would be fun to celebrate our little homeschool in a different way. I realized that since school always starts the day after Labor Day here, that it always starts on a Tuesday which happens to be Toddler Tuesday at the Mall of America.  On Toddler Tuesday wristbands for rides are half off and kids eat free at many restaurants (with each adult meal of course), and.....everyone else's kids are in school.

Score.

As the day approached I became nervous as Demand kept talking about how we always have fun gifts that day and Happy kept talking about being a 1st grader.  Eek. Would they be ok not doing school?

They seemed fine.

We got some wrist bands for the amusement park and rode rides till we were sore; at least I was. Some of those rides are intense!  We met up with my sister-in-law and some of her littles who needed some fun as well.

Time went way too fast and before we knew it we had been there five hours, and it was well past nap time.  We ended with some gelato (most of which was free) before heading over to Grandmas house.  My sister in law was going to watch the kiddos while Mr. Sloth and I ran to a counter top distributor because (hangs head, sighs) we are remodeling our kitchen.

That. Is. Another. Post.

Here are the kids on the school bus....I'm sorry the Diego bus ride at the Mall.

We finally headed home ten hours after we left. Needless to say Rooster and King were beside themselves.

Here's King at the mall during our lunch break. I extremely offended him when I went to the bathroom for thirty seconds. The selfies were me trying to show him how awful he looked.

Afterschool, snack anyone? Free ice cream? Yes, please!

Actually, everyone was beside themselves. Demand was really off. After a week or more with cousins and a fun day at the mall she said she needed a break and wanted to do school on Wednesday instead of something fun.  O......K......

Happy was excited for school too. He couldn't stop talking about starting 1st grade.  (We did most of Kindergarten last year so I guess we move forward even though he's only five.)

So Wednesday we started school. Ready or not.  I was not.  I spent an hour panicking Tuesday night when the only Math book I could find for Demand was a first grade book, and it wasn't done. Did we not finish first grade math? Are we that far behind?? Then I realized it was a book I bought for Happy and that Demand was much further along. Whew.

It was a very casual day as I still have some preparing to do.  I know what you're thinking. Didn't you buy all their books back in May? What else is there to do? Well there is copying, cutting, organizing, planning, etc... But I put my 'keep calm and homeschool' hat on, grabbed some books and did stuff.

I then went through the five stages of homeschooling grief.

1) Denial: The summer isn't over. We're not really schooling yet, just reading some books and writing some letters and numbers.

2) Anger: Why can't children stop asking me for things for thirty seconds so I can teach ten minutes of math??

3)Bargaining: If you leave us alone you can watch Mickey Mouse later.

4) Depression: Does she remember anything from last year? Am I ruining her education?

5) Acceptance: "I can't wait to do more school tomorrow."  I have not ruined our relationship nor their education in one day.

Then I see the cuteness that is this guy,

 and remember why it's all worth it.