The Sabbath

I confess.

Sunday stresses me out.

We have good intentions, but we have a hard time realizing the ideal.

This is the day of the week that I resort to giving the kids excessively long baths just for entertainment's sake. Usually our bath times are "whip em through" affairs. They barely have time to get wet and reach for a ducky before I've scrubbed their hair, rinsed them off and thrown a towel on them. I holler, "Go get your jammies on!" just as I'm grabbing the next unsuspecting kid to hose down.
On Sunday, however, they leisurely soak and we let the barbies and toy horses get in on the action while I sit on the toilet (the lid, of course) and enjoy a few moments of peace.... maybe even reading a few blogs on the laptop.

Tonight I was sitting on that very lid when Megan flew out of the tub and yelled, "Laney pooped!"

Now, we are no strangers to poop in the tub. Each of my offspring has bestowed more than one watery blessing upon me at bathtime. And I know you know what this means for me. You can't exactly let your child hop out of the tub and go her merry way while you deal with the "ramifications" of the unfortunate event. They have poo water on their legs! So you gingerly remove them from the tub and convince them to stay put (freezing! wouldn't want to get poo water on a towel) while you rinse off every single floaty toy, cup, squirty dolphin and rag (shudder...the rags are the worst because you have to ring them out). Setting them all aside to be individually disinfected at a future time....probably after they are asleep and you are really feeling the need to dive back into the poo. When you are done with the toys, then you must scrub out and rinse the actual tub. THEN you get to rebathe the children. It's a process.

Laney takes pooping in the tub to a whole new level. She has mooshy, black, softspread poop (that's what you get when blueberries become a staple of your diet). It does not stay united in log form. It spreads.

Fast.

Have you ever had the pleasure of rinsing black mooshy poop from the long flowing acrylic locks of 4 Barbies? I have. And I wouldn't wish it upon you. Not even if you were the boy who flipped my bra stap in the sixth grade (yes, you, Brent Daley).

So this whole mess took up one hour of the seven we need to fill today with Sabbath approved activities. Only six more to go.

We played a game of "Sorry!" which should actually be named "Mah-ahm! He won't stop killing me!" So that took up 45 minutes.

I went outside and stared at my garden. I did yank a couple weeds and couldn't resist digging up one of my potato plants (wicked!). I couldn't help it...it's like buried treasure.

Mathew and I read a couple chapters of "Serpents at Suppertime", a Magic Treehouse book. I'm trying to get them to read a hundred books (or chapters) during the summer break. We did okay until I realized that Mathew had walked away and I was reading aloud to myself. Oh that Jack and Annie! What crazy kids! Who needs Bronte when you can curl up with the Treehouse.

Ethan and Megan tried to build a train track together, but only got to the part where they dump the train pieces on the floor. That seemed to satisfy their need to create.

In a moment of denial, I said nothing as the children slipped out to the backyard. This is a classic example of "it's easier to punish than to deter". I paid for it later when Mathew came it to inform me that Megan had nearly stabbed Laney in the eye with a marshmallow roaster. I'm going to say that a battery powered kid vehicle, a red kid coupe and two-pronged metal spears don't make for a reverent Sunday diversion.

Ethan and Mathew discovered that the high powered sprayer I have connected to the back of our toilet (it comes in handy when spraying black mooshy poo from the diapers....yes, gasp!, I cloth diaper) makes an AWESOME water gun. I didn't discover this until I put everyone to bed and Mark found a soaked pair of boy underwear, sopping wet jean shorts and walked on a cold squishy bathroom rug. The sprayer was lying on the floor. I need to go into CSI...it took only moments to piece together the crime.

We had blender wheat pancakes and opened a can of peaches for dinner.

I don't know about you, but I feel flat out refreshed. Bring on the week!

Maybe we need to rethink the whole "no tv on Sunday" rule.