Marathon

Today was a marathon of pick ups, drop offs and activities. Some of it due to poor planning (hello gas station during school drop offs) and some due to activities converging and some due to the inevitable difficulties of being married to a firefighter. Here's are look:

9:10 drop off Miss E at school
Stop for gas
Stop at store to get food and birthday present with Mr. T
9:45 drop Mr. T off at school 15 minutes late
10:00 Decide to give myself a break, not go into work, and head home. Spend 2 hours cleaning and drinking coffee alone in the house. Alone. In the house.
12:30 Pick up Mr. T - head home for lunch and rest time
2:20 Pick up Miss E - head home to change for gym
3:30 Gym class for Mr. T
4:00 Nana picks up Miss E from gym class so she doesn't have to go to birthday party with Mr. T and I this evening
4:30 Finish gym, head home to get changed for party
6:00 Birthday party at pizza place. Crazy. Tired 4 year olds everywhere.
7:40 Head up to Portland to pick up Miss E
8:40 Bed time. 1 hour and 40 minutes later than usual.

The evening thing was our biggest fiasco. It's hard to bring Miss E to birthday parties she isn't invited to (for various reasons in addition to the fact that it's rude), and most people assume that you have a parent home in the evening to watch siblings. Which is true for MOST PEOPLE. But not for us. Hence, I had to send Miss E up to my parents house. Now, she did have a great time helping Nana feed the kitty cats, making cupcakes, eating dinner and taking a bath but I hate getting the kids to bed so late. That is the one thing I have been super strict about as a parent about - sleep. When they were babies I was always home at nap time so they could sleep in their beds instead of out and about. Every night lights go out at 7. It's important to me that they get enough good restful sleep and having them get to bed this late on a school night kind of kills me. Especially after such a busy day. I  know they are getting older and this will happen more and more but still it was exhausting for all of us.

On a side note: We are officially a completely diaper and pull-up free house including overnight! Whoo hoo!! This is the first time in 6 years I have been free of them. True, for the last year or so Mr. T has only been wearing them at night but still, it feels good to be completely done.