Best Laid Plans

Patrick and I had a game plan for tonight. I was going to hang out at work and then pick up Anthony from his after school soccer practice at 6pm and head straight home. Patrick was going to take Natalie and Eric to Natalie's swim practice at 5pm so he could also exercise at the gym. A neighbor was going to take her son and Alex to soccer practice at 5:30pm and Patrick was going to pick him up at 7:30pm after dropping Natalie and Eric home by around 7pm. No, our lives couldn't be that easy. Patrick sent me a message while I was at work about how our neighbor's son was sick, so she wasn't going to be taking him (or Alex) to soccer practice. How were we going to do it all?

I even made a little chart on a piece of paper when I was at work, and it meant some back and forth, but we were going to be able to handle it all. I went home after work after picking Eric up from school. Patrick waited for Natalie to get off the bus, then he took her to pick up Alex from the bus stop at the nearby middle school. We got home around the same time--around 4:15pm-ish. Our plan was for Patrick to do the same thing as our original plan--take Natalie to swim practice and then pick up Alex after his practice. The change was that I was going to take Alex to soccer practice a little early (his coach was going to be there by 5:30pm for the 6pm practice) and then drive back to pick up Anthony. It was going to work.

Soon after we got home, though, Patrick got a text message from Anthony saying that his practice was cancelled. WHAT?!!! His high school soccer coaches have a habit of not telling the kids ahead of time when practice will be and now they cancelled a practice at the last minute. I could have just waited there and picked him up after I got off of work! Based on our reworked plan, he would still have to wait there until 6pm--an hour and a half longer. He was planning to play soccer with some of the other soccer kids, so he was fine with waiting, but Patrick and I were upset at this sudden change in plans.

I decided to go ahead and pick Anthony up before taking Alex to practice instead of after. Again, it was a lot of driving, but Anthony got home by 5:30pm instead of 6:30pm and I could go home and stay there earlier after taking Alex to practice. The plus side of this plan was that Eric went with me to pick up Anthony and so I got to spend a little more time with the little man than I've been spending with him the last couple of days. It all worked out eventually--thank goodness! I've been told by others with grown children that one day I'll miss this chaos when the kids are all grown and gone, so I wanted to document the chaos here.

After that boring rambling above, I have to at least finish with a cute photo. First of all, Eric is wearing pajamas that say "What Santa Didn't Give Me Grandma Will" (a gift to one of his siblings from Grandma). When I read the shirt to him, he got excited about wearing it. :)

Natalie was doing her math homework. Eric had a worksheet from his school that he hadn't finished and he wanted to work on it too. He started "coloring" the worksheet with a regular pencil. He said he was a "big boy" because he was using a pencil. Notice the way he is holding his pencil and notice how both of them look like they're concentrating so hard on what they're doing. I have such beautiful children. :)