Missing Matt

Matt left Thursday morning to fly to Washington to go to our niece, Shannon's wedding.  It took Hank awhile to believe me that Matt was going to fly on an airplane.  I quickly realized how out of practice I was at the full-time stay-at-home-with-the-kids role.  The first day Pete came to me crying, holding a GreenWorks all-purpose spray bottle, totally wet all over his face and chest.  Later, Pete managed to take every single item of silverware from the drawer and toss them in the sink that had a mound of dirty dishes in it.  To really top it off there was the time that I walked into the bathroom to see Hank holding a piece of poop with a toilet paper and trying to get it to fall off into the toilet.  I interrogated him about the poop and why he was holding it.  As Hank explained it, "Poo poo fell out of my bum bum."  "Where did it fall out?"  "In the family room and in the kitchen......But I got it!"  

To add to the chaos I had school work to get done while Matt was gone.  I managed to learn one thing--I would never be able to have a work-from-home job.  I just couldn't get myself to sit down and work.  After putting Pete to bed it would go something like this: "Oh man, I haven't eaten for hours, I should eat lunch first.  Ugh, look at all those dishes.  I'll just do those really quick. Wait, what is on my feet?  Why are there crushed up Cheerios on the floor?  I should sweep first.  Ok, I better do the dishes.  Wait, I'm so hungry, I should make something.  Oh, all of the kids are already hungry for a snack. Wow, how are there already so many dirty dishes again?  I should get a load of laundry started before it gets too late.  Jane needs me to find her drawing paper. Ok, I'm finally going to eat lunch. Whoa, WHY IS HANK HOLDING POOP?"  And then, you know, Pete was waking up.  So, the moral of the story is, I will never take Matt for granted again!!  I am now much more grateful for our current circumstances that allows me to get a good chunk of my school assignments done during the day and early evening.  It was really hard to do it all at night after a long day with the kids!  Sleep was very scarce this week.  I am really looking forward to having my awesome partner back!

Speaking of Jane and drawing paper--I thought I should make sure to document how she spends the majority of her days.  I never really even thought about it because it has been this way for as long as I can remember, but when we ran out of drawing paper this week I realized just how much time Jane spends drawing.  Her favorite thing to do is watch TV (usually WildKratts) while drawing.  She's had to spend the last couple of days using her paint paper with watercolors.  

While Jane was reading Harry Potter I kept noticing that she wasn't getting very far along each night.  When I asked her about it she said that she can't stop thinking about being in the book.  She said her mind wanders and she imagines herself as a girl in the book with darkish skin and black hair with Harry and Hagrid at Diagon Alley and next thing she knows, too much time has passed.  But Jane has had to stop reading Harry Potter because it got too scary for her.  She wasn't too happy about it because she has several friends who have read the series, so we had a chat about why it's important to do what's best for yourself instead of worrying about what everyone else is doing.

Hank's been pretty hilarious.  At the beginning of the week I jotted down a reminder to write about how he had asked a question and then told me how I should respond to it.  But in just a few days he has started doing it all the time.  So, he does it for little things like, "I want some Cheerios. You say 'okay'".  And then I'm supposed to say "Okay" and get him some Cheerios.  But he will really elaborate if needed.  One time he asked me to help him find a toy while I was changing Pete's diaper so he said, "Will you help me find it?  You say, 'Ok, I'll help you find it when I'm done changing Pete's diaper.'"  But he even does it when he isn't trying to get you to agree.  Like when he showed me something that his toy could do, "You say, 'Oh, wow, I didn't know it did that.'"  Now, normally I just go ahead and tell him what he tells me to.  But, the kids, especially Jack, are getting pretty annoyed, and I don't really blame him!  I overhead Jack yell out, "Stop it!  You can't always tell me what to say!"  I've tried to tell Hank that he has to let people say the things that they want to say.  He always just smiles and says, "Otay", but so far the habit remains.

Hank still often says all throughout the day, "I love you" out of the blue.  It's the sweetest thing.  But if he says, "I love you so much" and I say, "I love you, too!", he will tell me, "No, I said 'I love you so much.'" And then I have to say, "I love you so much, too."

Hank has actually been calling Pete, "Roy" lately.  Sometimes it's "Roy the boy."  But he picked up on it when Matt and I were talking about how we almost named him Roy.  

One of my all time favorite things about Hank right now is how he basically cheers on everyone's existence.  Any time I come home from work, or even sometimes if I just enter the room he is in from another room in the house, he will gasp! "Mom!"  "Oh, ho! Mom!" and come and give me a hug.  It is the best feeling in the world.  I've seen him do it to Matt and even Pete too.  I'm not sure if I've heard him do it to Jane and Jack but he sure does talk about how much he misses them when they are at school.