Sunday after church the four of us packed up a picnic and went out to the house to eat and enjoy sitting outside in the sunshine. Ryder played around in the dirt and Rhodes and I sat in the chair watching John Michael burn a bunch of limbs. Rhodes was getting antsy so I told JM it was time to go home. He said that was fine, but that he would just drop us off at home and he would come back and wait until the fire went down.
Thirty minutes after he dropped us off I got his picture text:
As soon as he pulled into the neighborhood he said he saw a huge smoke cloud and he just knew it was our house. He zoomed as fast as he could to our house to find several of our neighbors with their water hoses trying to put the fire out before it made it to their property line.
It was quite a warm welcome to the neighborhood...
In the photo below, the truck on the far right is JM's, the rest are vehicles belonging to the volunteer fire department. We aren't in the city limits so when they called 911 (yes they called 911), the volunteers came out in herds.
This fire truck drove on around the house into the backyard where the fire was.
Here is a view of our nice burnt yard. In happier news, look how much has been done on our house there in the background!
Well, what better ice breaker to meet the neighbors?
Moving on. Many have inquired about my first week home as a stay at home mom. Or as I like to call it, a "mom who doesn't work outside the home." Because we all know what the real definition of a SAHM is.
So I will document my first week below, day by day:
My first day home, Monday, Rhodes woke up burning up. When I took his temp it was 102.1. My first thought was ear infection because he wasn't taking his bottle good and he wasn't sleeping good. Believe me when I say I know the signs of an ear infection since Ryder had ten of them before he got tubes. We got an appointment and when we got there they took his temp. My heavens, I thought the temp reader would never stop, it got all the way up to 103.7 and I thought we were headed straight for the ER. Apparently this temp is not that extreme because the nurse didn't seem real concerned. Mother's intuition was right, he had an ear infection. This was Monday. Today is Friday. I feel like I have a one week old again. He's up all night, mainly hungry because he is only taking 2-4 oz bottles a couple times a day. Then miraculously at midnight, 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. his ears don't hurt anymore and he is hungry. After little sleep on Monday night and Tuesday night, here is a lovely photo I found on my camera roll Wednesday. John Michael clearly got ahold of my camera while I was - umm - catching up on sleep.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Ryder doesn't sleep anymore either. So around 6:30 a.m. JM had to get ready for work so he plopped them both in bed with me so I could "keep an eye on them" while he got in the shower. Oops. The sleepless nights got the best of me. But it looks like they were enjoying their show and doing just fine without my supervision.
After I woke up and got a few sips of coffee in my system, I pulled out the school work.
And I've been able to stay on top of cooking and us eating at home for lunch and dinner. I believe this is the first week in the history of our marriage that we have eaten at home for every meal this week.
Monday night we had sloppy joe muffins, hashbrown casserole and fresh corn on the cob.
On Tuesday we woke up and did day two of school work. I had to run a couple of errands and after we got home and ate lunch both boys took 3 hour naps (again this is because Rhodes is sick, he normally takes about 45 minute naps). This gave me time to clean and cook because we were hosting small group that night at our house. We had BBQ chicken sandwiches, homemade mac and cheese and baked beans.
One of Rhodes' rare happy moments this week. I no longer have my happy baby, but a sweet little crier who wants to be held 24/7 :) I'm sure much of this is due to the ear infection, but whooo weeee!!!
If Rhodes could talk I bet he would say, "I'm going to give you to the count of three to get out of my Nap Nanny! One... Two..."
Wednesday is my crazy day. I took Ryder to Mother's Day Out at 9, then drove Rhodes to my mom's and made it to my women's Bible study by 9:30. We are doing a 12 week Beth Moore study on Daniel. We meet until 11:30 and then have five nights of homework each week. It's going to be a commitment but I am going to try really hard to give it 100%.
At 11:30 when that was over, I killed some time for about 30 minutes and then picked Ryder up from MDO. Then I took him over to my mom's and I hung out there until 1:45 when it's time for me to go teach my TOT class in Jackson. While I was gone my mom kept both the boys until I got back around 4:30. This will be my Wednesday routine until the middle of May when MDO lets out for the summer.
On Thursday we woke up and piddled around the house until 11:00 and then it was time for me to take Ryder to his TOT class at FBC. He does that until 12:15, so I picked him up and then we went out to the house to meet with the electrician and show him where we would need outlets and light fixtures. We got home from there at 2:00 and then I put both boys down for a nap.
Around 4 they both woke up and we strolled over to the park and played until daddy got home.
I asked him to come home a little early so I could go play tennis! A couple of my friends were going to play together and neither really know the rules, they just have racquets, so they asked me to come and give them a few pointers :) We are going to try to make it a weekly date.
I've been looking forward to this moment for 6 months.
I tried to introduce Rhodes to some juice. He was screaming. I tried to take a sip of it to see what the deal was and nothing was coming out.
So I put it in a bottle. He didn't like it from the bottle either. At this point I'm trying anything to get his stomach full so he can sleep at night!
I got Ryder a big bag of "previously owned" mega blocks. I wanted to wash them so I put them in the sink full of hot soapy water. Then I went about my business while they were soaking. I was vacuuming so I couldn't hear anything. When I turned it off I saw that Ryder couldn't wait any longer. He pulled his chair into the kitchen and had rinsed all the blocks and put them on a rag to dry.
So here we are on Friday afternoon and I'm wrapping up my first week at home. Rhodes had yet another rough night, I was up feeding him two different times. He slept until 7:30 so that was nice. This morning I dropped Ryder off at MDO and then Rhodes and I went to pick out our plumbing fixtures for the house. It's 1:30 now and I just finished day 2 of my "homework" for my Bible study and Rhodes is napping. I'm about to go wake him up so we can pick up Ryder by 2:00.
I have to say it's been a great week despite the sickness. I have asked myself several times why I didn't do this a long time ago!
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