WAHM-style vacation day

Due to some oddities of my telecommuting set-up I tend to have a LOT of leave.  (I'm not quite complaining).  The result is that I can/should take some random days here and there as GW has use it or lose it leave (you must use it by the end of the fiscal year or lose it and I'm not one to let free money go).  This week, Ms. Courtney is off visiting her family so we're cobbling together childcare and it seemed like a good time for a random vacation day.  Here, for your enjoyment and my memory, is a random WAHM "vacation" day.

The day starts normally with Brent heading to school after dressing M.  M and I play and try to convince B to wake up while eating breakfast together.  B joins us and we continue our morning routine of cereal, morning meds for everyone, day time clothes, packing for school and playing. I even make a little coffee just for me. We are loaded and out the door by 9:20 to take B to school complete with carrots and dip for the "Thanksgiving Feast."  

Next up, M and I work on a little shopping for our Advent calendar.  I think it will be a mix of candy, stickers, small toys and some "tickets." Tickets are good for an activity or maybe a book or songs.  I've "almost" completed the gathering, but need to make some cute tickets and make sure the activities are on proper days--- will also help keep my December Daily project interesting.  Shopping wraps up in time to head back for singing time and baby girl nap (now starting at 10:30).

While M naps, I spend the first hour in internet time wasting -- email, facebook, blogs, twitter, etc....I admit I did check and respond to a few work emails in here... I start to feel sleeping and in a stunning turn of events take a nap for the third day in a row and fourth day in a week.  My chest seems to feel its best post-nap and so do I so it is a lucky break to get another one on a Monday.

Toward the time I expect M to wake up I get a call from B's school saying he has a stomach ache and can I come get him early.  The phone ringing woke M up too so we put our shoes back on and hustle out to get B.  He seems a bit warm, but mostly OK so I sneak in the run to Walgreens for my medicine and B convinces me that the Maple Creme cookies will make his tummy all better as because it is vacation and they look delicious I give in. 

Back home, it is snacks and tylenol for B prior to a short nap.  M and I play, sing songs, and make pizza dough.  Probably less than an hour later, B declares himself all better (miraculous cookies!) and he starts playing on the Wii after a short spout of dress-up with M and me (inspired by M having to change clothes as she's already dirty by now).  M insists on double purple flowers in her hair so we all try on double bows for fun.  M and I continue to play in the snuggle spot in B's room for awhile before checking on B.  She started to get tired and took a short nap.  Meanwhile, B played and I did a little scrapbooking (didn't actually finish anything, but enjoyed playing).

Her nap was short and followed up with snack time and heading outside.  I felt like we had to enjoy this gorgeous fall day as I hear murmurings of freezing weather later in the week.  We sat in our chairs, played ball and "chatted" before checking on the garden.  I was amazed to discover a huge number of ripe tomatoes.  There have been many green ones for weeks, but very few ripe ones.  Here in late November we had our biggest crop in months.  Granted, they were not all the ruby red glories of late summer, but perfectly fine.  My helper and I gathered all the reddish ones, some herbs, carrots, and onions for garden tomato sauce.  My helper seemed fascinated by the carrots and we might have lost a tomato or two to squishing, but had a great time.  

She continued to play while I took the spoils inside and made a very free form tomato sauce.  The rules were this: only ingredients from my late autumn garden, no complicated techniques and low, slow cooking.  So far, it tastes pretty good and features tomatoes, sage, chives, onions, thyme, rosemary, and carrots.  All the pieces of the vegetables that we didn't use went right back into the garden to compost over the winter.  I remain amazed that we are still getting produce late into November, but know with the hard freeze this week we will likely be limited to the remaining carrots, parsnips and maybe a hardy last herb or two.  Today, I kept a few of the best tomatoes out of the sauce to top the evening's pizza which went into the blazing oven just as Brent walked in the door.  

After dinner, we all donned our swimming suits and spent a lovely 45 minutes at Y family swim kicking and splashing through the water with kids jumping in off the side.  B still needs some work on the kick, but it was a great time. When M got tired, we put kids in jammies and headed home for books, medicine and bed time rituals.  Brent and I ended the night with warm drinks, internet and quiet talks about our days.

Realistically, as I work part-time, half of this day is pretty similar to a normal day for us.  I did, however, really enjoy some focused one-on-one time with M without the pull of work or her brother around. Sort of an odd vacation, but a nice way to wrap up fall and enjoy time with my family.