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Having Three
Last night, the neighbor called as she was in a mild bind. She either needed kid care from us or was going to have to send the kids out into the rain with their dad. So I said, sure, send 'em over, and they came and it was... instructive.
Three kids definitely keep busy together. So I had to do less entertaining. BUT... I also had to do a heck of a lot more refereeing, monitoring, and border watching which, in my mind, is a whole lot less fun than when I get to enjoy and play with Jet when he wants some attention. Even when the refereeing consists of, "TALK with X about it! Not me. I can't help you, you have to work that out with X."
I resisted the urge to say, "Don't tattle." quite diligently.
An interesting phenomenon was that when there was a dispute I could just tell each participant, "Okay, tell me about it." And really listen and express some sympathy for the emotions of the teller, but not provide a solution. After everyone had their say, and I was about to ask them, "What do we do about it?" the involved parties, having said their piece, were done. So they'd just run off and do the next thing and not really care about any resolution beyond being heard. That bemused me, mildly.
We did baking soda and vinegar volcanoes (it's U and V week at pre-K), had some dinner (pot-stickers and scallion pancakes. The visitors nibbled at pancakes while we ate) and then they played and played and ran and ran and ran. So when they left and Jet had fifteen minutes to wind down, we got through his sleep routine pretty quickly and he fell pretty fast asleep.
Both John and I are under work stress and we didn't get any exercise today, so we did not do nearly as well in the sleep category. I did, however, finish a pair of Jet's Kool-Aid® dyed socks, as he's been wanting them for a while. I did them toe-up, first to fit him as he's grown, and then because I wanted the separate heel I can easily replace (though I really don't like the holes in the short-row heels, but hey, the last time he wore the heels out in a week, so I'll get to replace them soon enough), and finally to use every last bit of yarn in the cuffs. I had to rip and re-do the very top when my yarn estimate was off. That's when I realized it was 1am. Oops. So I went to bed to find that John still wasn't asleep. He got up then to deal with *his* brain, but I slept happily after getting so far with the socks.
This morning, I managed to rip and keep going on the yarn and ended up with just 2 inches of spare yarn. Whew! That's the thing about sock yarn, no matter how small an amount I might have of any color or type, it can be used, somehow, somewhere.
Three kids definitely keep busy together. So I had to do less entertaining. BUT... I also had to do a heck of a lot more refereeing, monitoring, and border watching which, in my mind, is a whole lot less fun than when I get to enjoy and play with Jet when he wants some attention. Even when the refereeing consists of, "TALK with X about it! Not me. I can't help you, you have to work that out with X."
I resisted the urge to say, "Don't tattle." quite diligently.
An interesting phenomenon was that when there was a dispute I could just tell each participant, "Okay, tell me about it." And really listen and express some sympathy for the emotions of the teller, but not provide a solution. After everyone had their say, and I was about to ask them, "What do we do about it?" the involved parties, having said their piece, were done. So they'd just run off and do the next thing and not really care about any resolution beyond being heard. That bemused me, mildly.
We did baking soda and vinegar volcanoes (it's U and V week at pre-K), had some dinner (pot-stickers and scallion pancakes. The visitors nibbled at pancakes while we ate) and then they played and played and ran and ran and ran. So when they left and Jet had fifteen minutes to wind down, we got through his sleep routine pretty quickly and he fell pretty fast asleep.
Both John and I are under work stress and we didn't get any exercise today, so we did not do nearly as well in the sleep category. I did, however, finish a pair of Jet's Kool-Aid® dyed socks, as he's been wanting them for a while. I did them toe-up, first to fit him as he's grown, and then because I wanted the separate heel I can easily replace (though I really don't like the holes in the short-row heels, but hey, the last time he wore the heels out in a week, so I'll get to replace them soon enough), and finally to use every last bit of yarn in the cuffs. I had to rip and re-do the very top when my yarn estimate was off. That's when I realized it was 1am. Oops. So I went to bed to find that John still wasn't asleep. He got up then to deal with *his* brain, but I slept happily after getting so far with the socks.
This morning, I managed to rip and keep going on the yarn and ended up with just 2 inches of spare yarn. Whew! That's the thing about sock yarn, no matter how small an amount I might have of any color or type, it can be used, somehow, somewhere.