Over The Rainbows

At this moment, I am SO OVER the Rainbows. Who are "The Rainbows" you ask? Two little visitors who put the biggest smile on a certain little girl's face after weeks of disappointment as they went to visit "everyone else". Apparently, "NO FAIR" is a common phrase amongst Hannah's classmates. We will be working very hard to erase that from her vocabulary this summer...

So Tuesday was field trip day at Timbertops. All 3 kindergarten and all 3 Pre K classes rode the bus and went to the same park for 5 hours. Plenty of parents went along, but I wasn't one of them. The day was absolutely beautiful and perfect for play and picnics. Still, it was Hannah's first day staying past 11:45. It was one day after Sports Day which both of her parents attended and I volunteered to "help"--total disaster. Note to self: My children regress significantly in my presence. Volunteering to help, generally results in one or more of them clinging to my leg.

All of that, on top of the fact that Hannah has been requesting not to go to school almost every single day these last few weeks, I fully expected to pick up a very tired and moody little girl. Because I did not think it all the way through, I forgot to cancel swimming that afternoon and I was dreading the drive to swimming. I was sure she would fall asleep in the car, I'd have to wake her, she'd be crying...you get the idea.

I couldn't have been more wrong. I picked up the happiest little girl ever. She was smiling from ear to ear from the moment she saw me. "You were right, Mommy! We did get to ride the bus!" She was equally thrilled to bring home The Rainbows for the last two days of school. (Last year, Nathan brought home just the one Rainbow for a long weekend--this year he has a younger, cleaner and cuter brother.) We had to walk quite a long way to the car dragging along the Rainbows and all of their belongings and plenty of other things as school is winding down and not only did she carry her own school bag, but insisted on carrying the Rainbows and their bag as well. She was full of information about her day. Apparently she played with lots of friends, had ice cream from one of the mommies, and took a little nap on the way home. Voila! Good mood explained! She must have had the magic 20 minute nap she sometimes still needs.

I found myself so pleasantly surprised with her good mood that I might have been a tiny bit negligent regarding her elder brother. He was a bit whiny and did fall asleep on the way to swimming. He asked not to swim, but I encouraged him to at least give it a try--I thought he was just tired. The instructor brought him to me after the lesson to let me know he was very cold. He was, in fact, shivering. Bad mommy!

Fast forward to today. Poor little guy has been medicated around the clock for pain in his ear area (swollen lymph node: check) and after a visit to the pediatrician this afternoon is on antibiotics for a "nasty" ear infection. He is so frustrated because he wanted so badly to enjoy these last couple of days of school, but he feels so awful. Poor little guy. These last few weeks these little guys have just passed around the germs and they haven't been a bit selfish with them. Daddy and I have each had our share. (These last two days, I have felt pretty bad myself, but feeling better tonight.)

Tonight I spent entirely too much time writing the chronicles of our two days with the Rainbows in their journal. I spent even more time trying to figure out how to print out pictures to put into their journal. What started out as a fun, cute activity to put a smile on our sweet little girl's face, resulted in a grumpy mommy complaining to a working daddy. (He's still not home at almost 11 PM--late working dinner.) At last it is complete...she probably won't even have time to look at it as tomorrow is the last morning of school. She'll be busy with an assembly and a party. I still haven't figured out how I can drop off Sarah at the creche and make it back in time to hear them sing at the assembly and get the snack prepared for Nathan's party. Most likely the reason I haven't figured it out is because it is physically impossible. At least there is not a scheduled protest as there was today. Sarah and I tried to make good use of our morning and run errands, but after we went to the supermarket and put away the food, we ran into a bit of a road block. Trucks and tractors were blocking the roads all over Brussels today protesting the fuel prices. Well, I don't know if it will lower fuel prices, but it did keep me from buying a baby gift for a friend and some cleaner for the electronics in our house. Somehow I have to schedule the baby gift purchase into my life tomorrow because I am actually going out tomorrow night to celebrate the new baby. We could never organize all of our schedules to arrange a baby shower so now that the baby is 6 weeks old, we are taking a moms night out to dinner and a LATE show to celebrate. Hopefully we can all stay awake.

Speaking of sleep, I should get some. So much has been going on and I feel like I haven't even touched on it, but life will slow down after this weekend. At least I think so.

(See our poor little sick boy in the picture. Sarah was not in the mood for photo ops this evening. She is grumpy and tired from all of the teeth that are slowly making their way in.)