I thought this might be fun.
I put “proverbial” because the photos were not all taken on 1 day, though all have been taken this week.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Here we go.

One night the Prez was trying to figure out which prescription ointment went with which skin ailment, he decided a Sharpie was what we needed.

In the last couple of months, we’ve had staph infections of varying natures. Mo struggles with on-going staff infections. Long story short, he got an MRSA infection on his finger from an infected splinter wound, and has had bouts with it ever since.

They tend to crop up mostly on his face and other unmentionable places … ahem.

So, now the Prez has his own staph infection cream. And we have some eczema cream. And some itch cream. And even cream for folliculitis.  Oh and how could I forget the cream that we are supposed to put around Li’l Bro’s BAHA site 3 times a day. What? Did I mention the BAHA has already gone back for a repair–because it keeps falling off. Yeah. Not good. Back to the ointments.

While taking said photo, I thought it would be fun to snap a photo of my “retreat.”

LAUGHING OUT LOUD!

When we bought this house more than 11 years ago now, we loved the jacuzzi tub in the {then} spare downstairs master suite. A few years ago, we moved to the downstairs master and renovated the bath, but we kept the tub. Isn’t it neat?

Except now the edge that I envisioned surrounded by candles and whatnots is instead cluttered with Aquafor Baby Wash, Kids’ 2-n-1 Body & Hair Wash, a basket of bath toys, and ONE LONE candle. 🙂

And our small drawer for toothpaste and brushes … is FULL to overflowing. 🙂

Instead of running upstairs with the three littles for tooth brushing, it is just easier to take care of this in our downstairs bath. So I have quite the array of toothbrushes too … some of which {might} need to be replaced.

We do have another half-bath downstairs but most of us don’t go in there … the boys tend to use it … and well, enough said. If we know company is coming, it gets cleaned and the fear is put into said boys to GO UPSTAIRS. Thank you.

But you know, even with my “quiet retreat” no longer so quiet or retreatish, I wouldn’t change a thing. One of these days, I’ll look for one of those little toothbrushes and wonder where all of the little people who claimed them are … and they will be too big to use Momma’s bathroom anymore (as our 3 big boys have become). So it is all good.

I just want to remember.

Sniff, sniff.

OK, moving on to today. I snapped some photos here and there. I really should have taken one of the laundry room, but honestly it is always the same. Lots of clothes needing washed, others needing sorted for giving away, yet more awaiting stain management, and still more that need to be taken to the living room for sorting and folding and finally, putting away.

And have I mentioned before that our two oldest boys do ALL OFF their laundry. Mo mostly does, though he has been known to slip more than a few articles of his clothing into our community laundry bins in the laundry room where mine, the Prez and the littles clothes are sorted. While I’m talking laundry, I do have a three-compartment laundry sorter, so that when I do wash it is already sorted by whites, lights and darks. Even the littles know how to sort, of which I am quite proud.

I will add a photo of my laundry room because it seems everyone is doing it LOL and I think I want to remember what it was like … when someday I’m not doing laundry for 8. 🙂

But today I snapped the following photos just as I walked by various stuff.

Someone always has shoes laying somewhere. No matter how easy we make it to PUT THEM AWAY please. Did you know that at any given time we could have a pile of 16 shoes … if everyone left theirs laying out?

How about that? Stuff that STILL NEEDS to be put away from our China Trip … that we arrived home from almost 2 months ago.

And this. Our living room always looks like this in one way or another. Stuff. Out. Actually the small pile of laundry you see there is NOTHING. It is usually a MOUNTAIN. Only reason it is not is because it is all awaiting my attention. Can y’all tell I have a preoccupation obsession fear of the laundry?

Amidst the taking care of stuff like laundry, we do manage to get a fair bit of schooling done each day. I choose to look at the big picture. 😉

But here are some views from today in our school … with a little explanation.

Li’l Miss found a caterpillar and we decided to cage the creature to see if he/she would show us metamorphosis. To our delight {and my surprise}, he/she has made a cocoon (we think it is a moth in a cocoon rather than a butterfly in a chrysalis). We shall see.

The creature is in the white cocoon/chrysalis on the back of the habitat. And we have another one in there of the same variety who appears to be favorable for metamorphosis as he/she is eating like crazy (they do this right before going in their cocoon/chrysalis) and also has developed an affinity for the ceiling of the habitat.

And here are some photos {from yesterday} when we found the second little caterpillar, who as I mentioned above is now in the habitat as well.

And someone did cry again because she wanted to HOG the creature and not share. Sorry Grammy but she has to learn to share, and she didn’t cry for long because one of her big brothers scooped her up … have I mentioned how spoiled she is by her 3 biggest brothers?!?

“Mommy, he is getting too close to my face!”

Note that Li’l Bit didn’t mind this little guy crawling ALL OVER HER. She loved it in fact. He is crawling on her shirt and then crawls all the way around her back to the front again!

I don’t know who is cuter … the caterpillar or the baby girl!

OK, it is the baby girl but isn’t he a cute little caterpillar? And he was so kind to them!
At this point, she is getting mad because I’m telling her she has to let Sissy have another turn with the caterpillar.

Moving on to other scenes from today (or one day this week). Curly is working on the Fly Fishing Merit Badge and used his own money he had been saving to buy himself a fly fishing rig. He practices every single day. And is researching like crazy for it. I’m very proud of him.

Speaking of Curly, I have been after him to keep practicing speed typing skills. He has not been honoring his mother in this request. So the other night, he came and found me on the couch on my laptop and asked “what in the world are you doing?” I was typing away and my palms were sweating and I was saying “DON’T SAY A WORD! I am taking a typing test!”

He may have laughed out loud at me.

After I finished my speed test (and got 71 WPM–oh yeah!), his curiosity was peaked. SUCCESS. You see, that was my plan all along. He attempted to take the test and did very poorly.

He said forget it, but I said “Let me ask you a question.” He says “OK.” I say, “Son, what if you have the job as a designer at LEGO in Denmark all but wrapped up, but the interviewer says ‘Oh, by the way, you do know how to speed type right?'”

He looks at me, rolls his eyes, and says, “Where are the lessons on that site you were telling me about a minute ago?”

SUCCESS. I found him at the computer at one point today taking a typing lesson.

And in other events today, I took some photos from math lessons with the littles … Yes all three as one certain little was on my back! {Yes I’m wearing her more and she is loving it, and if she is whining, wearing her for half an hour or so always does the trick.}
And no, she doesn’t always have her bottle … but she does have it sometimes. Like after breakfast, before nap, maybe one more in the late afternoon, and of course one before bed. Thing is though, she eats GREAT and a lot and is gaining weight .. and to be honest, I give her almond milk and water it down a bit … so it is all good. And she likes her bottle and that makes Momma happy.

And I suppose Momma is partly to blame for the spoiling too huh?!

OK, back to the actual math lesson.

Making addition equations while reading Hershey’s Addition book.

And a little follow-up copywork in their math notebooks.

Next up was a fractions lesson with Larry. Have I mentioned … yeah, I have. Fractions with Larry is kind of like getting one’s teeth pulled without any pain management. 🙂

I told him we’d use 10 of the “Game” cards and see who wins–me or him. If he gets the correct answer, he keeps the card. If not, Momma gets the card. Fair enough.

Do you see the question?

“Son, remember, if the numerator is the same, and the denominator is different, the one with the smaller denominator is ALWAYS LARGER IN SIZE. Remember, like cutting a pizza in slices?”

“OH, yeah, definitely. I remember.”

“OK, then, let’s play.”

Please note that I also allowed him the use of manipulatives (thanks M!).

About that card above?
Yeah, Momma got that card.

And promptly did this, to which Joel laughed hysterically and wanted a photo to document the moment.

Back to the fraction game.

“Ah, I get it now, Mom, 1/3 really is larger than 1/6. I see it now that I’m holding it in my hand.”

And the final score: Larry, 6 // Momma, 4.
He won. Sort of. I think.

As for me, I decided I might need some more coffee, which by the way I never got.