Its the start of a LONG short week.

I'm beginning the process of transferring old posts from my original blog. Here is one of my favorites. Hope you enjoy a look back into our life, and subscribe as one of my followers so you don't miss any of these "re-runs"!

Originally posted May 26, 2009 (We only had seven children then)

How uncool is this? ( I use the word uncool, not because I'm a dork, although I know at least one reader that is giggling, but because unfair is equal to a cuss word in our house.) This is one of those rare short weeks. Some holidays just happen and that's that. May's holiday seems to just make the week seem extra short even if you don't officially do anything to celebrate. But this week has suddenly been anything but. Heath, Malcolm, and Jeffie Jean all three left this morning for our associational children's camp. Wow has today gone on forever.

The kids were up WAY to late last night. We won't go into detail about the irresponsible adults that were involved, but it was far beyond reasonable for children to still be awake. Heath got up early, got the two oldest up, and of course the ball of energy bounced right up out of her bed to join the big kids. Paulee Rea was of course a ray of sunshine as she always is in the morning. But we'll get to what she was later further in this post. All the campers were out the door by eight. Jeffie Jean had to come back into the house four or five times. She is always so sure of herself and never afraid of anything, but she was nervous about going to camp. At one point she was shaking. Of course, she'll have forgotten all about that as soon as the bus and she is let loose to rule the bunkhouse.

So I then turned around and had five children looking at me, and wanting me to instruct, entertain, and direct for the rest of the day. Ugh. Not that I don't do this, but the older two and Heath do quite a bit each day. The morning wasn't bad. I had some "school" things for Heath-er to work on, and Daniel, Terry, and Paulee played, colored and entertained themselves until it was time to go to the bank and post office. Going to the post office is a huge adventure. Huge. It took me nearly 15 minutes to get them all into the van, buckled in, all my stuff collected, keys found, and pulling out of the drive. All for a 15 minute errand. But, it broke up the morning, and put Paulee to sleep. So off to bed she went upon our arrival home, and I finished helping Heath and got Daniel started on a new art project.

Lunch was leftovers, thank goodness, and fairly uneventful. But then the afternoon started. I swear we entered some kind of time continuum and for like every 5 seconds of life, only one clicked off the clock. Paulee got up too early for her normal time, so was off all afternoon. Terry got into everything. He bounced the rubber balls all over the kitchen. They landed in the sink, on the stove, on top of the 'fridge, under the stove. Not to mention the trucks that were being driven all over the floor and underneath me. Heath and Daniel were allowed video game time, and were good as long as they both wanted to play the same thing. I hate mediating arguments over what game to play. Let's just say I usually don't. Don't come whining to Mom, or it all gets put up. Daniel finished his art drawing. It's awesome. Paulee and Terry colored on papers as well. Heath ran around yelling and laughing. I was thinking it was about time to start winding down for dinner and nighttime stuff, but the clock thought differently. It was only two o'clock. TWO! P.M. You have got to be kidding me!

I looked outside and saw the tent that Heath put up yesterday and left up. So it was off to the great outdoors for the four to play. I stayed in to feed Anderson, and the others took the sleeping bags out to the tent to play and pretend. Although these are bags that are rated for freezing weather and it was like 90 something out there. So they were told to NOT get into them, but to lay on top of them as they imagine. They mostly listened, and no one had a heat stroke, so I guess it worked. By the time Anderson finished eating, burped, puked, and I changed clothes, I figured it was time to hand out popsicles and then let the kids inside.

As I walked outside, Paulee Rea stared yelling. As usual. That's her common form of communication. I didn't really pay too much attention to her. They were all running around barefoot because they had taken their shoes off at the tent door, and of course didn't put them back on, so when she was favoring her foot, I just figured Terry ran over it with his truck. So I sat down on the porch, and bribed her to come to me with the popsicle. I gave the other three their treat as Paulee hobbled over to us. When she sat down I looked at her foot. Oops. She had a splinter. OOPS!!!!! That's no ordinary splinter! There is something fuzzy connected to it. WHAT?! Oh good gravy. That's a bee butt! She had stepped on a bee and gotten stung. So being the good mom I am, I sat there and made sure she got her popsicle, and that everyone knew the rules of eating them, then went inside and got the Benedryll. Her heel was all red, and had this huge white whelp growing out from the sting and up her leg. Just my luck. Did I think pleasant thoughts? Was I concerned for her well being? What was my main worry? "I'm going to have to load all the kids up again by myself and make an ER run without any help. How do I get so lucky?" Of course, she was fine, and I just was guilty of being uncaring.

Dinner finally came. Showers and baths were given, and everyone was in bed at a normal time. Heath just called. Kids are doing well, although Jeffie Jean apparently has a new vocabulary word that she decided to use when she kicked a foul ball. Great. As usual, it's the PK that is the hoodlum. Actually, she did use very inappropriate language, but doesn't know what she did. Other than that, they are doing very well. And I'm tired. It's about time to put this Momma to bed. And it will all start again first tomorrow when the sun comes up!