Week in the Life: Thursday

Welcome to Thursday and some slightly out of chronology photo collages.  I put all the pictures from today "not" at the Science Museum above, and gathered the Science Museum ones together below.  Enjoy!

2:45 am - B surprisingly shows up in our bedroom having had a bad dream.  We all snuggle for 10 minutes and Brent escorts him back to bed. 

7:00am - Brent starts to get ready (no sign of B yet).  I enjoy a lovely bit of extra sleep as both kids are still sleeping when Brent leaves at 7:30.  However, by 7:34 M is in my bed chatting for awhile.  Then, she wants to look through the scrapbooks that are on the nearby bookshelf and I'm more than happy to oblige.  Half way through album 2, B appears (we've been hearing him in the living room muttering for awhile).  

8:00 - We finish the album and herd everyone towards breakfast.  B has two bowls of cereal before two mini doughnuts (have I mentioned that doughnuts are a weird craving of sorts this pregnancy?)   Next up, we all put on "daytime clothes" and I work on lunches.  They have asked for lunches not involving sandwiches or tortillas all week so things are getting creative. After everyone is dressed, I do M's hair in dog ears and she is set for her photo shoot. (B declines).  We take some more pictures of M's toys and then go play in the kids'room.  B then takes a series of photos of me, which is a fun new development. A little more playing and then off to school.

9:30 -2:30  Drop off, followed by my work day.  I have a series of meetings again today on a variety of topics, but one, happily, includes the entire staff of my office.  It is a rare treat for me to be part of the full group discussions these days and I really enjoyed it.  Another impromptu meeting and lots more Board prep in the afternoon. 

On Thursdays, Brent teaches Neurobiology from 8-9:30. After that, the rest of the day is filled with things like office hours, working on mentorships and IRSP, and various other administrative tasks. 

The kids highlight at school this last week or so has been watching the caterpillars in their classrooms build cocoons and then emerge as butterflies.  The ones in B's classroom are all butterflies now and much beloved. I'm told they will be freed tomorrow at the end of the day.  M's class doesn't even have their caterpillars all in cocoons yet, but are eagerly watching and hoping for similar results.  Otherwise, the focus at the moment is things in the sky--- planes, kites, clouds, etc.... They are doing a variety of art related to this theme as well.

2:30-5:15 All week I've been reading on my sister's blog about all the fun stuff she does with her son Zane. All week, at our house it has been fairly normal at home stuff and yesterday a day full of chores.  This reminded me that we really used to do a fun outing during the week at least one day each week.  After all, this is part of the point of working part-time, right? With school in the middle of the day now we only have a couple hours in the afternooon, but today we resumed taking advantage of it.  

After school, we came home, had a snack, gathered water bottles and a stroller and headed to the Science Museum.  We spent two hours wandering from place to place letting the kids take turn finding our next destination.  The attractions ranged from a simple kids area through more complicated hands on exhibits.  There is a cab of a John Deere tractor in the kids space and watching my kids play on that makes me sad about missing my Dad all over.  When it was time to leave the tractor, we headed to the construction zone, that has been our favorite area on recent trips, but it was gone!  Apparently it was a rotating exhibit and is now filled with a display about "air."  This includes a variety of activities that demonstrate the power and fun of air, such as pushing things through the tubes shown above.  We also spent a lot of time in the tree house and gymnastics areas.

5:15-6:15 - Dinner prep - very easy tonight as B requested Fish Sticks.  I make them from scratch sometimes, but mostly he wanted some like at Grammy and Granddaddy's so he had them with fries and strawberries.  We even got to share a few of our very own strawberries from the garden.  There "might" have been a little ice cream too.  

6:15-7:30 After dinner, we did the dishes and began a bit more nursery prep.  Brent, and his helpers, took down nearly all the things hanging from the ceiling and walls, including all the curtains and hardware in preparation for painting this weekend.  We also moved a few more of M's things into the kids' room and rehung a few of the decorations in there before our out of order bedtime ritual.  On "dorm night" our process is sped up to have everyone in bed by 7:30 when Brent returns to work.  We just barely made it tonight with all the projects underway.

7:30- 10:15 The kids fall asleep gradually and I'm on my own until Brent returns.  Today, I began with the photo processing and blogging.  Next, I am sorely tempted to make this Hot Fudge Pudding Cake (via Not Without Salt) that I just came across in my blog reader. I am so craving chocolate this week and it sounds awesome. I might, however, exercise, read, or scrapbook instead as those are my other normal favorites on dorm night.

(UPDATED: So, I did make the cake and it was phenomenal.  I also got the unexpected treat of chatting with my friend Mary for more than an hour which is nearly unheard of with a parent of a new born.  So awesome!  Hugs to Mary and all you other new Moms.  I am still psyching myself up to join you!)

10:15 - Brent returns and we watch the Daily Show/Colbert Report before heading to sleep-- after each having some chocolate cake, of course.