A Needed Morning Off – The Reluctant Grownup

I worked both days this weekend, and Sunday and Monday nights til approaching midnight – all to meet a Monday filing deadline (met). So this morning when I got a call from Craig’s daycare saying it was 10:30 a.m. and he’d been uncharacteristically asleep for two hours, I was almost relieved to have to leave work and come pick him up.

So I’m spending a quiet, lazy morning with a little piglet who is lethargic and listless, no fever or symptoms besides being very sleepy and very gassy (I need a gas mask – I can tell he’s sick, the smell of him is making me kind of sick, too. I have lit all the candles.) He’s watching tv and in and out of sleep, and while I’m still covered up and have tons upon tons of work to do, I’m grateful for a little unplanned respite.

Our stream of beloved and welcome visitors continues – my in-laws came for a whirlwind one day stay, mostly to drop off our dog. I haven’t seen the pup since Christmas, and while he and I have a somewhat tetchy relationship, I’m glad he’s back. He seems happy to be here, too, though still finding his feet in a new house, after 9 months at the “grandparents’ house.” They got in some good NOLA food and oohed and aahed over the house, then headed home. We’ll have a nice long visit at Thanksgiving, more time to catch up.

My brother came for an even quicker stay – after a Saturday night out on the town (bachelor party), he spent a few hours sleeping in our guest bed before being awoken at a dreadfully early hour by the children, then gamely reading them Halloween books for a few hours before heading home to work the rest of his Sunday. No full weekends off for him – he works too much, too.

Apparently if you come to visit our house, your book-reading skills will be exploited by my many children — Apparently reading books is the price of admission if you want to stay in this house. Ignore the junk behind the couch – that will eventually go into a shed that we will eventually assemble.

In the absence of visitors, this guy reads to his little bros

After laundering all of the guest sheets and getting re-acquainted with the dog, we spent the rest of the weekend trying to keep ahead of work and kid obligations, mostly succeeding. We had a couple of illnesses (so today’s sick two year old was predictable), an infection that required yet another ER visit (post-office-hours presentation, very significant symptoms, pediatrician told me to go so I went – cleared up now).

At the ER. This thing fascinated both of us for hours.

We also managed to host friends for a lunch of hamburgers on the grill. The boys went to Boy Scouts, and I (as aforementioned) worked, making a little time in between times to grocery shop and manage the boys doing laundry. These days Jack washes all of their laundry, and then each boy folds his own. (Liam’s not old enough to really do a good job washing it, but his other job is to help unload all the dry groceries into the pantry, so he carries his load of chores.) I am so glad they are now old enough to do this – it makes a big difference in the workload, let me tell you!

Crack that whip. Boys folding their clothes.

While at the grocery, I spent some birthday money on houseplants, which my husband promptly teased me for but he enjoys the fresh oxygen my plants are pumping out just as much as I do, so he can hush.

And now it’s Tuesday. Jack has soccer after school today. The Prof gets a full day of work in while I get a lazier day off (I mean, I’m still caring for this 2 year old, but he’s being pretty chill so far).

We’re eating a lot of freezer meals this week as well, as I’ve stockpiled enough to start defrosting them:

Chili. I used half ground turkey and half ground beef, and it was actually kind of perfect the first time we had it. Not too greasy, but not too dry. I also bought a challah loaf to have with it – both are defrosting as we speak/I type. Delicious.
Turkey tetrazzini. I found this recipe on another blog and it was delish – we only had half so this week we’ll defrost and eat the other half.
Chicken korma. This isn’t frozen, but it’s easy – it’s just chopped chicken, onions, bottled korma sauce, served over jasmine rice.
Slow cooker baked ziti. We had the first half of this last week, and I’m probably going to throw some meatballs in this other half once it defrosts, because while it wasn’t at all bad, it was just a bit bland. It’s a good base – needs some experimentation to make it really awesome. I’ll make a side salad to go with.
Beef with snow peas, which I bought for last week and we’ve really gotta get it eaten up.

All right, time to go pick up the big boys. Have a great week!