monday (pants optional)

my three sweets watching the swedish chef

our monday went a little like this.

the twins went to school with heavily gelled hair and limited complaint. lucas has a bit of a cold, so we canceled his therapy session and let him (and his nose) run around in pajamas until late morning. even when under the weather, lucas is pretty easy to get along with. he's even easier to get along with while watching PBS kids, or in his estimation, "suicide kids".

somewhere in between "the cat in the hat knows a lot about that" and "dinosaur train", ragain and i managed to pack up all the rest of the Christmas remnants into the storage boxes. if we can get any credit for having done that before february, i would like to collect that now.

we ran some errands. we got our sick little man a giant root beer. we made it just in time to pick up isaac and jacob from their minimum day at school.

after some shuffling, and ragain leaving for work, all 3 boys and i met up with my mom to go to the park. usually, isaac and jacob would have therapy right after school, but we have a new tutoring schedule that frees up our monday afternoons. hurray.

we drove to one of our favorite parks and the boys ran around like wild animals. all of the sudden, lucas called out from the top of one of the play structures... he was peeing. all over. and, i do mean, everywhere. i was stunned. my mom was stunned. lucas looked kind of surprised, himself. then, he was like, ew. and, let's just take these pants off. i scrambled up the play structure and tried to pull him over to the car. now, he's mad. he doesn't want to leave. he just wants to frolic around with no pants on.

of course, i have no spare clothes. in fact, ragain and i just bragged about how lucas never has had many "accidents". note: bragging might = chumps.

my makeshift solution: his sweatshirt becomes booster seat cover. pants, underwear, socks and shoes go into an empty bag. wipes substitute as full shower. cotton re-usable bag becomes loincloth. bribes include phone apps and fruit snacks. after my lesson in resourcefulness, i sat in the car staring out at my other two boys still playing and feeling sort of dazed.

after the twins are semi-exhausted, we make a quick milkshake run to mcdonald's and i consider trying to pretend that there's nothing weird about my half-naked child in the backseat. considering it gives me a headache.

back home. we conquer homework after an hour and a half of diligence. it is somehow time to get ready for bed. we do some reading. we watch the swedish chef on youtube. (it only gets funnier.) clip nails. take vitamins. brush teeth. compromise on bedtime story. answer a million questions about bedtime story. prayers, water and chapstick.

i let lucas watch NOVA as a visual nightcap while i take a timeout in my room. and during my timeout, he put himself to bed. and i missed it. that final sweet moment of the day. so, i kiss his forehead and settle in next to his sniffly little body, wearing mismatched pajamas and his bright green crocs.

"the cape" is over. and i'm looking forward to tomorrow. good night.