Long days

It's fall. We're inching towards winter. Daylight is decreasing. Days are getting shorter. Except that they are not. In many ways, today was a typical weekday for us. Elaine awakes a little after 5:30. She needs to eat and have a diaper change. Despite my best efforts, she is up for the day. I'm exhausted because my sleep cycle was messed up by some violent thunderstorms during the night. Jen generously takes over and I get another 45 minutes of sleep.

We rush through the morning routine of getting everyone dressed, fed, caffeinated, and round up the stuff. All four of us pile into the car through pouring rain. We actually get off sort of on time, about 7:40. I drop Jen off at work downtown, then battle some moderate rush-hour traffic to Meredith's school and bring her to her classroom at about 8:20. Today is swimming class at her school. The other Friday highlight is chocolate milk at lunch. I return home with a sleepy Elaine who is no longer asleep once we walk in the house. I proceed to play with and humor the sleep-deprived, cranky six month-old. She finally falls asleep for an early nap after some crying.

Then it's off to pick up Meredith. She gets done at 12:45. But after she plays with her friends outside the school and does a potty break, it's about 1:20 as we drive off. I try to keep Meredith awake in the car with some lively songs, because she often nods off about five minutes from home. I'm successful today, but also miss my window because Meredith does not have any downtime for the rest of the afternoon. Elaine awakes as we get home and is still behind on her sleep. She refuses to eat, but wants to play. Like her older sister (and perhaps her mom and dad), she gets easily frustrated with her toys when she's tired. The girls try to entertain each other, but Meredith is being a bit reckless and needs to be given a timeout from Elaine.

After spending much of the rest of the afternoon trying to have a low-key, quiet time with the girls to head-off disaster, Elaine falls asleep. Meredith takes this an opportunity to be upset about her art project. I then have a victory. Meredith agrees to help me make some homemade pizza for dinner. She is a very good consultant and helper as we make the pizza dough and tomato sauce and plan out the topping options. Elaine awakes after just 20 minutes, but miraculously falls back asleep. Meredith and I finish the construction of the pizza just as Elaine wakes up for good. Hooray! Elaine is in good spirits and finally eats something, including peaches for the second day. We have delicious pizza and Meredith updates me on the social situation at school (who she likes to sit next to at lunch, who isn't nice at lunch, who is having a birthday party). Jen arrives home in time to see Elaine and put her down. And Meredith gets to play with Cate a little bit. I am able to sit in silence for several minutes and clean the kitchen.

It turns out that Meredith did go over to Cate's house without either parent's permission or knowledge. Her disappearance is discovered and resolved very quickly; but we realized we need to work harder on Meredith knowing that she can't just disappear from the house like that--a lesson we thought we had drilled into her skull.

Meredith's pizza-making skills are pretty good. I would recommend her skills to anyone. She patiently helped me spread out the dough (a difficult task for an adult) and dissuaded me from putting on too much cheese. Meredith chose mushrooms and zucchini for her side of the pizza.