A Week In The Life ....

Monday
Patrick to an appointment in the morning.
Daniel to appointment in the afternoon.
Picked strawberries with my 6 kids plus 1 friend. Took home way more than we needed.

Tuesday
Dropped Rosie off at the Ashland Nature Center in the morning for a two day, one night field trip.
Picked Bella and Julie up from school at 5pm after their all-day excursion into Philadelphia with the rest of the 4th graders.
Julie enthusiastically demonstrated (the whole car ride home) how her duck-quacker worked that she got from the Duck Ride Tour.

Weds
Arrived at Ashland to pick Rosie up, but she asked if she could go to her friend's house for a few hours, so I headed back home in time to get the kids off the bus.
Out again later to pick Rosie up from her friend's house.

Thursday
Tried to get some yard work done but the weather wouldn't cooperate.
Kept kids apart as much as humanly possible. With only two weeks remaining till summer break, they're all fidgety and restless and jumping down each other's throats.
Took Daniel to a play at the school we're considering for him next year.

Friday
Mother-Dtr Book Club arrived for the end-of-year bash. The girls jumped in the pool while the Moms tried to keep out of the rain under the umbrella. Then we ate, talked about the book Twilight and watched the movie on the couch. Hard to believe this is the same group of girls that first started meeting as 2nd graders. From Junie B Jones to Twilight in three short years. Sigh .....
Patrick got all dressed up and headed out the door to his 8th grade semi-formal dinner dance.
He and his friends had made plans to go to the movies afterwards and he said he had rides there and back with parents. But at 2:15 in the morning he wasn't home yet. Only then did Fred and I realize we didn't know which Mom was driving, which theatre he was at, and that he didn't have a cell phone for us to call him. We wrung our hands and paced the floor and wondered whether we should start calling parents of friends but decided to wait a bit longer. He got dropped off around 2:45 with a smile on his face, his tie askew and carrying a bunch of balloons from the party. We are soooo not ready to be parents of teenagers.

Saturday
Fred's annual surgical resident's party in the afternoon.
Got the worst of the weeds pulled and the pool spiffed up just in time for the guests to arrive.
Daniel's friend cut his knee pretty bad. Good thing there was a houseful of surgeons. Didn't end up needing stitches, though.
Julie puked bucketloads of food all over the pool patio. Got her cleaned up and taken care of, then began hosing down what remained of her lunch. Watermelon and tacos does NOT look pretty revisited.
Four of the kids' friends slept over.

Sunday
Flipped a few dozen flapjacks to feed 10 kids for breakfast.
Played lifeguard most of the morning while all the houligans swam off their energy.
Hoped I could retain some of the sun's energy myself, to prepare myself for next week's round of appointments and chores and parties and fieldtrips and field days and .......