September 27 Eight nonstop hours

Tuesday:  We had a pretty "typical" Tuesday today. I picked Cal up from the new house at 11, drove to get Erin from pre-school by 11:30, played at my house from noon until 4:30 when we headed over to pick Dylan up from work, and then ate pizza and played for awhile with all of the kiddos until about 7pm. It varies from week to week as to who is getting picked up where, and actually today was Brendan's first day on the school bus--he was thrilled!

Here are a few pictures I took with just Cal and Erin at my house:

Erin has been pretty enamored with this little "work station" since she doesn't have to be bullied about it by Aidan. I remember purchasing it more than 20 years ago now, when I was an "expectant" grandma (!!) and thinking to myself how extravagant it was of me to spend $54 on a single toy item ... but I have certainly gotten every single dollar's worth out of it. Sadly, we have lost a few of the parts--but the children are unaware of it and just love to use the wooden tools to take apart stuff.

Cal likes to play with it too, but he seems to respect the fact that Erin is his older sister and doesn't mess with her--I will say, Erin is rather dramatic when Callaghan "takes" something she is playing with--but for the most part, these two do very well together. It's not that Erin and Aidan don't get along--it's just that Aidan has quite a strong bent to him and Erin tends to give in too quickly and then is unhappy that she didn't assert herself more strongly when her toy has been pulled away and not returned.

I remembered how much Cal likes playing with balls--and since I now have a super nice computer monitor that I do not want damaged even slightly--I don't have ANY balls inside the house anymore. I blew up two balloons and tied them--one each for the kids--and then I used another balloon to blow up and let go to zoom around the room, which pleased these little ones greatly. We had a lot of fun counting down for our rocket to blast off.

They are in their new house now and beginning the unpacking and organizing phase--always a bit difficult, but at least this house has a lot more room to put things away and lots of nice closet space and shelving too. I stayed and played with the kiddos for a little while after our pizza. I am always glad to see Brendan and try to interact with him--I love him so much and miss him terribly. And Aidan! Always, always, always so much FUN to be with. Their new basement is a very nice playroom, carpeted--and a good place to roughneck and horse around--so we did. By 7pm, though, all of my energy was depleted and I drove home, finding that the route I took home from their house to mine was exactly 14.5 miles. There are many ways to drive to and from their new house--the route I used was 28th to the 96 to the Beltline and then my house. It took me about 17 minutes--not bad!