Some days are reeeeally weird....

I should be cooking. Cleaning. Making soaps.

Nah. I think I'll blog instead :)

Here is what my day was like (probably with a few significant moments of lunacy left out b/c I can't remember them all!):

6:15: wake up. Batsheva has gotten out of bed, climbed down the stairs of her loft bed, shut off her alarm, climbed back UP the stairs and has fallen back asleep. Try to get Batsheva up. Not much luck....Get a proper shirt on myself. No time to get out of pajama pants. Ilana wakes up. Nurse her and get her fully dressed (at least one of us should be, right?). No time to take her to the potty.

6:30: drive Sam to shul (he usually takes Batsheva to the van, but, b/c of slichot services, shul starts too early). Hope for the best w. Ilana in her car seat without "making" before we left.

6:36: home. Find one particular darling daughter who is not dressed yet. Start making dire predictions of missing the van to school. Throw English muffin in microwave for her.

6:40: take patient Ilana to the potty. She looks relieved to be able to relieve herself :). Ilana in her morning pottying takes rather a while (quite "productive", though, so I'm not complaining). Ilana insists on taking off her pants, underwear, socks and shoes (which she always insists on, and is quite a drag when we're out of the house!).

6:52: Finally get a proper skirt on myself. Even manage to brush my hair! Make even more dire predictions to procrastinating child who is putting copious amounts of butter on half-defrosted English muffin. Kiss PB good morning and tell her we dont' have time to read "Ramona" at this moment.

6:57: Manage to get out the door with PB, Ilana and BH. Screech into shul parking lot at 7:01. Amusingly, we are behind another shul family's car as we come around the corner, and, as I am leaving, the last family shows up (thereby making this early morning a total success: "We weren't the last family at the van! We rock!")

7:ish: eat breakfast, check email, make long list of groceries needed for Yom Tov. Help Sam make coffee by spilling water all over the counter. Feed all the kids. Try to read the headlines of the NY Times. Reflect on 9/11. Make my bed. Get PB dressed properly ("No, you may not wear your too-small bathing suit in an effort to look like 'Kim Possible'"). Take Ilana to make again. Put spaghetti squash in microwave to use as base for pesto. Unclog downstairs toilet that clogs is you look funny at it. blah blah blah. Suddenly it's:

9:00 Davening with the kids.

9:40 Leave Chana at home doing her Chumash workbook while PB, Ilana and I drive back to shul again, this time to spruce up the guest room there that will have a family in it for Rosh Hashanah. We had started yesterday with putting a set of sheets we'd washed back on one of the beds, but since two more beds were used this past Shabbat, we washed those sheets last night and put them back on today.

10:10: zoom home, grab karate uniforms and Chana and head to class. Spar with the guy Sam was sparring with when Sam sprained his foot (one month ago and he still can't put weight on it, poor guy). Try not to pop him one (it wasn't his fault, Sam just landed "funny" from a kick). After class, PB goes home with my sister for a 45-minute playdate (their idea, not mine).

12:00-12:30: Nurse Ilana and she falls asleep. Help Chana get lunch and suggest she call Miss Julie and beg for forgiveness for being unable to locate the book her current piano piece is in. Luckily, Julie has another copy of the piece at her studio. Shove some lunch in. Check email. Get "proof copy" from invitation company for Batsheva's bat mitzvah in email. Try to look up about ordering tickets to the play of the "39 Steps" for Sam's birthday (umm, did I forget to say "beg MIL to babysit? Have to beg reeeally hard?" oy....). Call YMCA to sign PB up for class that starts this afternoon. Class is being cancelled for lack of attendance. Try to sign her up for three other classes, only to find the same thing. Finally get her into a swimming class Weds. afternoons. Pay for class with credit card. Geeently get Ilana out of her crib and put her in the car. It is pouring by now. Run to pick up PB.

12:40: PB not ready yet. I try to get her to understand how this day is one of precision timing. She could care less. Finally get her in the car. Drive to Brookline. Storrow Drive is overflowing, driving is super slow, and I have a police officer in back of me for about 10 minutes, causing me to *not* run every yellow light that, had I run, would have allowed us to be on time (or maybe five minutes late) for Chana's piano lesson (we were ten minutes late)

1:30 Find parking space less than one block from The Butcherie! Look in purse for quarter for the meter. Look REALLY hard in purse for quarter. Realize that not finding quarter is nothing compared to not finding wallet. DOH! I left my wallet on the table after paying for PB's class at the Y (wow, this had never happened to me before).

1:40: drive back to Julie's and let PB hang out on the rain in her boots and cow umbrella while we wait for Chana's lesson to end. Ilana, bless her, has remained asleep.

2:20: leave Brookline, drive home, and tell Chana she's got 10 minutes to grab a snack and get changed for her first gymnastics team practice (eeek! 2.5 hours twice a week!).

3:15: leave for gymnastics. Stay for the first half hour and watch the tweens be impressively limber.

4:00 Drive to BJ's. Let PB sit in Chana's seat, next to Ilana. Arrive at BJ's to discover PB has written on Ilana's face with pink marker. Just like in "Arthur's Chicken Pox", someone asks if she has chicken pox.

Ilana and PB are delighted that there is a cart available with one of those little red cars in front. But it's really pouring now and the thing is sopping, dripping, disgustingly wet. Luckily, I had a spare "piddle pad" in the car and that made at least the seat not so bad.

4:45: arrive home, unpack the perishables, and finally read "Ramona" to PB. Try to put some soaps in to set. Ilana follows me into the school room and dumps a small tube of soap scent on herself and the floor. The scent, meant to be used as a drop or two, is overwhelming. Clean her off the best I can. Make a zucchini casserole for dinner with shredded zucchini, farmer cheese, tomatoes and a few basil leaves. Begin making four liters of the special yogurt allowed on the SC diet. Ilana wants my attention. Badly. To get it, she bites my thigh (through a heavy denim skirt). *I* howl. She has broken the skin and left a nasty hickey-looking thing :(

5:00: Batsheva arrives home. Tell her she'll need to babysit while I go get Chana. Suggest she eat something so that she'll be on time to karate. Try to gently cajole and encourage when she says she doesn't want to go to karate ("how about you'll go tonight and you won't go Thursday?!" She saw through that one....). Tell her to please eat something and get in her uniform. Leave.

5:45: Pick up Chana. Arrive home to Batsheva howling "Mommmeeee! She needs to MAKE!". Ilana is standing in the hallway tugging at her pants and yelling too. Sam is at the top of the stairs, trying to get down in a timely manner on his crutches (not possible, btw). A loud CRASH is heard from the room he works in . I get Ilana into the bathroom, but it's a bad "miss" (actually, it wasn't really a miss. She was clear she needed to go. Sam and Batsheva just couldn't get her to the bathroom promtply).

While I'm trying to clear her up, Sam yells, "oh NO! El, come up here! Penina knocked my new work computer off and I think it's gone". I yell back that I'll be up as soon as I can (really, aside from emtional support as we clutch each other in anticipated-anguish of the hit our savings account will take from having to replace this thing, what can I do? And if I leave Ilana, I'm guaranteed a whole lot more work when I get downstairs). Sam throws down the flushable wipes. I use maybe one of those every month. Now, I use 6 just to get things back to normal.

Go up to Sam and find out that it might be okay. Still waiting on that, but it looks like it might~

6:06: walk in the door with Chana. Leave 5 minutes later to drive Batsheva to karate. Take PB and Ilana with me b/c it seems a whole lot safer than leaving them at home.

6:30 Finally make Chana the banana smoothie she asked for on the way home from gymnastics.

6:45 eat dinner. Leah comes over.

7:30: put PB to bed.

8: put Ilana to bed. NOW the real work can begin....

midnight: the yogurt finally gets cool enough to put in the yogurt makers. Usually I put the pot in the sink and dump ice cubes in, which cools it in 1-2 hours. Since the sink is full of dishes that have piled up since this morning, I just cover the pot with a towel, stir frequently, and leave it on the stove. This will present a problem tomorrow night when the yogurt is ready at midnight and I am sound asleep. Blurg.

Take apple soaps out of mold. Discover that mixing cup was not cleaned well enough when I made the red soap. The tiny bit of blue left in there from the "it's a boy" soaps I made earlier tonight has now turned out an entire batch of purple apples. I try to convince myself these look lovely. I fail.

12:48: bed. I quit!