What I did today

My sidekick (Fly 4, the only one not in school full-time) and I were busy this morning. What we have done so far:

Zellers - rubber boots and MORE school supplies.
Grocery Store - $150 worth of assorted stuff, including more items we need for our Weight Watchers diet
Liquor Store - Wine, Wine, Wine
My brother's house - drop off some stuff, follow him to drop his car for repairs, then brought him home, coffee and a visit
School - cheque and order form for tickets had to be in today or else
Music Studio - very large cheques for the oldest 3 to take guitar, piano, and piano in that order
Home - unload groceries, on second load of laundry and made lunch
Fly 4 now napping, I am thinking of doing the same.

Bet you are glad you waited weeks for me to do a new post!

My Top Ten List

I saw this on from this side of the pond, a blog I enjoy, and it was fun to think about. Joyce was asking what your top ten books of all time list would be.

Here's mine:

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Postmortem, Patricia Cromwell
A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough
The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
London, Edward Rutherfurd
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt

Send me yours in the comments, or post a link to your blog!

I May Survive

Last week of summer vacation is mercifully over. Oh my lord, how many more days could these children and I stand each other for? Actually, it has gone by so quickly and we have had a lot of fun, but they are SO ready to get back to school and get away from each other. Big party here with the family on Sunday, up to my ears in back to school prep for Tuesday, so next week the posting will begin. As will the dieting, the running, the cleaning of the house, the finishing up of a work project, and all the other tasks I have put off all summer. "The kids are home, how could I possibly get that done"? Will have to find a new excuse. Fly 4 and I will be home alone. Play wif me, mommy, play wif me! Hope you have a great long weekend, everyone!

Frogtrackers

Ever seen the show Mantracker, where the grizzled cowboy tracks hapless hikers through the wilderness? Fly 1 enjoys it. Well, today I am introducing a new series, Frogtrackers. It's exciting, suspenseful, dirty, wet and messy...all the things you and your family look for in a tv show. Starring four appealing little tykes, aged 2 to 10, who romp around their rural homestead hunting and trapping amphibians. Will the frog jump high enough to escape from the sandbucket? How many toads will mommy's juice pitcher hold? Do frogs eat begonias? If you drop a large rock from head high will it kill the frog or break your sister's big toe? You and your budding scientists will find the answers to these exciting questions and more...just tune in next Thursday at 8:00 am to see the whole family on the front porch in their pyjamas!

Seriously...what do city kids do for entertainment?

A day in the life ... sort of

5:30 am, husband leaves for airport kisses me goodbye
8 am, husband calls from airport, wakes me up, kids all asleep
8:30 am Fly 3 comes in, asks to turn on tv
8:33 am Fly 4 calls out MOMMY
8:35 am I get up
8:40 am change Fly 4, get people juice, try to keep things quiet for older two who are still sleeping
8:45 am shower
9:00 am coffee, laundry, read and eat breakfast, kids in front of TV
9:15 am thunder wakes Fly 1
9:45 am Fly 2 awakes
10:00 am check work email, read a couple blogs, realize we need to get it together
10:30 pm realize I lost track of this 24 hours in the life post about 12 hours ago
10:31 pm give up and go to bed

What's Gonna Work? Teamwork!*

Email sent today:

TO: Auxiliary Caregivers One, Two and Three
FROM: Mama Fly
RE: My attempt to escape my children for 48 hours

Thursday evening – Auxiliary Caregiver One to pick up the three oldest children from the Day Camp bus at 4:30, then pick up Fly#4 at daycare. Bring them here for the night.
Friday - AC One will drop the three oldest back off at the bus at 8:00 am, deliver Fly#4 to Nana (AC Two) and then pick the kids up off the bus again at 4:30 and bring them home.
Friday evening - Auxiliary Caregiver Three will come here after work and stay with the older three until we get home Sat. evening.

Nana to return her charge at her convenience. Thanks guys, if any of this won’t work let me know. Love, Mama Fly


* for those of you without children, this is from "The Wonder Pets" theme song

If I had a memory...

...My family would have traditions. Today is the last day of school for the two biggest flies and Fly 3 had her last day yesterday, so I was trying to think of something special to do after school. We have soccer tonight, so it couldn't be anything too elaborate, but I wanted to do something fun. We have already set aside a big bag of school papers, etc. to burn as an end of school bonfire, but we don't have time for that tonight either. It occurred to me to wonder what - if anything - I had done in the past. I mean, we have had kids in school for six years. Surely I have marked the end of school in some way? But no, no recollection whatsoever. This is my only - well, one of my very few - weakness as a mother. I have a poor memory. Maybe not poor, inconsistent would be more accurate. I really need to write things down in order to remember them. But I do pretty well at remembering the minutiae of my family's life, thus using my brain cells up and crowding out more important things like happy family memories.

I read posts on traditions from mothers like Chris at Notes from the Trenches, and Mary at Owlhaven, and I feel quite inadequate. It's not that I lack ideas, or even the motivation, I just simply don't remember what we do from year to year. Of course we have SOME traditions, but it seems odd that I can't recall things like previous last days of school.

Oh well, maybe this blog will help me remember. I'll at least have a place to look up what I did the prior year.

This year's solution? An ice cream cone. Seemed to be a hit.