Come Home. Soon.

So I’m going on day 3 of flying solo with the kiddos (I’m actually embarrassingly afraid to admit, that it’s actually only hour 25, as my terrific mom and dad were here over the weekend). Trav’s in the pacific northwest for graduation celebration with family, so I’m the lone ranger, well along with Spock and Kirk, but two labs aren’t as much help corralling children as you’d think they’d be. My first order of business- to get the kids on board with taking care of their own dishes. The kitchen clean up is typically Trav’s domain so I knew I would definitely feel his absence in this area, so this was the weekend Maddie and Jason learned how to rinse dishes and load a dishwasher. It went surprisingly well! I’m hoping this habit will continue into their teen years. As we were taking a morning not-a-run because a four year old is wwwaaaaay too into grass and leaves and trees for any kind of expedited trip, I noticed a beautiful lab roaming the neighborhood. “someone’s dog…” then another yellow lab behind that one. “HEY! How’d you guys get out!” So was the start of our real five minute run chasing down OUR dogs who somehow escaped the backyard. Teaching opportunity #2 arrived as I was deep in concentration on my grad school assignment when Maddie screamed, “MOMMMA! I’M DONE POOPING!” *Note, if your kiddos were wiping their own butts prior to age 4, well, awesome for you, and if you don’t yet have kiddos, wait until you have two of them and are stumbling your way through a full time teaching job and grad school to make judgements* I made an impromptu decision, now’s as good a time as any for Maddie to learn. Our converstation proceeded: Me: “Ok girlie, you’re independent and responsible, so now you get to wipe your own bottom.” Maddie: curmudgeonly, “aaah” Me: “ so you want to start our with some paper, how many squares do you think would be good to start out with?” Keeping in mind my former disasters with square limits. Maddie: “193!” Me: “that might be a leeeetle too many. How about we start with 3?” And the rest is really kind of personal. You don’t want to know the crude little limerick that Travis has provided our household with when to tell if you’re done. Nonetheless, that’s 2 less duties I have to do until Trav returns.