vacuuming STILL, homework in the shrubs, and questionable computer skills

The lengthy conversation with my kitchen contractor interrupted my plan to vacuum BEFORE I had to put the tykes down for naps.  I tossed some more food their way (these guys can always eat), and raced back upstairs.  Eventually I brought them up to where the beds were piled high with stuff - but hey, we could see the carpet and walk across a room without twisting an ankle, causing other bodily harm, or risk losing a tot in a stack of God-knows-what.

I laid them down, and continued on my vacuuming mission in the rooms void of nappers.  Laddie called from college to let me know that he has Tonsillitis.  Awesome.  I finished my vacuuming and enjoyed the look of clean rooms, so long as I trained my eye to avoid the beds piled dangerously high with shit.

Tanks' clean clothes landed back on his floor shortly after he entered his room.

I changed the laundry loads and jogged downstairs to the makeshift kitchen area to whip up my salad.  I tired to do a few things on the computer.  OK, I am going to come clean here and admit that I was wasting time.  Not intentionally, but in a zoned out kind of way.  I kept trying to decide what local Irish dancing competition we would attend next, so I was clicking on MapQuest to determine how long a drive might be from my house, etc.

My chronic afternoon-nap-requirement started to creep up on me.  The minute I shuffled some hoodies (I had started to stockpile them when I stumbled upon them upstairs, so that I could demand that kids lay claim to a few and stop whining that they didn't have any) around on the couch to lay down, the plumbers started drilling.  LOUDLY.  I let out a heavy sigh, realizing that my nap opportunity was now non-existent. 

I decided to power full speed ahead, well with a desperate-for-a-nap energy level - and began to blog about our next phase of the Boston trip.  Before I knew it, I saw Curly's bus come around the bend.  I continued typing.  After a few minutes, I became concerned.  With construction happening, I expected to see her bound through the front door instead of the garage door.  The front door is just steps away from the study where I was yawning typing.  Nothing.

I stood up and saw her fluffy hair in front of the shrubs that line our walkway.  When I called out the front door to ask her if she was OK, she explained herself.  My 4th grader had escaped homework in her first few weeks of school.  Now she had an assignment to complete, but she felt that if she finished it before she walked into the house she could maintain her 'no homework' record.  With that mystery solved, I went back to my blog.

Theodore was awake now.  He was playing in the basement, but he likes to pop up from time to time to tell me completely inconsequential things.  Like, 'I found this.'  (holds up a paperclip or a small lego or a piece of lint).  When Curly came in from her non-homework moment on the front lawn, I asked her to read him a book.  I promised to play memory with them when the book was done.

My Mom poked her head thru the heavy plastic sheets that separate the construction zone from the rest of the house.  The day before Mom had been over to borrow my savvy computer skills.  OK, I use the word savvy sarcastically, but if you can grasp that my 75 year old mother has never sent an email or typed and saved a document on a computer, then you understand how my 'skills' would seem stellar.

I hadn't expected her, and I blinked for a minute as I once again readjusted my hopes for accomplishing anything on my agenda that day.