Friday morning, Aaron called to check on the family. He let me know that he was coming home early because he had already fulfilled his 40 hours and needed to avoid overtime. We discussed what we needed to do this weekend and negotiated what to have for dinner.
The kids and I had a pretty busy day. I had a doctor's appointment, so the boys got to spend time with their cousins and run off an amazing amount of energy. My sister-in-law has a wonderful route around the living room where her son and my boys run laps while screaming at the top of their lungs. It is a wonderful game because I don't have to be there to supervise. By the time that I picked them up, they were fully exhausted, hungry and in complete meltdown.
We got home and made it through lunch, had a little time for the boys to unwind while taking out every toy that we own, and then it was NAPTIME!! I ushered the kids to their napping spots and went downstairs to work ( I work part-time from home). I was enjoying the silence when I heard someone walking through the house. I yelled to Luke that he better get back into his bed or else. . . ., but the steps kept coming. Just as I was getting up to put Luke back to bed, Aaron's head peaked from around the corner. I had totally forgotten that he was coming home early.
Let me explain how our evening usually works. After the boys get up and have their "wake-up apple juice" (think coffee, but for preschoolers), they play until about 15 minutes before Aaron gets home. During this time, I'm making dinner and cleaning the kitchen. We have the timer set and when it goes off, everyone straightens up the living room and snack bar/art center so that it appears that we have had a highly productive day of cleaning. After a busy day at work, who wouldn't want to come home to a semi-clean house with dinner on the table? (I'll let you believe that this happens everyday.)
Anyways, on this particular day, the house was pretty messy. Thursday had been a pretty rough day, so I had put off straightening up and Friday was just really busy. I had planned to give the boys and myself an extra 10-15 minutes for our evening clean-up. Really . . . I did . . . When Aaron came downstairs, I could see that the chaos of our house was really overwhelming him. He suggested that I take the whole morning on Saturday to go into work to do some paper work while he and the boys cleaned the house on Saturday morning. Ummmm . . . yes!
When I got home on Saturday afternoon, the house was on the way to being spotless and by Saturday night, the job was finished. It was pretty much glowing.
This is what our living room looked like by 9:15 the next day.
I think the whole 5:30 clean-up plan is making more sense to him now!
By the way, the boys are in charge of helping during the day too. For instance, I asked Ben this morning to take all of the stuffed animals to his room. This is what I found as I went into the boys' room.
I think I need to be more specific next time.
Oh Ben..
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