I love to tease my husband about this, especially when he is sitting right behind me as I type BECAUSE HE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT, but he does not want me to take the kids out of school.  He says that because I skipped a few classes the second semester of my senior year in high school there is a possibility I do not believe in the necessity of our children daily attending school, that I might willy-nilly pull them out of school just for the fun of it.

So you can imagine my hesitation in telling him about that morning in December.  But they were to school by 8:35!  The teachers barely noticed the kids’ absences.

Yesterday, though, we mutually decided to take the kids out of school so that we as a family could attend the free admission day at the zoo.  Third year in a row of attending, and it’s awesome every time.

I have to say, in all my years of going to the Sedgwick County Zoo, this was the best trip ever.  Those animals were so active.  The grizzly bears strolled right in front of us; a gorilla ate, then laid down, then puked, then ate his green puke right in front of us; a hippo bellowed right up at my husband and kids; the tigers playfully wrestled with each other and then nuzzled right below my kids; the male lion climbed up on a rock and roared, ROARED YOU GUYS, right in front of us.  It was amazing.  I mean, I’ve seen the gorillas in their exhibit, but the bears and the lions are always hard to find.  For the former to just meander in front of us and the latter to ROAR WHILE WE WERE WATCHING… amazing.  Oh!  And some very naughty attendees tore branches from a tree in the rhinoceros habitat to feed to the giraffes, so we got to see the giraffes climb down an embankment and eat leaves until the zookeeper chased away those rule-breakers.

Here are some pictures:

Pretty girl.

G, always ready to protect his family.

Yes, that's my finger in the corner, but it was the only picture of all three kids.

Post-roar. You just know he's thinking, "I've said my piece, now I'm going to lie in the sun."

This is the baby and the daddy giraffe. The daddy had just walked back up the embankment to share a large branch with the mommy giraffe.

Then we came home and were all very tired, but Little Missy had dance and G had Boy Scouts.  But it was fun.  Perfect weather, no sunburns, active animals.  I dare say we should take them out of school again next year!

Little Baby Chickadee is sleeping, which gives me time to post pics from Spring Break and Easter.  I’m working on posting more pictures to this here blog.  Here goes.

And, we did more on Spring Break than just go to Botanica.  But sweet Baby Chickadee deleted most of those pictures when I wasn’t looking.  I think she liked the slurping sound my phone made each time she clicked “delete.”  But I do have these:

Painting at Botanica.

Making friends with the instructor at Botanica.

Gathering clues at Botanica.

Though surrounded by nature, G did not let that affect his choice of subject; no, he drew Transformers.

The last one at Botanica. I promise.

Our unsuccessful geocaching attempt.

My family makes me happy.

I have to say, this year we owned spring break.  We rocked that week.

My friend Abbie posted on her Facebook wall that she was excited to not have any plans, to just spend time with her kids and craft with them and let them play baseball outside for hours whenever the mood struck.  But I am not such a disciplined mommy.  If I don’t have something planned for us then pretty soon it’s the end of the day and we’ve watched TV all morning before I finally shoved them outside in the afternoon, with the bonus of bickering all day.  Plus with the forecast for rain all week, I knew we had to plan something.

So Saturday afternoon I sat down with them and we made a list of what we were going to do that week.  Monday: Exploration Place.  Tuesday: home.  Wednesday: Geo-caching.  Thursday: home.  Friday: Nana was in town.

Monday we went to EP and it was so much more a pleasant experience than it has been in years past.  Now Gideon and Mia aren’t running in two different directions.  They’re big enough to play by themselves as I corral Daphne.  They played at the water table with friends from school who happened to be there at the same time, they all played in the vet clinic, we watched model trains over and over and over again, then the big kids played in the Castle while I watched Daphne in the toddler area.

Tuesday was a little rough.  With the rain and all there was some bickering.  But Daddy took them and cousin Gabe for ice cream that night, then they all came back to our house and watched Hugo.

Wednesday we planned on geo-caching but it was too muddy from the rain.  We went to lunch with Nana, Auntie Leelee, Uncle Todd and his co-worker Kenton, then hung out at Uncle Todd’s office for a while, then went on a scavenger hunt.  Daddy sent us a list of things to find and we drove around town and took pictures in front of them.

Thursday was another home day, so Daddy sent them another scavenger hunt of stuff to find on our street.  Gideon and Mia took the camera outside and found everything on the list.  At first they were hesitant about going in people’s yards to take pictures, something about respecting people’s property, but they eventually made it far enough into their yards to hurriedly take the pictures before scurrying off.

Friday Nana was at our house and stayed with the kids while Hubby and I watched The Hunger Games.  Woot.

Saturday morning the kids and I went to Botanica.  They painted, made thumbprint artwork (courtesy of Paint the Towne), and completed a tulip scavenger hunt.  It was so much fun.  The day was sunny and gorgeous and I took beautiful pictures of my kids.  Then we went to lunch, met up with Daddy and tried our hand at geo-caching.  You guys, it was a big dud for us.  I think we need tips on how to locate the items.  Plus it didn’t help that at the first place we were looking next to a busy Wichita street and at the next place we looked very suspicious inspecting the bottom of a foot bridge.  My friend Mrs. Y said her husband and two of their boys found stuff in Augusta the first time they tried.  Maybe we’ll try something around here next.

And now my kids are back in school.  Boo.  Monday I really mourned the loss of spring break.  But Mia will be home with me the next two days because of kindergarten round-up, then the next week they’re off for Good Friday, then the next week they’re off for a teacher development day, and I really love that Augusta schools have a RIDICULOUS amount of days off.

I’ll try to post pictures soon, because blogs with pictures are always better than the ones without.

Yesterday three of us got showered before school and the other child took a long bath immediately after returning from dropping her big brother and big sister at school.  I unloaded the dishwasher, made breakfast for four of us, lunches for two, wrote checks for school pictures, played on the floor with Daphne, wrote a blog post and completed one load of laundry.

I did not load the dishwasher, make the beds or put away any clothes.  Not making the beds is one of my triggers to a bad day.  But the biggest trigger, I’ve realized, is stressing about getting a certain amount done around the house and then trying to work around my kids to get that stuff done.

This is in my head a lot–A LOT a lot–trying to find the balance between taking care of my children and my husband and myself and my house, and because it is in my head a lot I also blog about it and a lot and I’ve columned about it at least once before.  But I wrote about it last week and the week before because I sort of feel like I’m just now getting a good handle on maintaining a clean home while being sweet to my kids.

So: Shifting my focus and then taking my own advice.

Gideon was still playing with age-appropriate trains and toddler toys when we took a walk around the neighborhood and he pointed his “boom stick”–a tiny curved tree limb, barely in the shape of a gun–at objects and made the sound of them exploding as his arm jolted upward from the imaginary recoil.  I’m still not sure where he got the idea for that.  The most violence he’d seen up to that point on TV was when Thomas the Tank Engine ran through the buffers and oil splattered everywhere as his eyes spun in circles from the surprise.  Obviously this was well before his love for Spider-Man and Transformers..

Friday afternoon Neighbor Boy called and said he had a surprise for Gideon.  We stopped at Neighbor Boy’s grandparents’ house on our walk and Gideon was gifted with a very nice, homemade pretend gun carved from wood, made by Neighbor’s Boy’s grandpa.  It even came with a holster.  Then Neighbor Boy and Gideon fought off the bad guys in the neighborhood with their matching guns to protect Mia’s heart.  Very cute.

Saturday morning Neighbor Boy ran to our house and brought another very nice homemade pretend gun carved from wood, this time for Mia.  So Sunday afternoon I asked them to make thank you cards for Neighbor Boy’s Grandpa.  They made the sweetest cards, told him he’s “awesome,” with people at the bottom of the page, smiling as they point guns at each other.

I don’t think they understand guns yet.

Last night the kids and I went to the new antique mall west of town in order to almost finish our Christmas shopping.  I don’t remember when we’ve been this last-minute on the present buying.  Once in college a family friend asked if I’d started Christmas shopping and I was like Noo, I didn’t know people other than my Mom (who shops all year long) even thought about Christmas presents before Thanksgiving.  But as we drove in her car that first weekend of November I learned something new.

This year Hubby and I budgeted money then set it aside for presents.  That seemed like a mature start.  So we mentally patted ourselves on the back and left it there for too long.  A couple weeks ago we were like Oh yeah, maybe we should start spending some of that money.  Our mature start had morphed into a time lapse without our notice.  So we sat down on the computer and TOTALLY ROCKED IT with presents that arrive neatly in the mail for Gideon and Mia.  But baby Daphne got pushed aside.  We knew what to get her and the stuff is readily available so we accidentally put it off until today, which means Hubby is out this afternoon finding a few more things.  Then tonight we’ll sit with hot chocolate and wrap and be done in time for baking treats tomorrow before we’re off on a few days of driving and sleeping and eating and opening presents.

I had a hard time walking around that antique mall last night.  When they first opened I thought Yeah!  Stick it to the Andover Antique Mall because those people are ruuuuuude.  I’m not sure why you look a customer in the eye as she enters your store and then don’t say hello.  I’m also not sure why you periodically follow said customer, as well as her mother and sister and brother-in-law, around the store while they shop.  If those four are the only customers in your very large, very expensive antique mall, maybe you should be extra nice with a cherry on top.  Don’t scare away the paying people.

But I’m also not sure why Justin Bieber gets so wrapped up in his rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” before Arthur Christmas that he almost has to tear off his overly-decorated coat a few times, but never completely do so.  So there are a lot of things I don’t understand.  I also don’t understand Justin Bieber.  Can the tweens please bring back the Jonas Brothers?  Them I understand a little better, girl jeans and all.

Anyway, last night I finally realized Paramount is probably sticking it to Pigeon’s Roost on State Street because it’s closer in proximity than it is to the one in Andover, and I hate that.  The people at Pigeon’s Roost have always been nice to me and nice to my kids; they never freak out when Gideon and Mia walk around and look at little treasures.  I hope the new place doesn’t put the old place out of business.  I’m rooting for both places to survive because the people at Paramount were awfully nice as well.

And I need as many places as possible to do that last-minute Christmas shopping.

In Saturday’s column I mentioned that somewhere an easy solution exists to our morning troubles but right now the answer continues to allude [edit: elude me.  why did nobody yell at me over this?  sometimes you're allowed to call me out.] me.  For the past two school mornings I’ve let them watch the clock; they know what time breakfast needs to be over and what time we need to walk out the door.  Friday we were early to school but today they were late.  My husband is worried that they’ll get used to being late and it will no longer be an issue, but right now I don’t care.  I’m tackling one obstacle at a time and the current obstacle is trying not to gripe at my children while they’re griping at each other.  I just want everyone to be serene on the way out the door.  Shiny and happy would be extra nice.

Here’s Saturday’s column, where I tell you about my solution–that really can only happen once in a very rare while–to the morning frustrations: playing hooky.

Lately Miss Daphne has been a bit unpleasant.  She gets up and whines, walks around the house and whines, gets mad at me when the door only opens so far because THE WALL IS RIGHT THERE, and how dare it be in her way when she wants to push the door in a full circle.

I feel like I’m constantly on edge, my body always full of adrenaline in preparation for a fight with her, a fight where she yells and I calmly try to distract her or I walk away.  This stage is hard.

Yesterday after we picked up Gideon and Mia from school we were headed into the house when Daphne ran into the yard.  She didn’t have on a coat or anything covering her legs, but I let her run around anyway.  AND SHE WAS SO STINKIN’ HAPPY.  Giggling and playing with her sister, then her brother and sister, and just running around and being the happy baby I know she is.

She saw me and ran up to me to give me a hug.  She might not have done that for weeks.  I snuggled her and kissed her baby neck and told her how much I love her.  Then I set her down as soon as the wiggles set in and she was off, playing with brother and sister again.

The mailman came up, who we always chat with when we’re outside at the same time.  As he said goodbye Mia gave him a hug, because she is a hugger and loves everyone who is kind to her, and then Daphne gave him a hug.  I have never seen her hug a semi-stranger like that.  But the fresh air and the sunshine poured love into her little body and she couldn’t contain it.  It was just bursting out of her little self.

Then Daddy got home and it was a happy love fest.

I don’t know if it’s my residual high from seeing my baby and my kids loving each other and giggling and just generally being sweet or if she really is different, but I feel like Daphne is a changed baby.  This morning she only threw one tantrum, but she got up happy, she giggled with her brother and sister and didn’t gripe at them when they talked to her.  Even her facial expressions are different.  The scowl has been limited today.

That sunshine is an interesting thing.  And it tells me that this winter I’ll be bundling each of us up in five layers a piece so that we can go outside in the sunshine, even when it’s 20 degrees outside.  I’ll do anything to keep this baby happy.

In a new every-other-year tradition that my husband probably hasn’t yet realized, Hubby goes duck hunting the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  When he told the kids his plans Little Missy looked at me with wide eyes before turning back to her father.  “No!” she squealed. “You can’t kill the baby ducks!”  She never cried, though, not like she did two years ago when Hubby told her his killing plans.  That’s improvement.

This year Gideon even got to go, and he maturedly handled the wind and rain with nary a complaint.  Somewhere deep inside his little body his boy DNA told him that is what you must endure in order to shoot ducks with your daddy and uncles.  It’s hard for me to understand the appeal but he loved it.

When my two very cold men got home Gideon walked right up to me.  “Mommy, I need to talk to you but Mia can’t hear.”

I walked into the kitchen, sat down on a stool and looked him in the eye.  “Okay, what’s going on.”

“Well, we shot a duck but it didn’t die, so uncle Shane had to pull it’s head off and then it’s body still moved after it was dead.”

He looked at me with his serious face and slightly excited big eyes and I tried not to show him my freaked-out face.  I (calmly, I think) said the best thing I could think of.  “Whoa.  That is pretty crazy.”

“Yeah.”

Who knows what Gideon will experience next time.

Mornings are the worst time of day for me, and by extension, for my kids.  It’s not that I expect Gideon, Mia and I to skip out the door singing Disney songs on our way to school, but I could seriously do without all the, “Quit playing, you need to be eating/brushing your teeth/putting on your shoes.”

We wake up in plenty of time, but the kids will sit at the breakfast and laugh instead of eating.  How long should it take to eat half an apple and one Pop-Tart?  Not twenty minutes, I tell you.

The other morning we were moving along at a good clip when all the sudden we were about to be late and Mia had on a skirt with no shorts underneath.  So I told her to go upstairs and grab the shorts SHE’D WORN THE VERY NIGHT BEFORE while trick or treating and put those on underneath her skirt.  She hollered from upstairs that she couldn’t find them.  But that would be difficult to not be able to find shorts that she’d worn a MERE 11 HOURS EARLIER.  Especially when she’d spent ten of those hours sleeping.  Did she look on top of the dirty clothes?  Cuz they couldn’t have been buried that deep.

Frustrated, I hurried up the stairs to find her in front of her vanity–which houses no clothes–PUSHING THE DRAWER CLOSED WITH HER TEETH.  When we were about to be late.  When she was supposed to throw on a pair of shorts for modesty on the playground.  I looked at her and asked, “Are you kidding me with this?” then rushed past her to her closet.

She was surprised by my frustration.  That girl had honestly forgotten what she was supposed to be doing.  With apologetic eyes she took off her skirt to put on the pants I was handing to her (because she hates pants and I was giving her a consequence for disobeying me) and tried to mime to me if putting that skirt in the basket next to the door was okay.  It was her way of saying, “Sorry,” trying to do just what I wanted her to do.  But the annoyance at being late plus having to complete a simple task for her clouded my brain plus reacting harshly to her playtime prevented an appropriate response from me in that moment; it wasn’t until I’d brushed her off with a, “Yeah, whatever,”  that I even realized she was trying to make-up to me.

In the truck on the way to school I tried be sweet and give them good kisses with encouraging words before they into school.  “Remember Mommy loves you!  Don’t go the whole day thinking your Mommy is mad at you!”

I’ve thought about us waking up earlier, but dragging Mia out of bed at 7 a.m. is already difficult enough, and the kids go to bed at 7:30 at night.  I don’t want to eat into our evening together any more than I already do.  The past two nights they’ve had to lay out everything they’re wearing the next day–down to their socks–before they go to bed, but this morning Mia didn’t hear my rule that they had to wear pants and so she stomped up the stairs when I told her to go put on some long pants underneath her skirt.  She came back down the stairs wearing a pink and sparkly Hannah Montana shirt, a purple Hawaiian skirt, and blue/pink/green butterfly leggings with her light-up tennis shoes.  Not a thing on that outfit coordinated with another item, but I let her go to school in it.  Usually I would have tenderly convinced her to wear pink leggings, because then at least two items would have semi-matched, but this morning I just let it go.  She looked crazy but at least she was happy.

What I’m definitely going to do is copy my friend Chrissa, who bought a cheap analog clock from Wal-Mart and shaded the clock with the different things her daughter should be doing at different times.  Say, from 7:00-7:10 you’re getting dressed, then from 7:10-7:25 you’re eating breakfast, etc, culminating with at 7:45 backpacks, coats and shoes are on and we’re ready to leave.  I want to take my bossiness out of the equation and let the clock rule their morning.

I get them for a precious few hours a day.  I don’t need those hours filled with frustration.