10

Ten years ago, at this very moment, I was crammed into a minivan with five other bodies and lots and lots of stuff.

2008

After all, tiny tykes come with not-so-tiny amounts of clothes...toys...diapers...sippy cups...plastic ware...car seats...more clothes...more diapers...more toys...more diapers...strollers...

...and no small amount of scawwies, love, hugs, kisses, tears, stories, and more love.

That first night, I had no idea of what lay ahead of us.

2009

I think I might have thrown up if I had.

I almost did, as it was. I was no parent. I could keep the cats alive, sure. They were self-cleaning and all of them were very well trained according to the rules of the house. I was thirty-two years old and had no clue how I was supposed to handle three little girls come morning.

Enter my dad, who decided "suddenly" to stay as he probably just mentally acknowledged that my mom's advice before he'd left home the previous day, before we picked up the girls, was right: Stay overnight a second night. They're going to need you.

The girls adapted quickly, and soon were amazingly comfortable with us.

2009

Oh, we learned so much in those early days...

• Kitties could "bite" toes from the next room.
• Snack and juice at 10 a.m. made getting to lunch without the crankies a lot easier.
• Mika would lower himself to eat French toast, but Popoki wouldn't.
• Middle loved all things squishy and stuffed.
• Oldest loved to dress up.
• Youngest had baby radar. (And a baby was anyone younger than her.)
• Disney princesses can perform amazing feats.
• Talking Veggies are fun.

2010

Mom and Dad came out about a month into this Experiment to give Hubby and I a date night, and we went out to dinner, promising ourselves we wouldn't be one of those couples who only talk about the kids.

We only talked about the kids.

Except for Hubby's comment about the motel nearest to the hospital, and his wondering if it rented rooms by the hour. Because, you see, we were both so tired that a movie didn't appeal, but a two-hour nap sure did.

That was the night Hubby asked my mother the question. "Mom, how long do you think the girls are going to be with us?" This was, after all, supposed to be a three-month gig.

2011

Mom didn't bat an eye. "Eighteen years."

"No, really, Mom. Seriously. How long are the girls going to be with us."

"Eighteen years."

As it turned out, she wasn't wrong.

We learned unpleasant things, too, like how underweight the girls were. How much they didn't expect regular meals. (It took them six months to realize hungry meant food is coming soon. Heartbreaking.) They were all developmentally behind. 

2012

We got them help. A developmental therapist came and worked in our home with the twins for an entire year. A physical therapist also came to work with Youngest, who didn't walk independently on her own until she was 20 months old. Oldest entered speech therapy.

So much has happened over the last ten years that I hardly know where to begin.

2013

• We filed suit for custody of the girls in June of 2009, after they had been with us more than a year, because my brother and ex-sister-in-law's planned move for the girls would have put them directly in harm's way. We also filed a petition of special relief, to keep the girls in our custody until the custody suit hearing.
• I was in a terrible car accident in July of 2009, and the girls and I moved in with Mom and Dad for two and a half months.
• Hubby left his ministry position and began the search for a new one.
• We went to Daytona Beach, FL, with my parents in 2010.

  

  2014

• During the time it took us to reach a hearing, there countless visitations both in person (Bro) and via Skype (Ex-SIL), fourteen months, five continuances, two judges, and one pointless conciliation hearing. But, on August 6, 2010, we were as shocked as my brother and his now ex-wife when the judge handed down her verdict that day, awarding us full physical custody and guardianship, along with shared legal custody with Bro and Ex-SIL. We spent the next week in Ocean City, MD, on a planned vacation with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew.
• We enrolled Oldest in Kindergarten in 2010.
• Hubby found a new ministry position in 2011, and we enrolled the twins in preschool.
• We bought a house and moved to a smaller town north of where we lived when the girls first came to us.

  

  2016

• We enrolled the twins in Kingergarten in 2012.
• We traveled to Ocean City, MD, during the summer of 2012 with my parents.
• We've said some sad goodbyes to dear family members: Popoki and Keiki (2012), Pa'ani (2014), Minouchette (2016), Koa and Mika (2017).
• We went back to Daytona Beach on vacation in 2013.
• We filed a petition for termination of rights for Bro and Ex-SIL in December 2013, after long silences by both of those parties, so that we could pursue what we all now wanted: adoption, the legal acknowledgement of our family.
• We said goodbye to Youngest's tonsils and adenoids in the spring of 2014, making her the first of the girls to undergo surgery.
• The termination of rights hearing was held in front of our custody judge (from 2010) in April 2014. My brother pursued appeals all the way to our state Supreme Court, on the grounds that we had not bonded to these girls who, by now, had been calling us Mom and Dad for several years (we were originally Auntie and Uncle), and had not seen him in nearly two years by the date of the termination hearing.
• We invaded Daytona Beach for the third time in 2014, also working in a few days in Orlando, where we got to see Mickey!
• On April 9, 2015, our judge granted our adoption petitions, and we became legally what we had been from the very beginning: a family.
• Oldest also said goodbye to her tonsils and adenoids in May 2016. There was much rejoicing.
  

  

  2015

• Special Edition joined our family on May 28, 2015, in a move we'd been hoping she'd make. 
• We visited the Gulf side of Florida with my parents, staying at their place there in 2015.
• We weathered the toughest loss of all in June 2015 after our Florida trip, the girls' beloved Poppa, my dad.
• In the firm belief that chocolate cures many things, we went to Hershey Park.
• We visited our nephew's family in Virginia in the fall of 2015 and spent a couple days seeing museums around D.C.
• Middle had eye surgery (she's an overachiever like that) not once but twice, correcting a vision abnormality she had (2016-2017).
• We discovered a nearby (ish) lake that was so much fun we visited it two summers running.
• Middle sustained a concussion and learned she was a heart patient this year.

2017

Today, we are ten years a family.

Wow. 

Our school year wraps up on Friday. We'll have an 8th grader (Oldest) and two sixth-graders (Middle and Youngest). The summer promises to be an adventure already: Oldest turns 13, everyone has

camp, the twins have summer band lessons, we're spending a few days visiting Special Edition and Mr. Nurse, and we plan to do something fun to celebrate marking a decade together.

I can't wait for the adventures of the next decade.

2018

Today, We Celebrate

Special Edition does not know I'm going to make a big deal of this, but I am.

Because three years ago today, she joined our family and made us complete.

Three years.

Sometimes it seems like a lifetime, others not nearly long enough.

We have walked through all kinds of crazy together. From the first moment I met you, I knew. It wouldn't matter how crazy, I would be there.

Baby girl, I know the road has been long and hard. I know it's been rough. But your dad and I would not trade having you in our family for anything. You are worth it all.

We love you.

And we're so glad you're a part of our family. You belong here.

Okay, gooshy moment over. You can go back to your regularly scheduled programming, sweetheart.

Cool Ranch Doritos and Other Cool Things

Hubby currently works for a well-known local gas station/convenience store chain in our area, having stepped out of ministry for a sort of sabbatical about two and a half years ago after my father's sudden death. It's a crazy workplace, and he says it's perfect for him and his ADHD because there's always something new to do. He likes his coworkers and it's become increasingly obvious why this chain is one of the top 100 employers in the country.

He likes his job.

This makes him happy, which makes me happy.

Innyhoo. His store is busy, sitting in a location where a divided highway joins back together just on the other side of the store's property. Lots of local traffic, and lots of regular customers.

Among these regulars is a mom and her two young sons.

Now, Hubby has always thought, from a customer-service standpoint, if he can make the kids smile and giggle, he'll please the parents, who are always the customers. He feels that way about our own girls: if someone can make them laugh and smile, his day is made. So he turns that around and applies that to the customers who come in with their kids.

So he talks to the kids who come to his counter when he's on register. They'll hand up candy. "Is that for me?" Inevitably, the kids giggle and correct him. They'll hand up chips. "Oh, those have to be for me!" More giggling. "No, those are for my sister!"

The kids love him.

The parents are happy.

The mom and her two boys are, according to Hubby, in the store nearly every day. He's built a rapport with the boys. "Oh, you've got Cool Ranch Doritos. I love Cool Ranch Doritos! Are those for me?"

Giggles and silly shrieks. "No, those are ours!"

Yesterday, the mom and her boys came into the store and got in Hubby's line. Once again, he interacted with the boys. "Cool Ranch Doritos! Are those for me?"

I can only imagine the look on his face when those little boys (about six and seven, he says) happily told him, "Yes, those are for you!"

The boys, it turns out, go to one of the local Christian schools, the one that's less than half a mile from Hubby's store. They've been learning about sharing, caring, and doing kind things.

They told their mom they wanted to get Cool Ranch Doritos just for Hubby. They wanted to do something nice for him, specifically.

Hubby said his first instinct was to say no, that he couldn't accept them, but then he realized what they were trying to do, and he gave in, and enjoyed his chips with the pizza he had later on his dinner break.

That little moment made his entire day.

You know, as long as there are parents raising kids like this, as long as we are teaching that kindness to anyone is a true virtue, the future is in good hands.

A Little Less Conversation

The very merry month of May has begun, and I think something in the air has infected the short people in my house.

Or something.


Scene: Dinner Table
May 1

Oldest: I think I'm done drinking chocolate milk...for today.

Note: We have no chocolate milk in the house.

Me: How much have you had?

Oldest: Ten bottles.

Me: How do you get ten bottles of chocolate milk?

This must have happened at school.

Oldest: People give them to me. They drop them on my tray as they go to throw trash away. So I had ten, and my friend had ten, and we had a chocolate milk drinking challenge, which I won, of course.

Me: Oh, of course. <pause>  Do you think that you're going to fade if you don't drink enough? Your skin color, I mean?

Oldest [laughing]: No.

Middle: Wait, that can happen? Is that why you don't drink chocolate milk?

I sat there and shook my head vigorously and tried not to laugh, but I don't think I convinced her that drinking chocolate milk is the way to keep up her skin tone, or that I avoid it so I won't turn brown. (I just don't like milk.)

[It occurs to me now that I should have told her I eat enough chocolate ice cream to have affected my skin color, but alas, my retort comes too late.]

I must admit that I rather like our new dinner tradition, where the kids clean up and put away the leftovers (on the pitifully rare occasions that we have them, which we did this night) if I've cooked dinner. It's nice.

So, shortly after this...

Oldest: Can you please pass the chicken?

Me: No! You've had two full plates of food!

Middle: Then can I be excused? To go to the bathroom?

Me: Yes, as long as you come back and take care of the dishes and stuff. I will take care of the chicken, because I don't trust you to not sneak another piece [Middle had had five] while putting it away.

Middle: We probably would.


Scene: Dinner Table
May 2

Middle: You have to remember that I am weird. With a capital W. And a capital I. And E. And R. And D.

Me [amused]: Not in that order.

Middle [almost simultaneously]: I think I got that right. Oh. The other way, then.


Scene: Kitchen
Tonight

I'm looking for the canister of knock-off Pringles Hubby bought the other night when I asked him to also get me something to eat when he stopped at the store for something else on his way home from work. They were on the island, and I can't find them. I've had a rough few days with my ankle giving me fits, so it was fend-for-yourself night here. I figured I'd make a sandwich and have some of those chips, even though they felt kinda wrong. (They're about twice the thickness of actual Pringles.) Hubby had, after all, bought some Fritos for himself. I can't eat Fritos anymore. Well, I can, but not without great consequence, so I don't. So I asked the girls if they had seen my canister of chips, which had last been spotted on the island.

They're all shaking their heads.

Oldest: I last saw them here.

Yes, well, there's just a whole lot of here here on the island now. No fat Pringles.

Youngest: I haven't seen any chips.

Middle: Maybe Dad...

And she left the room, presumably going up to Special Edition's room, where Hubby likes to play games on the Xbox when Special Edition isn't living here at home.

I searched the pantry until Middle returned, still not finding chips.

Middle [stepping from stairs into kitchen]: We have a body.

Then she handed me the empty canister.

This kid.


Please, by all means, come to dinner at my house. You never know what's going to happen.

Ladies' Night

It's finally happened.

No, not sharing my shoes with my daughter, although that happened with Oldest on Easter Sunday, when she complained her church shoes were woefully tight. I ended up just giving her two pairs of shoes I don't wear anymore. The worst part? She's probably going to outgrow those as well. Save me now. (Middle has already surpassed me.)

But no, not any of that.

I sat down at the dinner table tonight with the girls, just the four of us, as Hubby was working, and proceeded to spend the next three minutes having absolutely no idea what my children were discussing.

Enough names finally got tossed that I figured out they were talking about a game they all play online, and I presumed these to be "celebrity" YouTubers who make videos of their game play (people can make money at this?), and ye tap-dancing fishies, I am somehow old.

Which really was never to be the point of the blog post I intended to write tonight.

A friend on Facebook (and also in real life, because I am old and know 97% of my Facebook friends for realsies) had posted something today, asking how old you'd be in ten years, along with your kids. Another friend commented that it wasn't so much how old everyone would be in ten years that got to her, but how young everyone was just ten years before.

Since you're dying to know, I'll be 52, Special Edition will be 31, Oldest will be 22, and both Middle and Youngest will be 21. (The next decade will be interesting.)

But it was far less the future that caught my attention as it was my friend's comment about the past.

Ten years ago today, we would have had no kids.

This life wouldn't have even been a glimmer on the horizon. We had another few days before we got the first call from my brother, I think.

How boring.

I didn't dare comment on the post for fear of totally hijacking it and taking it in such a completely bent direction, but man... Ten years ago, there were no kids. Not in our daily lives, at least. Our "kids" had four legs and were the only self-cleaning things in the house.

Coming up in a little over a month, we celebrate an entire decade as a family. Ten years of parenting by the seat of our pants. Ten. Years.

Yeah, we're doing something special. Hubby and I are still talking options.

Wow.

"...not airy, like your brain is full of air, because it's not. I've seen it," Middle declared, speaking to her twin.

Oh. Hey. Still dinner. I set down my fork and studied Middle for a moment. "What did you do, look up her nose?"

Middle nodded effusively and waggled her eyebrows. "Uh-huh."

"Wait, you saw my brain?" Youngest scrunched up her nose.

"You were on the playroom bed, and I looked up, and there it was."

Giggles broke out around the table, and the conversational arc repeated itself as I sat there in bemused amusement for a good minute, just watching and listening. Then... "You do know you can't see her brain by looking up her nose, right?"

Middle shot back, deadpan, "Do you?" Her eyebrows wriggled again.

I sat back in my chair as a beat passed in silence. "I'm pretty confident in my science knowledge."

Middle laughed. "I have none. That's why I'm so smart."


Ladles and germs, this is my dinner table.

I hope it's this much fun still in another ten years.

Tender Vignettes of a Particular Thursday

6:30 a.m.

Oldest's alarm blaring down the hallway woke me up, because I'd forgotten last night to set my odd-week Thursday alarm that means Oldest has to get up in time for school, not for counseling. (She has an afternoon appointment this week.) Oops.

To be honest, I don't know why Oldest sets both of her alarms. She gets up with the 6 a.m. one daily now that (as I knock on all available pieces of wood) spring seems to be here. I grumble half-awake, and five minutes later she knocked on the door to tell me she was leaving for school. She normally catches a ride with the neighbor kids down the street but they haven't been getting to the school early enough for Oldest. (I know!) Whatever. She's going to school; I'm going back to bed. For another 35 minutes, anyway.


7:25 a.m.

Waffle called to tell me how her morning has already started, so I walked out to the car while chatting with her and we talked the entire ride from my house to Hubby's work. Our topics ranged from The Kitten (hers), and his endless not-smartness (he doesn't know how to cat) that's tempered with cuteness to keep him alive, my inability last night to make Microsoft Word sit up and bark like I needed it to (something it's still refusing to do), traffic (she was commuting), and how I can't understand both halves of a conversation I'm right in the middle of when one half is talking in my ear and the other half is my husband, sitting right there in the car.

Hubby counted the day off to a good start because his daily commute takes him by a field where a gorgeous male ring-necked pheasant and his two hens live, and he saw the male and one of the hens this morning.

Waffle and Hubby both went into work, and I drove home, taking Middle into school once I got there. She's still having issues with the bus ride. It's longer in the morning, has more stops (squeaky brakes), there's a lot of kids, a cranked radio, and generally a lot of direct noise to scramble her headache right before the school day starts. She's also still tolerating only about a half day. Today, she toted in her baritone, because one of the valves was sticking. I confirmed with her that I'd see her before lunch.

Right. On with the rest of my morning.


9:05 a.m.

All hail Diet Dr Pepper, righter of worlds. I stuffed about a hundred envelopes for the newsletter I needed to send out, and then got started trying to untangle the problem between Word, Excel, and the Mail Merge That Would Not Happen last night. Perhaps the source Excel file (which was old) had a corruption that wasn't causing enough of an issue to bork Excel when I opened the file, but enough to cause issues when I tried to do something complicated like print labels from a data set. Solution? Create new file from scratch.


11:10 a.m.

I arrived at Middle's school and went in to sign her out. As I did, Middle told me the principal wanted to talk to me.

Oh, rapturous delight.

We've been hitting snags with getting Middle the help she needs while not having her stay in school during the day longer than she can handle without it giving her a huge headache. The PA we saw at the concussion clinic (who I was never exceptionally fond of, but for the fact that he did give us a great post-concussion care plan, despite his meager attempts to assist us in managing it) had said, at Middle's last appointment, that it sounded like she would benefit from independent instruction. If we wanted to do that, we needed to let him know. This was about three weeks ago. In subsequent discussions with Middle and then the principal, we decided to go this route. The principal didn't tell us (astonishingly enough) that there was a form we needed to have the PA fill out. So, we told the principal (rather enthusiastically) that we'd call the PA and he would fax something over.

Silly us for thinking it would be that simple.

I called, and within two days they called us back to say that the school needed to send them the form. They wouldn't do anything. They needed the form. When we finally reconnected with the principal about it (thinking she would have mentioned the form in the first place during all of the discussions prior), she says, "Yes, there's a form. Would you like me to email it to you?" PLEASE. She sent it to me on a Thursday. I had it faxed to the PA's office the next day. (This was the end of last week.)

So I'm already dreading this conversation. Middle's well-child checkup had been Monday, and I'd forgotten to a) get an excuse for that, and b) have the doctor give us an excuse for the rest of the time Middle had been out because she was throwing-up sick, which we had discussed at the appointment. The doctor had refused anything but the excuse for the day of the appointment...an excuse produced by the principal, which was for the wrong day. OY. I explained that they screwed it up. The principal said I'd have to have them fax a new one. Then the issue of homebound instruction came up, and I said I'd sent the forms to the other doctor last week. I promised to call and to discuss ways that Middle could get further instruction time under her belt, while explaining that we still have to get Middle to see the neurologist again (tomorrow's appointment) and that she needs to see the eye doctor too.

Home again, jiggity.


11:35 a.m.

Middle and I have a heart-to-heart about some stuff because I was worried about the conversation we'd had in the car on the way home from school. I ended up pulling her into my lap, explaining that I would raise holy heck at the PA's office and we'd get her an eye doctor appointment and we'd see the neurologist and it was all going to work out.

"Why do you do all this for me?" she whispered.

I hugged her close. "Because you're my daughter and I love you."

"I love hearing you say those words."

Cue the heart going squoosh and the gooshy feelings.


2:10 p.m.

Oldest was tucked away in her counseling session, so I stepped outside to make the call to the PA's office. I explained my need, and they looked up Middle's chart.

"Yes, ma'am, we faxed that over to them today. It's all set."

Well. That was easy. Too easy...?

I went back inside the building and sat down, and my phone rang. It was my mother. I stepped outside again. She wanted to know what size shirts the twins wore, because she had $20 in Kohl's Cash and was going shopping for them.

I was back inside the building a bit longer this time and had gotten about ten pages further in my book and the waiting room had cleared out to just little ol' me when my phone rang again. Middle's school. What now?

It was the school counselor. She'd gotten the form from the PA's office, she said, but they'd refused to fill it out.

All of the bad words. All of them. "They what?"

"The only signature on the form is yours."

I muffled a scream only because I was in public. "They said they'd do this for us if we got them the form!"

The counselor was apologetic. She had called the PA's office herself. The receptionist informed her that she'd just done what the office manager said to do.

EGAD. I am SO done with these people and their incompetence.

"They want her neurologist to do it."

Handy. She sees the neurologist tomorrow. The counselor got very excited about that, and offered to send home new forms with Youngest. Square deal, thanks. I vented my frustration through messages to Hubby and Waffle.

Mom called again at 2:45, and I was beginning to feel like the most popular person in the world. She wanted to know if a dress she found at a yard sale was something Oldest would like. I said I wouldn't know until Oldest came out of session in another fifteen minutes or so. (She did, so I called Mom back then with the good news.)


3:10 p.m.

I stopped and got ice cream cones for both Oldest and me at McDonald's on our way over to Hubby's work.

Because sometimes you just need a cone.

Or twelve.


6:35 p.m.

Everyone headed out the door for Oldest's Choir concert at school. The choir director does a really good job with his students, and Oldest loves being in choir. Tonight's concert would feature the 6th Grade Chorus, the Accidentals (a select-voice jazz ensemble), and the 7th & 8th Grade Choir, with a finale musical montage featuring all three groups. Oldest ran off to join the ruckus of choir kids gathering at the front, and we found seats.

Hubby and I are sort of musical geeks; we met in our college's semi-professional a cappella choir. We know good music when we hear it. (We also know bad music when we hear it.) These kids have never failed to impress us. The Accidentals did a fantastic job; these kids audition to be in the group, and there's only about 15 or so of them. They did a Gershwin piece a cappella, a stretch for them, and we were both very impressed with how skillfully they pulled that off. (Gershwin is not easy.) The teacher hardly had to direct at all when they sang "Route 66."

That's her, on the end.

Oldest turned out to be in the front row, so it was a treat to watch her enjoy herself singing the music we've heard her humming around the house.

The finale that brought everyone onstage was a selection of five songs from Disney's Moana. One young lady could've easily handled all the solo pieces that were Moana's. I really liked her voice.

Then the one boy soloist came forward to sing. He tackled Maui's more prominent parts in "You're Welcome," and had us all laughing. I felt he could've used just a bit more sass when he hollered, "And thank you!" at the end of the song, but otherwise he did great.

Hubby leaned around Middle, who was between us, and whispered. "I like him. Oldest should pick him." Say what? "She can marry him. I like him already. He sings! He can come around any time."

Lemme tell you, the admiration only grew after the kid tackled the Hawaiian in the closing song. Hubby spent three of his growing-up years there, and he loves the language. Hubby flipped through the bi-folded program. "Look!" he whispered again. "His last name is only two letters off from ours. She wouldn't have to change it much. It's meant to be!"

Poor kid. He's won a son-in-law sweepstakes he hasn't known he's entered.

Hubby even started in on the idea with Oldest when she joined us...and promptly turned down Hubby's match-making ideas.

"Why, Dad?" she asked with the kind of aggravated petulance that only soon-to-be 13-year-olds can pull off.

"He sings!"

I grinned and joined in. "He can work on his pitch control."

Hubby just stared at me. "He's a teenage boy. There's no such thing as pitch control."

I suppose there are days when it's a good thing that having a contralto voice and being a girl means I didn't have much in the way of voice-altering vocal woes during puberty. This would be one of them.


Now

He's so cute when he sleeps.

It's just about bedtime for me. At least, what I should call bedtime.

But I need to make a list of the concerns we have that we need to bring to the neurologist for tomorrow's appointment.

Makaha is snoring on the back of the couch next to me. Perhaps the list should wait until morning, when I'll remember it better anyway. Because I honestly think Makaha has the better idea...

A Full Rich Day

Here at the 4077th Casa Auntie J, it's been what we like to affectionately call "a full rich day."

In other words, I've run me off my own feet.

Since 6:10 a.m., I have done the following:

• Woke up and checked on Oldest, who had gotten sick in the middle of the night. Still sick. Texted her ride to say she wasn't going in.

• Got up again with the twins. Middle informed me that she didn't think she could do a full day of school today (it was supposed to be her first). Okay, half day.

• Drove Middle to school. Forgot phone.

• Came home and copied new crock-pot recipes from web browser to Word.

• Called Middle's school nurse back to confirm that I had, in fact, not given Middle any Tylenol for her persistent concussion-related headache yet this morning, because I am already frazzled.

• Composed grocery list and checked grocery budget.

• Got dressed in real clothes.

• Got out of the house ten minutes late. Nearly forgot phone.

• Aldi run. I have half an hour to shop.

• Picked up Middle from school at the halfway point, but 15 minutes late. Darn having to pack my own grocery bags, but I saved a good $17 on my own estimate of my total.

• Hijacked Middle and went on the second half of the grocery run at Walmart (including the big kid's birthday presents). Spent some time on the trip explaining why I shop on a budget and how I compare prices. (It all started because she speculated about having lots of money, enough to fund her own phone for 15 years.)

• Didn't even leave the store when I realized we'd forgotten the sunglasses I'd promised we'd get Middle (they have a bunch for $2.50). Ran back in.

• Got home in time to unload the car (yay, muscles!) and start putting stuff away before Dan had to leave for work.

• Put dinner (new recipe) in the crock pot. (Lemon Garlic Roasted Chicken, if you're interested.)

• Sliced my thumb open while trying to cut a whole garlic bulb in half. (Nothing a bandaid didn't fix. I'm fine. Honest. I did NOT pull a startling impression of my sainted mother. This was actually for tonight's dinner.

• Prepped 15+ pounds of chicken for both fridge (tomorrow's birthday dinner) and freezer.

• Prepped scallions for the freezer with Middle's help.

• Realized I totally forgot to eat lunch.

• Had a snack.

• Wrote this post.

• Realized Middle probably forgot to have lunch, too. (Mother of the Year award, here I come!)

And I still have to put in the potatoes to bake for dinner and make tomorrow's cake for Special Edition's 21st birthday (I will not have time tomorrow, that's for sure). AND I have writers' group tonight.