Thursday, October 15, 2020

While the Muffins Bake

I'm currently trying to finish up a triple batch of pumpkin muffins before I have to pick up my kids from school. If all goes well, I'll have the third batch out of the oven right at the very last possible moment I can run out the door without being late. 

In true Brittany fashion I mixed the muffins in a bowl that was too small, and I now have flour all over my floor. I am sweating to death, and I have pumpkin permanently embedded under my fingernails. I'm so suave.

While the muffins are baking, I thought I would do a quick update on all my kids. 

Obligatory photo

Nicky is on his last day of "quarantine" for COVID exposure at school. He will go back to school on Monday, and then he has the rest of the week off. So he'll have gone to school once in three weeks. He has enjoyed being home, for the most part. He does his school in the morning and then spends the rest of the day watching Shark Tank and playing with Legos.* We've gone on a few bike rides together so he gets some exercise, and I take him to the car wash for a change of scenery. 

He has been golfing a lot with Scotty over the past few months and really enjoys it. He and Scotty both got new RC cars, and when they walked in the house carrying them fresh from the store, I'd never seen two happier boys. Nicky has been playing the piano a lot lately, and I think he's starting to really like it after 7 years of piano lessons. 

Daisy is doing dance class, piano lessons (via FaceTime), and Lego League. She has started to enjoy reading more this school year, and she has been talking about books more and asking me to put books on hold for her at the library. I attribute this to a few things:

1. Her teacher, who has more books in her classroom than I've ever seen and who has encouraged her students to read 40 chapter books this school year

2. Her friend, (who happens to be her teacher's daughter) who loves to read and is always telling Daisy about books.

3. The school librarian, who has taken Daisy under her wing and has her come help in the library several times a week. Our librarian is FANTASTIC! 

Zoe started piano lessons a couple of weeks ago. She had been begging to do piano lessons. She has big dreams and wants to do everything - figure skating and gymnastics and dancing and singing and all the things. She recently bought a Lego set with her own money, and she fell in love. Prior to that set, all attempts at Legos were failures. Now she wants several sets for her upcoming birthday. 

She is obsessed with Minecraft and Roblox (ugh). She’s the first of my kids to require video game limits, but at least I have some incentive to get her to do her chores. I only let her play on the weekends. 

Zoe loves to make smoothies. She asks every day if she can make a smoothie for breakfast and for dinner. I usually only let her make one every-other day because I can only supervise so many smoothies before wanting to rip my hair out. She has really improved in her reading (she has been a little behind in previous school years but is catching up now). She is starting to enjoy chapter books - some of the ones she likes are the Bad Kitty series and Junie B. Jones. She sits up in her bed reading every night (in between fights with Eva).

Eva is a tornado. She is emotionally up and down. She swings between "I love you, Mom" and "I hate you, Mom" several times a day. She's had some tantrums this week that have left me utterly exhausted. Scotty and I had to tag team her to get her dressed for school the other day, and then I had to drive her to school while she thrashed around in the back seat. I didn't think I was going to be able to get her to go to class, but when we got to the school, she hopped right out and went to class as if everything were fine. She hasn't been able to make any connection between actions and consequences yet, and it kind of worries me. I haven't found a form of discipline that works for Eva. 

Eva has become a bit of a Ninja Warrior lately. We have a "rock wall" on our playset in the back yard, and all the rocks are currently removed. She just runs right up the wall. The other day when I picked her up from school, I had the passenger side window rolled down, and she ran up to the van and dove head first through the window before I could even blink. 

Eek... the muffins are almost done. Hurry, Britt, hurry!




*I just spent way too much time deciding whether to say "Legos" or the more proper "LEGO bricks" here, and I decided I'm a "Legos" person. LEGO prefers that "Legos" not be a word because they think it hurts their brand. I think that's silly! 


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