Mother's Day Weekend - May 10-11, 2019

When I talked with Tiffany on Tuesday she told me that she was scheduled to work both Friday and Saturday; which means from 2-11pm. On Friday at 2:30pm, I texted Tiffany's mom to find out when Nate gets back from school. She told me that he wouldn't be back till 3:30. I found out that this was a lie and that he was home all day because Tiffany decided not to send him to school that day. This is not too surprising because this has happened before where she would let him stay home for no reason that can be accepted as an excused absence.

Nate also still has a cough, which he has had since he was sick in February because Tiffany refused to handle his sickness correctly. She didn't like how it should have been handled, and now Nate is suffering the consequences.

After picking up the kids at 3:30pm we got in the van, which was on empty, and headed to Sarah Judd's house. We had to take a detour for gas. We trade cars every weekend. There hasn't been one weekend where we traded cars where Tiffany put any gas into the car. I believe that I have put gas into the van every weekend that I had it even if I didn't need to.

We arrived at Sarah Judd's house a little early but when they arrived, their children and mine hit it off and started playing together immediately. We went there so I could buy two of their twin mattresses that were not supposed to have come on the move with them. I am preparing for when Tiffany gets an apartment. We loaded the mattresses into the van and I caught up with Sarah and her husband. Then we left and headed to the office.

At the office I saw three patients and fed the kids. They were pretty good for the most part but fairly disruptive. They each created Mother's Day cards in Paint; well, Nate made three and the others helped a little with the ones that were supposed to be from them.

On the way home we started scriptures by doing six articles of faith and having all of them repeat after me. When we got home I had Nate read seven more verses of his reading. Then I agreed to let the children watch a movie and sleep downstairs. I let them choose the Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat from 2003. The movie was actually not that good for their age group, or at all. It was pretty crude and they got scared during parts of it. I fell asleep during parts of the movie but everyone slept well once it was over.

In the morning, we ate breakfast which included Cheerios for me, Lily, and Matthew, and oatmeal for Nathan. I clipped everyone's nails which were all long and dirty in preparation for their baths which I intended to give them. I don't think Tiffany ever clips their nails. Apparently, the last time they had a bath was Thursday over a week ago; that was according to Nate. After they finally finished cleaning up after their breakfast, which included Nathan getting a time out for directly disobeying me, we headed to the Bishop's Storehouse.

I had each of the children help with the whole process. This included loading groceries into the cart, putting the bags into the van, unloading the van, and putting all of the items away where they belong. Nathan and Matthew asked for suckers and finished them before we got home but Lily didn't want one. Then it was time for lunch. They each wanted either pears or pear smoothie for lunch. After Matthew and Lily had pears and saw that Nathan liked the pear smoothie, they each asked for pear smoothie as well. The pear smoothie was made of pears, banana, milk, and cinnamon. Nate thought it tasted just like oatmeal, mostly because of the texture and cinnamon flavor. Nate and Matthew finished cleaning up after their lunch. I had Nate read scriptures to everyone in order to get further along in his chapter. I also stopped after each verse to explain what some of the bigger words meant.

Earlier, I asked everyone what they wanted to learn. Nate said he wanted to learn how to make shapes with his fingers. I took that to mean shadow puppets. Lily wanted to learn how feet get stinky and how bodies get stinky. She insisted that she didn't need a bath because she wasn't stinky. I wanted to teach them how to make music with glass cups filled up with water at different levels. Matthew just repeated what he heard Lily say. I told them that we were going to learn something, clean something, and then play something.

Once Lily finished cleaning her bowl, she joined us up in Nate's closet where we had a flashlight and a YouTube video on how to make shadow puppet animals. We watched a segment of the video then each took turns practicing the animal shape on the wall. Then we sorted Lily's clean laundry into her drawers and then sorted the clean laundry in the laundry room into bins for each person. When that was done we played Ticket to Ride which Nate picked earlier. Matthew and Lily each completed one route. Then Nate and I finished up with a little bend to the rules here or there. Matthew asked several times to watch TV and Lily did once or twice, which shows that they still watch too much TV. I can't do anything about that when they are not with me but I kept the TV off all Saturday. I probably should have read stories with them on Friday night instead of a movie but I didn't.

Matthew was hungry during the game so I gave him a tortilla with cheese to hold him over till dinner. Matthew wanted pizza and I told them that I didn't have any frozen pizzas but we could make pizza from scratch if they wanted. They all liked that idea so we did. After Ticket to Ride was cleaned off the table we started making the dough. Nate grated the cheese and showed Matthew how for a moment. They also chose which pizza sauce jar to use. I let the majority vote win because that was the closest expiration date.

They each helped poor the dough ingredients into the bowl and Lily got to start whisking the dry ingredients together. Nathan used a rubber spatula to stir in the wet ingredients. I finished it off by kneading the dough and after they washed their hands, I let them each knead their third parts. Then they each rolled out their dough with rolling pins. I finished off each one and helped them spread the sauce and cheese.

While they were cooking, Matthew got a timeout for not telling me that he had a stinky diaper. He is old enough that he needs to be aware that he has to be proactive about getting his dirty diaper changed. He's already there when it comes to a diaper full of pee, but needs a little more motivation to go to the next level with dirty diapers.

We ate and everyone enjoyed their pizza. I had some of each and they all tasted the same and good. Matthew only ate one slice which was fairly small compared to the normal frozen ones that he eats. I blamed that on the cheese tortilla I gave him earlier.

After pizza, I didn't have much time left with them so I debated between giving them baths or spending time with them on scriptures. Since none of them get enough time with the scriptures when they are with Tiffany, based on what Nate has described, I decided that this was more important; and since Tiffany has elected the role of full custodian, which I don't agree with, I decided to let her own this responsibility and texted her letting her know that they didn't get baths this weekend.

When I dropped off the kids, Tiffany was there and not at work as expected. It looked like she had rolled her ankle because she was limping. If I had known that, I might have had her pick up the kids but it is Mother's Day weekend so I'm not too bothered by that.