Thursday

I love getting the text message that says BJ is safe on the ground when he's on a business flight.

We had breakfast for dinner tonight - which is becoming our thing when Daddy is out of town.  The girls asked, "Why does Daddy hate breakfast for dinner?" and the best I could do was, "It offends his sense of order."  We had pancakes, bacon, eggs, and juice.  I used a different recipe from my usual that called for twice as much baking powder as I usually use.  They were super-fluffed pancakes.

The crazy up-and-down fall weather is causing lots of sickness, and a lot of our plans have gotten scrapped this week because of sick friends.  My kids have coughs, but no fevers.  I kind of wish the weather would make up its mind, but on the other hand, we're hoping to finish the porch this weekend so it can wait until Monday to make up its mind.

We had Claire's Girl Scouts meeting today.  I forgot to call our speaker and remind her, so she forgot, and I had to improvise.  We earned our "courageous and strong" petal by talking about things that scare us, and techniques for managing our fears (deep breathing, asking an adult for help, working together, singing a special "I am brave" song...).  Then we talked about how we're stronger when we work together than we are separately.

I had them lift each other up with two fingers - the old "light as a feather, stiff as a board" trick, which was totally brand new and amazing to them because they're five and they've never been to a sleepover.  (I was describing the meeting to my dad later, and he was like, "The what trick?" - I guess boys don't do that at sleepovers.  He said they do trust falls, instead, and then forget to catch each other.  Ha!)  It turned out pretty well!  I was proud of my ability to improvise.

We have some pretty shy kiddos in my troop, so I'm hoping that they'll learn that they can be "courageous and strong" when they're with their fellow scouts...  and maybe that will help them in other areas of their lives, too.

Opportunities to go camping, snow boarding, skiing, etc. keep coming up, and it sounds like so much fun, but then I remember that some of them can barely get through an hour long meeting without tears - they are NOT ready for extreme sports adventures at this time.  It's hard not to rush.

Can you see me skiing with a bunch of 5 year olds?  Oh my word.  There is not enough Zoloft.

I'd better get the kids bathed and in bed.