"Mama!"

The most commonly heard word around here, so I thought it fitting for the title of this post.

We woke up late yesterday (8am) and instead of scrambling to get Henry to preschool in time for the 8:30 breakfast, I thought why bother? So I called & said he would be late and we had breakfast here. Henry found the leftover pizza from Jim's football night and helped himself. Really must discourage him from going in the fridge alone. One of these times he might help himself to my stale wine or peppermint mocha coffee creamer. Don't know which would upset me more.

So we had a nice leisurely breakfast and watched "Curious George" while I gathered supplies for taking Kathryn on my errands run after dropping Henry off. Funny how I try now to consolidate trips so I have to wrangle kids into carseats as little as possible. Before kids, I thought nothing of doing things in bits and pieces, but not anymore. If we're going out, it usually entails mentally mapping out our route and stopping wherever we might need something along the way. Maybe it's more fuel-efficient now. Yeah, that's what I'll tell myself.

Henry is getting so independant- insists on buckling himself in every time, which while I applaude the move toward self-sufficiency, is frequently frustrating when we are constantly late going somewhere. "Sorry we're late. Henry HAD to buckle himself in." I know what some of you are thinking. "You're the parent. Say NO." Unless you have a willful 3yr old of your own, this seems like the obvious solution. Those of you who feel my pain know that response is guaranteed to propel your child into a bucking, writhing, screaming ball of fury. But I digress.

Dropped Henry off at school, proudly wearing his Bills jersey with a triangular cat's nose & whiskers painted on his face with my new black eyeliner. The sacrifices we make for our children. He has a lion costume but no way am I going to subject his teachers to a potty-training preschooler in a cumbersome costume. Stopped to pick up Grammy, Jim's suit and a refill on Mama's coffee and away we went, off on a whirlwind of adventure.

Dropped off Jim's suit to be pressed, went to Michael's for Grammy and I stayed in the car to change & nurse the ravenous infant. Off to treat Grammy to lunch with an Applebee's giftcard I unexpectedly unearthed from the office papers. Sweet. Kat turned heads wearing her little puppydog jacket, complete with floppy ears. Had to change her again. And rock her in her carseat to keep her amused during lunch. She nicely timed her meltdown as we were finishing up, so overall, a good meal.

Sleepy after a nice lunch of grilled shrimp & spinach salad, French onion soup and a brownie sundae. Again, sweet. But no time for naps. Off to 2 stores for grocery shopping and to nurse & change Kat again in the van. Debated over getting a petite cheesecake sampler on sale (24 bite-sized bits for $5) and decided this might very well be a sanity saver this week. Just hope I don't have a REALLY bad day and polish off the whole box in one sitting. Not too concerned about calories-it says "petite" after all and I'm taking advantage if one of the great benefits of nursing. Reminds me of an episode of "Desperate Housewives" where a woman working with Lynette nursed her son until he was 5 because it was like having treadmill strapped to her chest. But again, I digress.

Time to go home- depleted my stock of diapers. I thought the 3 diapers already in there  would be enough for 2 hours but I should have known better. If I pack 6, she won't go for hours but if my stock is low, she's a peeing machine.

Home to unload the groceries and baby, say goodbye to Grammy and put everything away. Change baby again. I'm sure there was another nursing episode in there somewhere too. Then a frenzy of cleaning and tidying before Henry gets home @ 4:30. Tackled his toyboxes in the living room. Yes, that's toyBOXES. Whittled away his collection to 1 toybox with a diapers.com box filled with things for the MOMS Club giftaway. 2 Aldi's bags full of crumpled construction paper, broken crayons and random bits of 3 yr old toybox junk destined for the trash. So glad I'm not trying to do that with him hovering over my shoulder.

To be continued.....Jim & Henry on their way home from THEIR adventure. I kept trying to think of errands to do to keep them out longer. Mean Mama.