Career day!!

 Dorothy and Cooper are suddenly dressing up for all of the spirit days. This coincides with them being old enough to read emails from school and be in charge of remembering all of the spirit days— something I have decided will not fit in my brain— and I am here for it.

Here they are ready for career day— Dorothy has chosen the practical path of a professional dancer, and Cooper is equally pragmatic in his choice of a professional hockey player. 

Isn’t elementary school the CUTEST?

We are in the middle of an extremely busy season, and while I like to call it a season to remind myself that life will not always be this way, is it possible to call something a season when it is really more of a constant? Will we ever be less busy? Are we actually going to get MORE busy? (Busier?)  Like, we are so busy that I cannot even remember to order groceries online. And eating together? I MEAN.

But! I have reached total pro-mom status. Last night, Minnie wanted spaghetti, and I had it on the table WITH A SIDE OF BROCCOLI and also crusty bread fresh out of the oven in 15 minutes. I even chopped up the broccoli all tiny and threw it on top of Minnie’s so she could have veggie spaghetti like Daniel Tiger.

 Unfortunately, our night was zoo, so Minnie, Dorothy and Cooper ate at 5 and then Ben took Dorothy and suited up for their activities with him to begin the evening rounds. He dropped Dorothy at dance at 5:30, drove across town to pick Jack up from play practice (spring junior high musical— Guys and Dolls—so cute), dropped Cooper at hockey, brought Jack home, and then went back out to pick Dorothy up from dance. He was gone from about 5:20 until about 8:15.

The little kids ate at 5. I warmed up a plate for Harry at about 5:30 when he emerged from his trigonometry cave with his eyes slightly crossed. Minnie watched her beloved Frozen while I cleaned up dinner and from the crush of kids coming home and throwing all of their crap in the laundry room in a huge, gritty pile complete with road salt and playground tires. I left a plate in the microwave for Jack, and he ate at about 6:30. Ben was sad to see all of the spaghetti was gone when he popped in mid-rounds, so he ate a bagel, and we both ended up with cheese and apples in front of the TV at 8:45. SO RELAXING. I LOVE 3 or 4 DINNER SHIFTS so I can clean the kitchen 3 or 4 TIMES! IT IS THE VERY BEST.

And this was actually a chill night because Harry didn’t have a separate pick up from his after-school activities, and Coop didn’t  also have baseball practice. Meanwhile 3/4 of the meals I planned are still sitting in the fridge/freezer in all of their unused parts. Except for all this effing arugula I bought for a shrimp pasta situation (spoiler: we ate the pasta last night), most of it can be frozen for next week. LOL as if we have time to cook next week— I crack me up. And the arugula was REALL Y GOOD on pulled pork tacos (I made pulled pork sliders on Sun day and then hid the leftovers so no one would eat them Monday and served— in shifts of course because FML— pulled pork tacos on Tuesday, but we had no lettuce, only arugula or spinach, and the arugula was TOP NOTCH on tacos and looked so fancy).

CAN YOU TELL HOW MUCH COFFEE I HAVE HAD TODAY? 

OK, must go. Meetings all day. But first, look at this little builder: