Friday extras

Friday was an interesting day.

It began when I turned off my alarm at 5:00 and went back to sleep.

Then Garry's alarm rang at 6:30 and the day really started.  He got Zach ready for a field trip in Denver and I jumped on the treadmill downstairs.  But first I had to move some of Thursday's laundry.

Four miles/42 minutes later, I jumped off the treadmill and headed upstairs.  Garry had delivered Zach to school by 7:15, but not before receiving my friend April's three kids and setting them up with a TV show.  (April rocked a half marathon in Pennsylvania this weekend.)

Pretty soon another friend showed up to take Jacob to school.  Abigail (5) and Benjamin (2) spent the day with the three Littles and me.  After I showered and ate breakfast, I made them turn off the TV.

The kids played pretty well together, at least when Gavin was quarantined in time-out. He had a hard time getting along with our visiting small folk.  At one point I released him to try again, and I set about doing something or other.  The house got waaaay too quiet.  A little detective work turned up five children huddled around three bags of Halloween candy...behind a locked bathroom door.  Gavin again.

Lunch was a little crazy--lots of macaroni and cheese, spilled milk, and grapes all over the floor--and then, after some hearty outdoor play, Abigail went to school, Benj and Kate took naps, and a new friend, six-year-old Caleb (whose sweet mama just had surgery), joined Gavin and Lexi in the basement for the afternoon.  I worked on my Young Women lesson.

Caleb introduced Gavin to the miracle of quiet play...with the marble run, pipes and connectors, and foosball.  Gavin gave himself a black eye on the coffee table.

Lexi was out of sorts.  She played a game and worked some puzzles on the desk next to me, and then she fell asleep.

After school, Abigail and Jacob came back to our house.  Zach and Tyler were lucky enough to go to their friends' house for a couple of hours.  Still, seven kids six and under was plenty to keep the place hopping...sometimes quite literally.

At one point I heard crazy thumping in the basement.  I couldn't figure out the source of the sound, so I investigated.  Gavin had introduced his captive audience to the wonders of jumping from the crawl space entrance to his bed (a distance of about five feet, plus the elevation change).  

We reconvened in the outdoors.  Everyone found some wheels, or something bouncy, or a swing, or something else, for entertainment.  All was right in the world.

The children that don't officially belong to me went home around 5:30, which is when Zach and Tyler returned.  Sometime during the course of the evening, Gavin decided out of nowhere that he wanted to read all by himself.  Having waited patiently for nearly a year (his last academic surge was in January), I was glad to see his motivation for such things return.  He read "BOB" books for the rest of the night.

And then I went out for frozen yogurt by myself, watched TV for a while, and went to bed early.

The end.