8:45 M and C showed up. They are David's very good buddies, and their parents needed coverage while they went off to parent teacher conferences. The three kids tend to get extraordinarily crazy together. David's room was already a wreck, but they managed to make it impenetrable. The entire floor was covered with LadyBug, My Big Back Yard, various versions of Darth Vador, pirates, bears, pirate swords, cruise ships, at least 40 books, pens, pictures, and a volcano.

9:15 Amazingly, I managed to get all the kids out of the house with alacrity. And then M. stepped in dog poop. But he was wearing boots, so with a quick wash off we were on our very loud way to jazzercise. I had to give them math problems to calm them down.

9:30 I plopped the four kids in the jazzercise child care (thank you Sheri!) and got to work out for an hour. Then M and C's mom took them away, and I drove my kids to a play date in West Seattle with Deirdre and Maggie. It was our annual pre-holiday craft making party.

11:30 The kids played outside in the rain while Deirdre and I chatted and made lunch. Or put out lunch. I had made all of mine before I left the house. That's how things work in gluten-free land.

12:00 The kids drank a lot of chocolate milk which is a special treat at Maggie's house and managed to eat their lunch without falling off their chairs. (Not for lack of trying on David's part.)

12:30 The kids played outside in the rain while Deirdre and I chatted, tidied and prepared the craft project materials. Way more complicated than we had expected, as always.

1:00 We worked on crafts, told stories about when I was a kid, solved hot glue guns problems, and took turns with the black felt. All that prep made things go relatively smoothly.

2:30 I got hungry. David started acting up, and we realized it was snack time. So, upstairs for more chocolate milk, more playing outside in the rain.

3:00 Deidre's relatives showed up, so we had to skedaddle, which took awhile of course. It was a great paced project with the balance of food, play, and focused work. Maybe you will be lucky enough to receive one of our creations. David, however, plans on keeping all of his.

4:00 We got home and the children immediately disappeared into media. Rose watched Sound of Music; David listened to Gone Away Lake. I did dishes and talked to my mom and sister.

4:45 John came home and made the adults pasta for dinner and gave the kids left over pizza and French toast.

6:00 I forced Rose to play the piano. We have not solved the piano practice problem. I don't want to nag. I also don't want her to show up for her lesson without having practiced. We tried having her design a practice schedule, but she hasn't stuck to it. Since I don't really care if she learns how to play the piano, I'm seriously thinking of having her quit if this keeps up.

David asked me to battle him with tinker toy airplanes, and I agreed. He helped me design my plane, and then we had a long involved battle with frequent pauses for repairs. I love the big colorful wooden tinker toys we inherited from Devin.

6:40 I had warned David we had to clean his room tonight, and now was the time. I enlisted John's help because it was a three person job, if not a bulldozer job. At one point I said to David, "I will go get you a hanging file from the closet, but if I step on another toy, I'm going to scream." He said, "Walk carefully."

7:15 David's floor was mostly clear. His bureau and bookshelf are another day's project, and he suddenly realized he had not eaten his dessert or had his t.v. time, so he went down for Pokemon. Rose listened to Gone Away Lake. They are, ridiculously, listening to two different readings of the same book. David has the one we got at the library, and Rose has the one our friend Becky taped for us. I like Becky's better.

7:50 Bedtime routine went a little rocky. It never works well to have t.v. right before bed. But, we got in the groove. He asked me how to spell kiss, and then he spelled out h u g space a n d space k i s s. Such a sweet boy.

Rose took a shower and got some much needed reading time in.

8:50 John and I watched our new favorite show, Luther. Totally scary and fantastic acting.