Weekend activities

Julia had a surprise visitor yesterday, which just about made her entire week:





After a week of missing preschool, multiple play-dates, and her good buddy Nate's birthday party, Julia was pretty desperate for some kids to play with. And when her beloved former next-door neighbor Jovina walked into our kitchen, Julia was so delighted that she immediately threw her arms around her friend. I dare to say I was just about as happy to see Jovina's mommy after a week of quarantine as she was to see her pal!

This morning, ready to finally brave an outing in the real world again, the Rowe girls decided to go to church. It was an important service, as the Bishop was visiting, and as a choir member I was supposed to be there early to rehearse the special, additional music we were singing. Never before has a morning gone so badly...

8:10am - Ethan comes in to wake me up. I had not intended to sleep so late, but had been up much of the night tending to Julia's cough. He tells me what time it is, and realizing I need to be driving him to church in 5 minutes, hop out of bed. We grab the kids out of their rooms, and all pile into the car in pj's (except for Ethan) to drop him off at his church choir rehearsal. We then drive back to our house to begin the scramble to get ready for church ourselves.

8:30am - I put on a show for Julia (per her request), give Madeleine some Cheerios in her high chair, and jump in the shower. Madeleine screams for me the entire time, so when I get out, I give her a bagel half to keep her occupied, then run upstairs to get dressed in my church clothes. I come down carrying the girls' dresses and take Madeleine out of her high chair to get her dressed. I start the bath for Julia, who hops in, and put on Madeleine's tights and shoes, only to discover I had somehow dropped her dress en route downstairs. As Julia is hollering for me from the bath asking me to soap her up, Madeleine starts gagging, then vomits all over the dining room floor and herself. I see chunks about the size of a quarter bagel in the puke, realizing she had stuffed such huge bites into her mouth to the point that she induced vomiting. As I'm trying to clean her up and keep myself from gagging from the stench, Julia is screaming to me that she needs me to do her soap.

9am: I soap up Julia with one hand holding my bagel, taking frantic bites, then get her out of the bath and help her get dressed.
JULIA: Mommy, when are we leaving for church?
ME: Um, probably in about 15 minutes.
JULIA: Nooooo, Mommy, I want to go to church RIGHT NOW!
ME: Well, I'm not ready right now. I still have to dry my hair and print out the order of music for today.
JULIA: Nooooo, I want to go NOOOOOW!
ME: I need you to go up to your room and get your black dress shoes. Can you do that please?

Julia stomps up to her room, slamming the door over and over, then comes downstairs and says, "Mommy, I CAN'T go to church. I don't DESERVE to go to church."
ME: Well, we are going to church.
JULIA: No, I CAN'T go to church. I'm too sick.
ME: Okay. (Walking off and ignoring her.)

She then decided it was more exciting upstairs, so stomped back up to her room.

9:15am: I went into the bathroom to quickly dry my hair, while Madeleine opened and closed cupboards in the kitchen. As I was drying the back portion of hair, I turned to peek at Madeleine only to realize she wasn't there.
ME: Madeleine?
JULIA: (from upstairs) Uh, Mommy, um, Madeleine decided she wanted to play in MY room.
ME: Did she go up the stairs herself?
JULIA: Yeah, she just crawled in here.

I then ran upstairs to get Madeleine, and figured while I was upstairs I would change her diaper, despite my half-wet hair. I got her onto the changing pad and whipped off her diaper, only to discover an unexpected poop. As I was wiping it, the pretty, lacy, billowy sleeve of my fancy sweater dipped into the diaper. Shoot. Had it made contact with the poop? Sniff... yep. I ripped the sweater off over my head, changed the poopy diaper, then went into my bedroom to throw on another outfit. Madeleine crawled around my bedroom floor and decided to start unwrapping Nate's birthday present, which we had not been able to give him yesterday, seeing as we had to miss the party.

9:30am: I brought the kids downstairs, packed up the diaper bag, handed Julia a sippy cup of water (I'm not thiiiiiirsty Mooooommy!) and started hauling everything and everyone down the stairs and into the car. I had just locked up the back door (whose lock is warped and doesn't open by key anymore) when I realized Julia was not holding her water.

ME: Julia, you didn't bring your water with you?
JULIA: solemnly shaking her head.
ME: *Sigh.* Oh well.
JULIA: (frantically) Get it!!!
ME: Julia, I can't get back in the door now, I locked it.
JULIA: (bursting into tears) But Mommy! How will we get to church?
ME: Julia. I have my keys with me. We can drive to church. I can also go in the front door and get your cup if you'd like.
JULIA: Nods tearfully.

So I run in, grab the water, zip out to the car and we're on our way. Not until we're partway there do I remember the order of music with special changes that I'd diligently printed out, sitting on our dining room table. At this point we were late enough, so I had to let it go. One thing I must always keep in mind: try to go ANYWHERE with kids, and be prepared to be totally unprepared.