Weekend Two

This weekend I picked up the kids around 5pm. On the way home I asked what the children wanted for dinner. They all wanted something different. I told them I would decide what we would have once we got home. I wanted to teach them something, so I decided they could each have what they wanted if they help make it. Matthew wanted pizza, so I had him take the pizza out of the box and put it on the stove. I had Nathan help cut it out of the plastic and then I showed them how to preheat the oven and taught them the dangers of the hot oven. Lily wanted to have chips with cheese. I helped her clean a plate to put the chips on and then had both Nate and Lily grate cheese. Nate already knew how but Lily didn't, so I had her watch Nate first then taught her how to hold the cheese and what not to tough on the grater. Then I had her spread the cheese on the chips and once I put it in the microwave I helped her push the start button.

Nate wanted an omelet so I had Nate crack an egg which he didn't want to do because of perceived failed attempts in the past. Then I made his omelet. In prepping my omelet I showed Nate how to open an egg after it is cracked. After they ate Nate wanted more, so I had him crack another egg. This time was his best ever. I don't think he's afraid of cracking eggs any more... we'll see. After we ate, I had them clean up after themselves. Once dinner was cleaned up we went into the front room for scriptures and stories. Scriptures took a lot longer than I expected but I wasn't willing to skip stories for the night so we did stories. Nate read Read the Book Lemmings! Lily chose Lift the Lid, Use the Potty! Matthew chose Your Personal Penguin. I pulled up the YouTube video and sang Your Personal Penguin with the kids. They wanted to sing it over again twice. So we did. They went to bed nearly an hour after their bed time.

Saturday happened similar to the previous weekend in that Nate made a list of what to do. He likes lists. This included both things we needed to do and things he wanted to do. First we ate breakfast; simple cereal. Once everyone had eaten and cleaned their bowls, spoons, and the table and put away everything related to breakfast, it was time to go to the office. Knowing that after the office we would go to the bank, I grabbed Nate and Lily's money bags. I noticed that they had been dipped into. I suspect Tiffany took money out of their bags. The most noticeable was the bag labeled for taxes. This should have more money than the one labeled for savings yet Nate's had significantly less in that bag. This made me a little mad. Who steals their own children's money?... I also wanted to set up a bank account for Lily but I could not find the keys to the safe with her social security card.

This week I knew I had a patient and other things to do in the morning so I told them I would pay them for folding gowns and I asked Nate how much he wanted to get paid. He said he wanted fifty cents. I told him he only needed to fold four gowns for that. He was happy with that since it was less than normal. He didn't realize this but in the past he needed to fold seven for fifty cents. Lily said she only wanted a penny so I told her she needed to fold two gowns and that Nate and I would show her how to fold them since she never did it before. Nate is a pretty good teacher. After my patient left, who Lily warmed up to pretty fast, I checked and adjusted Lily and then had them fold gowns. I paid them, Lily got twenty five cents - not a penny, had Nate count his savings and tax refund and we went to the bank to deposit everything he counted. I taught Nate fill out the whole deposit slip and went up to the virtual teller and had him do as much as he could. We grabbed some popcorn and left.

We headed over to Nathan's best friend Daniel's house. I intended to stay for only a little bit but Stacy, his mom, invited us to stay for lunch. So they played on the piano and with Play-Doh. After lunch I took all five kids to the park briefly. Then they played Nintendo for a half hour while I talked with Ryan, his dad, and we went home. When we got home there were only three things left on the list. Before we started working on that I told Nate if Swisher pooped in the house I was going to teach him how to clean it up. Nate was very upset about that. Swisher didn't poop but he did throw up on the kitchen floor and I had Nate clean that up. He was very upset and pitched a fit but I refuse to teach my kids that pets don't come with dirty responsibilities; something Tiffany has only partially taught by example. In fact, if I didn't insist on it, she would have shirked those responsibilities too like she did with the cat. Since Nate's fit I gave them a little break assuming we would have enough time to complete everything in time.

The kids begged to sleep downstairs on the couch on Friday night and I told them no. However, I told them they could sleep downstairs on Saturday night if the whole list was complete by six pm. Out of the three things left on the list two of them were games and I told them that for each game they needed to do a chore. So in my mind we needed to finish two more chores and baths. They chose to clean the stairs and hallway up stairs to play the game Killer Bunnies and I had them clean trash in the living room for the game Chess. There was a lot of micromanaging that went on with both chores but they were done and baths were complete all before six so I told them they could sleep downstairs.

Before games, we needed to make dinner. I decided we were going to have kartoffelpuffer, which I learned how to make in France - but I still looked up the recipe. I had Lily and Matthew crack an egg each. I had Nate and Lily help shred the potatoes and cheese. I shredded less of an onion than I wanted because Nate and Lily put up a fuss about onions but it worked out. I let them play while I cooked. They liked it okay enough to eat it and I let them have applesauce once they did. Lily didn't finish all of hers so she didn't get applesauce. After dinner we did scriptures which took longer than expected again and Matthew fell asleep on the couch before games started.

We played Killer Bunnies with only four carrots and Nate won. We played Chess without the rooks or bishops. Lily was on my team and we won - well Lily forced it into a stalemate. Nate was upset but I'm getting better at convincing him that he wins if he can learn better how to play. After that we settled in to the living room and I gave in to watching something. I chose Disney's Bedtime Stories which they liked. Matthew joined us at one point and after he ate some more applesauce we all settled in and fell asleep. I'm still not a fan of sleeping on the couch.

In the morning we ate breakfast as usual. After breakfast we did scripture stories. I chose multiple stories from various bible story books all related to the selected New Testament chapters of the week. They wanted to draw during scripture stories and I told them they could only draw if it was related to the stories that we were reading. Nate was right on top of that and Lily caught on later. Matthew had trouble catching on but while his drawing skills are weak - decent for his age - I just wanted that the intention of his drawings had something to do with Christ. After the kids were ready for church, I let them play with Play-Doh while I got ready for church. They all got an automatic timeout when I got done with my shower because they had not cleaned up the Play-Doh when I asked them to. When that was over and the Play-Doh was mostly cleaned up, we ate, they had chocolate milk, and we headed out to church. I had Nate read in his scriptures before church and in the car.

At church Nate was interested in reading in his Book of Mormon during the sacrament. He wanted to read about Gethsemane so I suggested he read Alma 42 which is one of my favorite chapters and is related to Gethsemane. When Lily wanted to get water, we picked up some tithing slips and envelopes as well and had her and Nate fill them out and put their quarters in the envelopes. After church Matthew's teachers said that he is very bright and knows the answers.

Nate asked if they could play at the big rocks in front of the church and I said yes. Then since it was such a nice day we went to the fire pit near the church and I taught them about the reason for and importance of tithing. We then walked over to the spot where we camped the year before - the only camp out they have ever been on - and they said they wanted to do that again. It turns out we will probably be camping out in two weeks. Then we went home.

They wanted me to play with them but I told them not until I decided what we were going to have for dinner. They played with my plan of salvation visual aids and I chose to make scrambled eggs with corn, white beans, and cheese. While I made that they played Uno Attack and I had Nate read more when that was over. Once dinner was ready we ate and no one wanted seconds and Lily and Matthew didn't want to finish theirs but I got them to eat most of it. Then we played chess with rooks instead of knights this time and I helped them both out and it ended in another stalemate. It would have taken longer but I told Lily she could either loose after a long time of running away or she could end it quickly with a stalemate and then they could play checkers. She chose checkers. We quit that early to eat ice cream, cleaned out bowls and loaded up the van while we prepared for Tiffany to arrive.