Miscellaneous Day

I’m a little low on new things, so I thought I’d digress today and discuss a bit more of our family life.


This year round school is a bit interesting. I think I prefer a long summer break, but then again, keeping all 4 stimulated while we are here (less to do here) might be tough, too. Anyway, 5 straight days we have to be dressed, lunches packed, book bags packed, uniforms on, boys up, fed and dressed and me showered, dressed and ready by 8:30am. You might not think it is that difficult. I struggle with explaining why it’s difficult myself. Today was a hilarious and classic example of why things just go awry, and it IS difficult!

John caught a wheezy cough and woke Paul and I around 11pm. I had never heard sounds like that from a young child before – he only showed the first indication of a cough just before I put him to bed. I brought him through to Paul so he could hear John, too. We agreed that we’d rather hear him at night to be sure he was breathing OK. He sounded terrible – it wasn’t just congestion – he was WHEEZING, and seemed to be struggling to breathe properly. So, at 11pm, we had a short discussion about who would prefer to sleep on the bed in John’s room and who preferred to handle the early morning wake up from the other kids. Paul moved into John’s room to sleep with him. Turns out John woke him 4-5 times during the night. Paul and John were still sleeping when Andrew got up at 5:30am to go to the bathroom. I put him back to bed and STERNLY told him it was the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT and he MUST return to sleep. (He struggles with this and often we find ourselves dragging through the day, having been up since Andrew’s morning wee wee.) For once, Andrew DID return to sleep, so I did too, and felt very victorious when I woke at 6:45am. I showered and got myself ready in 15 min, in time to meet Andrew at 7am (our “allowed” time for children to get up…he was awake and waiting in his room). Andrew was not particularly quiet (normal again), so I got him dressed and suggested that he come downstairs with me. He did, and then went back up as I was starting to get everyone’s beverages and breakfasts ready. The girls had wakened. I heard a skirmish upstairs and a cry from Andrew. Paul came down, carrying Andrew, and telling me that in the future, I MUST keep Andrew down with me…he was very noisy and Paul didn’t want to disturb John, who was miraculously still sleeping (and Paul explained their night together with the 4-5 awakenings). Andrew was not pleased with being unceremoniously carried downstairs and he needed some emotional reassurance. I handled that, and the girls erupted into loud angry voices, with Kathryn crying. Paul raced up to handle that crisis and I went back to preparing breakfast and 2 packed lunches.

Paul showed up later and said, “Would you like to know what that was all about this morning?” Of course, I said, “yes”, but I offered that Megan was not 100% happy from the get go….I can’t remember what it was, but something about the day didn’t start out “perfect” for her, and she likes things to be absolutely perfect….so she was in a defensive mood to begin with.

Truly, I burst out laughing when Paul told me! It turned out that the first skirmish, when Paul carried Andrew downstairs, had happened because Andrew took some miscellaneous stuffed animals (NOT THE “SPECIAL” ONES), and stuffed them down the side of Kathryn’s bed (between her bed and the wall). While Paul brought Andrew down to me, Kathryn took it upon herself to run through to Megan, who was IN THE SHOWER and very excitedly tell her about Andrew’s misbehavior…apparently it was big news. Megan was NOT pleased, and she rapidly cut her shower short and raced out of the shower, DRIPPING WET, and proceeded to throw her drenched hair and body right on Kathryn’s bed and pull the animals out from the side of the bed and the wall. Megan’s wetness on Kathryn’s bed threw Kathryn into hysterics, hence the loud, angry, hysterical crying we heard upstairs.

I promise you, everyone, I haven’t laughed this hard in awhile, and part of it was because Paul told me about it in such an amused and calm voice – an “experienced parent” voice.

Around this time, John was up and I went up to change and dress him. When I returned, Paul was eating breakfast with the other 3 and they were discussing what to do in case something caught fire. (I am not making this up). Paul was trying to ensure that Andrew REALLY understood. Apparently Andrew made a comment about if something caught fire, he would put it in a box and contain the fire, saving us all. Paul was trying to tell him that he would DEFINITELY need to tell a grown up, and that a fire would burn its way through the box and turn dangerous in no time at all. The way Andrew was standing on his head and confidently ignoring Paul was a bit worrying, so we decided to get his attention on this. Paul said, “Andrew, look at me. Do you hear what I’m saying?”, and Andrew replied with an answer that he has recently created that he finds useful when he’s done something he SHOULDN’T and we ask him about it. He replied, “I can’t answer that”. I looked at Paul and said, “Perhaps something is smoldering upstairs”. Paul gave me a knowing look and said, “That’s exactly what I was thinking”! We both were silent for a second, contemplating the joke, and then briefly wondering if there COULD be a fire upstairs, but of course that was ridiculous, and the moment of hilarity passed. I jumped into the conversation and hopefully we DID convey to Andrew that fires are not jokes.

Andrew is maturing and his need for information is SO GREAT. Just keep feeding him the facts, please. He has this video about fire prevention and he likes to feed me info from it (stop, drop and roll), and I think something must have triggered his memory and brought that to the front. In general, he likes to be a big helper and typically he puts himself in the hero roll. I missed the beginning of the conversation, but I imagine something made him think of a fire, and he suggested to Paul that if he “found one”, he’d contain it for us by putting it in a box (removing the oxygen). Personally, I don’t want to have ANY fire discussions with him! That is something we DEFINITELY don’t need to play with!

Anyway, by this time it was 8:20, everyone was fed, and I was frantically trying to pull 2 lunches together before everyone left at 8:30am. Just a typical morning in the Mac house.