A day in my life when there is no stamping time...

Okay, I must admit that this post will have absolutely nothing to do with stamping... It's just been such an eventful day that I can't resist taking a moment to reflect back on it, laugh a little and think that maybe I can share some of the highlights.

As many of you know, we having been doing respite care for children in foster care for a little over a year. This weekend, we have three kids - a 6-year old girl, and two boys aged 5 and 4. Things were relatively calm when we started the day... Then I decided to make iced tea with the 6-year old. Not just any iced tea though - real iced tea, as in brew tea, cool it, add some juice to sweeten... Okay, so we brew the tea and then I am helping her strain the tea leaves out as we pour the tea into a mug. I've done this countless times before, but for some reason today, the bottom blows out of the mug and I rapidly have 2 cups of hot tea all over the counter, pouring down the front of my dishwasher and onto the floor. Okay, clean up number one. Oh wait, that was actually clean up number 2 because I had already cleaned up a spilled glass of juice that morning...

Okay, so we get the iced tea made and then just to bring a little more challenge into my day, we add two more children - 7 and 3 year old girls who come over for their English "lessons". Okay, not so much lessons, but Cantonese is their first language and we are spending time with them to expose them to English. All is good... for the first 5 minutes until the 3 year declares that this is a "messy day" and takes a full bag of like 72 balloons and tosses it around the living room. Okay, no big deal... Fast forward though to a little after lunch when I'm sitting in the bedroom with the 3 girls who are sharing (mostly) one doll that has been stripped of its clothes because it apparently needs to bathe. Of course, they "need" soap so I let them use a bottle of baby shampoo - yes, real baby shampoo, but of course I'm wise and tell them that they just have to "pretend" and not open the bottle. Yep, you know it, that lasts about 2 minutes, I get distracted and suddenly there is shampoo on the doll! So, just as I've finished cleaning up that little incident, I hear noise coming from the bathroom... this is really when the day got interesting.

So, the 5 year old has not managed to schedule enough time in his busy afternoon of play to get himself into the bathroom. Okay, he got through the door but that was it... I hear my hubby dealing with that incident and I decide that I better go and lend a hand to save him from his first wet pants incident. As I arrive, the 5 year old is now sitting on the toilet and being told not to move. His 4 year old brother arrives on the scene just ahead of me and goes rushing in. Brent hollers "stop", but of course I only realize why this is as I see the 4 year old slip on the "puddle" that is in the middle of the bathroom floor and end up on his back. Yep, two wet children. I make eye contact with my amazingly still calm husband and I tell him that I've got it, perhaps he can go supervise the girls... So, unscheduled baths for the boys, an extra load of laundry, and a pretty funny story afterwards. No one was hurt... just a little wet! It actually could have been a pretty good comedy routine.

All in all, the day went fairly well, but my hubby has now left town! Seriously, he has. But it was a planned trip and now I'm home with 3 kids. Good news... naps followed shortly after the bath, I put my feet up for a few minutes and then decided to dive into baking cookies with the three kids after naptime. Things went really well and there was very little mess! Oh except one more spilled glass of iced tea. But that didn't even phase me by this point. I was doing so well that we sat down for supper, and as I got up to take the last batch of cookies out of the oven, I had to double check the time - yep, it was 4:53 pm and we were nearly done supper! Oops, guess when I looked at the time on the stove and felt panicked that I needed to get supper taken care of because it was nearly 6:00 that I was actually looking at the timer that was keeping track of when the cookies had to come out! : ) Too funny!

What a day!

Okay, I'll post a card now - thanks for sharing in the tale of my event-filled day!

Bev.