Just the Brothers, Their Mother, and No Other

Well, he's off. The boys and I dropped Bret off at the airport this morning. He is in Texas checking out our house, preaching at Christ Journey, attending ACU's Lectureship, doing some premarital counseling, performing a wedding, and constantly working on some fundraising...and he'll be there until late next Saturday night. That leaves just the brothers and their mother around here for an entire week.

We started the day off with a bang. Actually, it was a soggy bang -- a little before 6am, Conner and Micah came into our bedroom, both sets of Spiderman underoos soaked. Aw donkey! After getting them cleaned up, we didn't feel like messing with their sheets at that point, so the four of us tried to go back to sleep in our bed. Yeah, right. I gave in at 6:30 and turned them over to PlayHouse Disney.

I won't go into all the rest of the gory details, but let's just say that somewhere in the midst of the karate-chopped-bottoms, heads bumped by Elmo's eyes (yes, his eyes...the eyes are the only hard part on that stuffed animal, and they tend to forget that...), and rice cereal/squash/green bean spitup, I lost track of the number of spankings and time-outs that I gave out. It was one of those afternoons that, as I was helping Conner dry off after his bath, I felt like I hadn't said is name in a nice, non-irritated way all day. I hate feeling that way. But no chance for apologies or hugs...Micah came running in crying about something...

But, they are all asleep now. And now that I have had a chance to eat my own dinner and sweep and mop the kitchen/dining room floor (which means that all those random little toys that have been lurking in the corners and under the table have been put away), I'm feeling much better. Call me crazy, but it does worlds for my mood when the floor is clean. Now, if I can just get a shower before any of the gremlins wake up in the morning, we'll be on our way to a much better day tomorrow...