Long day

Today was a long day, as Brandon had t-ball practice right after after school. Dave took him some food and brought him over to the practice area. Luckily, the field is right at school, so they don’t have to go far. I brought Peyton home and told her if she ate dinner appropriately, we could go to the park (the school where Brandon was). I told her that if she didn’t finish, we wouldn’t be going. She called my bluff, and took almost 30 minutes to eat. I told her we’d run out of time, and brought her up for her bath. She was very upset, crying and wailing, and I told her if she continued, she’d lose her kindergarten book time. (I love that I can bribe her with homework! Just like Mckayla!! I hope it doesn’t end any time soon). So she started to take off her own clothes, and I didn’t have to do any more of the work. I helped her into the tub, and got her bathed. Since I’d taken her milk away, she had to finish it before book time, which she did. She even ate the rest of her bok choy, and proudly handed the bowl back to me. We started working on “more or less” where she had to identify “more” on one sheet, and “less” on the other. I left her to count objects, while I went to sort two loads of clean laundry. As I did this, Dave came home. They were surprised to find poor Peyton there by herself. I was done with the laundry and came back downstairs, learning my lesson from yesterday, as Dave said a quick goodbye to the kids to head off to the PTA meeting at the middle school. He had 10 minutes to spare. Brandon was finishing up his dinner, and I’d put him on a timer too, as it was after 7pm. Meanwhile, Peyton was working on ending sounds of words. At 707pm, I sent him upstairs, leaving half a cup of milk left. I wasn’t bluffing with him either. He went upstairs without a fight and took his bath, while I finished brushing Peyton’s teeth and reading her two books. Brandon came to join us after brushing his teeth, and he read Peyton his book for the journal article for this week. Peyton said, “I like it when Bruddah’s in MY room.” Usually, she goes into his room for his books. Brandon’s rarely in Peyton’s room, except when they’re playing in the kitchen together. After he was done reading, I quizzed him on some comprehension from the book. He was able to answer my questions, but Peyton was upset because she didn’t know the answers. She hugged and kissed Brandon, who wiped his face off, but accepted the hug. Then Brandon and I went to his room to floss him and tuck him in. 735pm was the time when I made it downstairs to check my phone. I thought maybe Dave would text me about how the meeting was going. The subject is learning styles and how to tailor them to fit your kid’s personality. I’d just bought a parenting book online after seeing someone post it on FB, so I thought I’d start reading that to compare notes with Dave when he got back. It’s been 45 minutes, and so far, no noise. I don’t want to rock the boat by going up there, so I’ll lay low downstairs and read quietly by myself.
810pm: typed too soon. I heard the heavy footsteps that could only be Brandon coming down the hallway. He was mumbling something, but I shushed him since Peyton was probably already asleep. He came down, looking very sleepy, and told me that his attendance award was in his pocket and to tell Daddy. He’d worn the pants home, so I went upstairs with him to grab them out of the laundry. He knew exactly which pocket it was in, and he pulled out a small, white star that said, “Attendance award.” I congratulated him, and we went to put it with the other one from last trimester. Again, he knew exactly where it was, high atop his shelves. We got it down, and I wrote on it like I’d done with the first one, and we put them together in his little locker. I didn’t want to rain on his parade, so I just whispered for him to go to sleep, and that was that. I showered after that, and I’m pretty sure that now he’s asleep.