Photo Every Hour: December 21st

It may be the last day of school before winter break, but the to-do list is plenty long--part of which requires helping the PTO spoil the teachers before break--so it's a one-snooze kind of morning!

7:00 Breakfast for the masses

8:00 I've got one boy glued to my hip, and another who only wants to lay on the couch... I may need to call an audible on my busy day

9:00 What was supposed to be dropping two boys off at Grandma's house so I could help the PTO at the school turned into dropping one boy at Grandma's house and having Daddy come work from home for a few hours to sit with the boy running a fever. Life with kids is always fun

10:00 But you know what else is fun? Preparing Holiday V.I.P. Room Service bags for each of the staff members at the boys' school and going room-to-room to deliver them

11:00 Wrapped up the deliveries, and now delivering the extras to my car to take home for our next opportunity to spoil the teachers!

12:00 Unfortunately, a few hours of quiet time at home with Daddy wasn't enough to get this one feeling back to one hundred percent 

1:00 Nothing beats a little "Storybots" when you don't feel very good

2:00 You know it's been a day when it's almost time to pick up the boys from school and I still haven't gotten the dishwasher emptied (and you also know Matthew hasn't been home most of the day because the dishwasher door is still open--he is obsessed with making everything "closed")

3:00 Picked the oldest two up from school and promptly dropped them at Grandma's so I could take Connor to the doctor's office. Normally our pediatrician isn't very alarmist and will "wait and see", but when I mentioned Connor's fever started on Saturday night and then spiked up two degrees higher on Tuesday morning, he wanted to get him in sooner than later to make sure it wasn't a bacterial infection on top of what he presumes was a viral infection causing the initial fever

4:00 Bags to unpack from Grandma's house, goodies for the teachers to put away, and dinner to prep. Spending an hour at the doctor's office wasn't exactly built in to my day, but I'm glad we made it work nonetheless. And I'm glad we have a pretty quick and easy pasta casserole on the menu

5:00 Another plus of a quick-and-easy dinner? Mama has a chance to run out and grab the last few Christmas presents we need once Darrell gets home and everything is in the oven

6:00 It isn't often that everyone is done eating by six. This either means that everyone was super hungry or people are feeling a little under the weather and don't have their normal appetites (it doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess which is the case tonight, although fortunately Connor's COVID test came back negative so at least it isn't that!)

7:00 Feeling under the weather also means early bedtimes. Garrett may not have been running a fever like Connor, but his coughing fits were enough to earn him early storytime and early lights out

8:00 Getting ready to tuck William in--who at the present moment seems to be the healthiest of the boys--as soon as he's done going potty and brushing his teeth 

9:00 After the day we had, it's time for a drink and an episode (or two!) of NCIS. With a little bit of registering the boys for summer camp on the side (because the deadline is tomorrow if we want the camp "elves" to deliver a little holiday gift to the campers #lastminuteforthewin)

10:00 I love the YMCA camp we send our boys to, but man, it should not take an hour to register three boys for camp (although to be fair, I was distracted by the show and obviously put a significant dent in my drink... so maybe the fault is on me)

You know it's been a long couple of weeks when turning in at 11:00 feels "early"--especially when you're only doing so because you know it's likely a snotty-nosed kid will be waking you up during the night and not because you are actually done with all the things that need to be done #itsthemostwonderfultimeoftheyear