Babysitting the Boys

Tuesday is always crazy, Evelyn is now seeing Nina every week because she is struggling quite a bit. She is struggling to find sleep, our summer sleep schedule is later than usual, like going to bed around 9:45 to 10 pm. We are trying to do devotional at 8:30 for Justin’s sake. The past few weeks were crazy for Justin and will be for another couple weeks, he usually is not home until 9 pm with busy season. Whenever Justin or I make the call for scriptures Evelyn immediately switches from tired to super wired. Suddenly, she is hungry, thirsty, bored, looking for a random item, playing with the dogs, and on and on. This trickles into bedtime and worsens. Often she devolves into hitting Josie, yelling at everyone. Justin is convinced if we went to bed at 8:30 she would not act as crazy. I think she just hears bed and her brain fires up to level 24. She started taking Guanfacine which does help her feel tired, but not sleepy. Lately, she is still awake between 11:30 and 1 am, it’s driving me crazy. We need to figure out a better way before school starts. I cannot stay awake with her for hours and hours until she finally falls asleep. She certainly needs some independence, but getting there is difficult. She wakes up Josie, wakes me up every 5-10 minutes, knocks on the boy’s door, and ranges around like a crazy person until she is tired. It’s exhausting. 

Amelia had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon about her hip pain. We checked in but some glitch checked us as a no-show. We waited in the lobby for a good hour, I checked with the front desk after 20 minutes, then again after another 20 minutes, they finally figured out we were not checked it. The nurses slipped us for the quickest visit with the ortho guy. We chatted for a total of 5 minutes, he ordered an MRI of her hip in order to see the condition of the muscles and flexors. Bam! $300 for a quick visit. 

Phillip is improving with the drum kit every week! Sam is gone on tour this summer so he is taking lessons from the other teacher, Casey. He is learning so much from both teachers. Casey is much more technical which is a good perspective for Phillip to experience. Phillip had an hour lesson with the teacher because he cancelled last moment the prior week. 

Amelia and Phillip mostly watched Konrad and Gus for two days while their mom and brother attended cub scout camp. They were excited to earn some money for FSY, Phillip enjoyed playing beyblades with Konrad for quite some time. Evelyn had Gus busy making cupcakes with her. She made the treat from start to finish mostly by herself. I monitored the oven and checked the batter but she did a great job! Gus helped her frost and sprinkles the cakes. Rebecca Bledsoe invited us and the Ostler’s over for an afternoon of swimming in their pool. I picked up Jocelyn and Sara picked up Ava to round out the group of friends. The kids played hard from 2 until 5 pm. Konrad snoozed still wearing his life vest! We wore those boys out. Adam said both boys went to bed early and slept all night! Yay. Evelyn decided at 8 pm to make peanut butter cookies for Ms Gingerich since all the cupcakes were eaten. She was all bent out of shape because I started fluffing the butter and sugar! She wanted to do it all by herself, like all of it. She sulked until I told her I just did one step, geesh. She finished the dough, I left her rolling balls and sugaring the dough. Justin said she exploded at Josie after I left because Josie was making the dough balls either too big or small. I was out late taking last moment photos of Paula Titus’s family gathered for her birthday. She wanted me to come over at 9 pm. Right before I left I checked my camera, the shutter button was quite stuck causing the button to fire the shutter continuously. I removed the battery to clean the button, forgot to replace the battery. I arrived after the 20 minute drive with a battery-less camera and my heart falling to my feet. I ran home and grabbed my lights, stands, extension cords, and of course the battery. Since I was driving no phone calls or texts came through, Paula tried several times to reach me asking me to stay home. What a flub up on my part! I still took a few photos but 4 people were missing.  

Amelia went over at 7 am so Adam could go to work. Fergus had 16 wk immunization shots at 9:30, he was a very good boy according to the tech. He was happy to stay at home with Justin with his sore shoulders. I had another fun day planned at Quinn’s Pond. Jennifer Gingerich and the Ostlers arranged to meet us at the park for a picnic and water fun. I asked Evelyn to wake up the boys while I was at the vet and get them loading the kayaks. Phillip and Everett treated Evelyn quite nastily, yelling at her for waking them up without a reason. They did not even wait for a reason! I came home to hear Evelyn was cowering under the desk, Everett was in a complete meltdown, and Phillip acting like a ridiculous teenager. Phillip turned it around, helped me load the truck with the kayaks, paddles, life vests, and sand toys. I made a quick tuna pasta salad for the picnic. Evelyn added her peanut butter cookies and specially decorated cupcake and card for her teacher. Everett turned into an obstinate donkey, he absolutely refused to help, then he stubbornly refused to accompany us to the lake. Logan and Ambree were very excited to play with him, he let them down. I gave him a choice: come with us for 3 hours at the lake and get snow cones afterward OR stay home and lose all electronic privileges for an entire week. He chose the latter. My heart ached leaving him knowing how hard it would be for everyone with him choosing the harder route. Justin said he sulked for an hour then realized what he had done. Everett spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the entire downstairs (as well as a 12 year old boy can), mopped all the floors, cleaned the little girls room to apologize, and cleaned up Phillip’s mess. We both apologized for being mean to each other, but the consequence still stuck. Together we decided to keep the punishment until Monday, but his apology and actions helped reduce his sentence. It was broiling hot, perfect for cooling down in the water. Konrad quickly caught on to kayaking. I took the boys around the island, Gus was convinced it was a pirate island. We stayed until 2:30, just a short trip to keep the boys busy. As promised we got delicious snow cones from Amanda’s little shack. Cooper served us extra large servings with extra candy! Yum. We kept busy putting the water stuff away. Everett’s cleaning start was a godsend, he helped me finish the work. He also helped me make Mexican Shrimp Cocktails for dinner. 

Amelia left for an overnight stake 16+ water activity at Anderson Ranch. The communication was quite underwhelming. Our ward got the wrong dates, then a correction text the day we thought it was (Thursday). Thursday we got another text with a packing list: bring a ward tent, water bottle, sack dinner, personal supplies, and a kayak. Oh yeah, meet at 5 pm, where? Who the heck knows?! I finally learned the kids went to Anderson Ranch. Next morning Amelia said all the leaders left on one of the boats for 3 hours…the teens were left alone?! What? They had no food from 11 am-2 pm. We had not approximate time to pick up the kids either. 

I spent all Saturday cleaning my bedroom, bathroom, and closet. It felt great to get the curtains, bed skirt, bedding all washed and dried. I dusted the entire room. Justin’s corner was WWIV with boxes, motorcycle stuff, gloves, backpacks, gear, and all the things littering 1/2 the floor. He graciously helped for 20 minutes before giving up to go work in the home office. Whelp, thanks…I cleaned it all for him. Good luck finding your stuff. I was quite miffed that he couldn’t spare a bit more time to help clean his mess. Jacob Lance is in Amsterdam with the American Rhythm Folk Team for 3 weeks of performances and competitions. I loved watching one of their performances on instagram live. He sang, played, and danced! So talented. I took apart the floor fan, it was a dusty mess. I finally finished cleaning around 7 pm. Justin and I went on a date to see Sound of Freedom, a film the popular kids are all defaming as untrue. The story is about Tim Ballard a DHS agent working to capture pedophiles. In the process he rescues a little boy from Columbia. The boy asked if Tim will also save his sister. The story is based on some true events depicting the sex slave trade. It was hard to watch all those little children stolen from their home and sold to gross people in America. 

I got to experience Jr and Sr Primary this week! I was gone the other 2 Sunday meetings we tried out the split, I thought it was much easier to manage. The older kids are punks though. Nothing I taught remotely interested them! The Sr Primary only had 2 girls and 12 boys so that could be part of the issue. All the older boys chatted with their friends and completely ignored the songs and activities. It will take time. I completely lost my brain at church. Brother Finch asked Justin and I to offer opening prayers. Agreed. I realized my bins and phone were still at home, so what did I do? Race home to get them. Missed the prayer. Phillip gave an awesome talk about his beliefs in Christ. He started the talk and had a really good base, I helped him flesh out the talk with scriptures and references. Sister Titus gave a talk on Pioneers, her ancestor wrote “Up, Awake Ye Defenders of Zion!” That was my mission hymn! President Brinkerhoff played the hymn quite jazzed up. I got up 10 minutes before the meeting ended to set up music in the Primary room. I only remembered it was my turn to pray when Amelia’s voice came on offering the prayer. Good one, Me. Takes talent to have a scatterbrain like mine.