Monthly Groceries Day

 Yesterday was a busy day.

 I started on 3 hours of sleep, and didn't eat anything until 3:00 pm (except two slices of canned peaches). My Man took Punkin and Sweetie out for breakfast. He also took Son, Sissy and Honey out to Walmart and Ace (we had a broken toilet seat that needed replaced). And then he took the big girls to the library. He and I (and Little Guy) visited the local secondhand stores, looking for Corelle dinner plates. And My Man was looking for something else, but I don't recall what it was. Neither of us were successful. Then Little Guy and I went for our monthly grocery orders. That took longer than usual for various reasons. I also visited Goodwill, but still no luck finding dinner plates. I picked up Burger King for my super late lunch. Once home, our wonderful children unloaded everything and helped me put away, but we only got the perishables put away this time. Then My Man left once more, this time going to visit some out-of-state friends who were staying with their family, other friends of ours. He did take Sissy and Honey, but I stayed home and started tackling meat preparation tasks. I cooked and froze 30 lbs of ground beef, separated and froze about 12-13 lbs of raw ground beef into meal-sized portions (about 2.5lbs), seasoned, formed and froze around 7 lbs hamburger patties, chopped/sliced and froze 25 lbs of chicken. I also put a 10 lb roll of ground beef into the freezer, and a 5 lb package of chicken in the fridge to deal with later, because it was getting late. Other things that I did during that time, were to unload and reload the dishwasher, give Punkin a bath, put Precious down for bed, nurse Little Guy more than once, and take the sleeping Sweetie up to her bed. I had Son complete some other tasks for me, and he also watched some episodes of History in the Dark and took a shower. Honey also bathed after they returned. It was very nice to go to bed, although late.

 And while writing this post, I see that Little Guy (who was pretty cranky with the events of yesterday) is truly mobile now! He's enjoying rolling and scooting along to get whatever he wants to play with next. Super cute! He's a very happy little guy!

Braids

 I've been fixing Honey, Punkin and Sweetie's hair in braids to keep it out of the grasp of Little Guy. And Precious gets upper pigtails. Punkin and Sweetie aren't very happy about this, but I told them it's temporary. They have been losing hair to their little brother like crazy. And he's been getting hair in his mouth sometimes. And I've NEVER had so much hair in the vacuum cleaner before. So braids it is.

She Looked At My Face

 I see all these memes about "what made my toddler cry this week" or "reasons my 4yo had an emotional break down this week". They include things such as "he looked at me!" Or "because her banana was yellow".

Now I have six children, and for the first time ever, my fourth child nearing 4, was crying and kicking her sister. In distress, she cried "She looked at my face!! 😭😭😭"

Also, Son had the thought that I should add to my blog posts things such as "My Son bought a bike that he can do skids on." He has been pretty aware of the importance of this accomplishment for the last few days.

Through the Rough Patch...?

Sometimes you are traveling down the road of life and it seems like there are annoying bumps and potholes here and there. You try to avoid them, but sometimes you hit one. And so much of the road seems to be covered in "washboard". Maybe you complain more than you should. You wish you could always be on a nice, smooth stretch, but it rarely happens.

Then you really do hit a rough patch. Jagged rocks are scattered everywhere, and yet the potholes make their appearance too. You can avoid the sharpest rocks, but you must be paying close attention. You can't avoid everything, though. Before, you thought you were going slow. Now you are just creeping along, painstakingly picking your way through the obstacles.

Once you've made it through with a minimum of damage, you are on the washboard again. You notice a couple juts and a pothole. They make you happy, because after what you just experienced, this is easy!

My analogy is rather stronger than what I'm actually feeling, I have to admit. I'm thinking more of somewhere between the washboard and the rough patch I described. But still.

I went to get groceries this afternoon. Most of the shelves had been refilled! I was so thankful! I certainly took that for granted before. I would complain about our circumstances and the prices, and how hard it can sometimes be to feed a family of 7 plus the occasional company. Then mass hysteria showed up. In fear, shoppers cleared the shelves. Confused, I looked around at our meager options and counted my blessings when God provided a staple or two on the shelves. We managed to scrape by. We didn't go hungry, but we didn't always like what we were eating. And then today, things were almost back to normal! Besides all the social distancing signs. And the tape marking where people should wait to go into the store if the temporary hysteria-induced capacity was reached. And all the people wearing face-masks. And the one-way-aisle directives.

But the shelves were almost full. I even saw toilet paper! (I didn't need any, so I didn't buy any.)

I think we're through the worst of it for now, and I'm thankful for that!

Can't Wear Anything

I always wear long skirts, but my girls have pants and they prefer them. There are some occasions when they aren't allowed to wear pants.

Honey: Can I wear pants today?

Me: Do you have clean pants?

Honey: I can't find any.

Me: You can't wear dirty pants, so if you don't have clean pants, then I guess you can't wear pants. It's not my fault you don't have clean pants if you took them all off the wrong way with the underwear stuck on them, and you won't turn them right side out so I can wash them.

Honey goes off pouting.

A few minutes later, I hear her walking down the hall crying and hollering.

Honey: I'm NOT wearing a dress today, so if I can't wear pants, I guess I can't wear ANYTHING today. Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!

I considered saying "You'll probably get pretty cold if you don't wear anything." But I decided instead to pretend I didn't hear her. A little while later, I told her "You're still in your pajamas?!! You better go get dressed in a hurry!" and she did.

One Dollar Breakfast

I haven't felt very well this morning, so I've been dragging. But don't worry. Sissy has been doing it all. She got dressed and did her chores. Then she fixed her own hair beautifully. Next, I heard Punkin screaming, while Sissy calmly repeated "I've already started, Punkin, I'm going to finish. Punkin, I've already started and I'm going to finish." She was trying to fix Punkin's hair. I finally intervened "Oh, just leave her alone!". Then she was chasing down Honey to fix her hair, which she finally accomplished after a mini-battle.

Finally, while I was tiredly nursing the baby, she came to me with a notebook and pen, and said "If you want to eat any of the breakfast I am going to make, you will need to pay me one dollar."

"What are you making?" I asked, quite interested to know, since we are very low on groceries at the moment.

"I'm not sure yet."

"Well, there aren't many choices, because we don't have many groceries."

Anyway. She ended up making a peach smoothie with some frozen peaches, a bit of sugar, and some milk.

Immediately afterwards, Honey came in, distraught. "Mama! She says I have to give her a dollar!"

"Don't worry, I'll pay for you." We went and got a dollar out of my wallet, which I gave to Honey, and she gave to Sissy.

A few minutes later, they were looking for a pen. It seems that Sissy needed to write down how much money she'd made.

Now she's four dollars the richer, and I think I'm going to encourage her to spend a few dollars on something nice for the family soon.

By the way, just in case any of you were wondering: I don't charge my kids for breakfast.

Day 3

Potty training Punkin.

Day One: She learned that she could delay bedtime by saying she needed to go potty. Over. And over. And over.

Day Two: She learned that if she squeezed out a few drops every 10 minutes or so, she could earn LOTS of jellybeans!

Day Three: We switched to underwear, which have remained dry since we put them on at 7:30 this morning (so nearly 5 hours). She's gone potty some, but I've been rewarding dry undies instead of potty in the chair, so she's not spending all her time running over to push out a little dribble. But no accidents! So cool!

I'm still prepared for her to lose interest, and if so, we'll just switch back to pullups. I don't like to do so, but it's just not worth putting our family through misery if undies aren't remaining successful.