Trading Places

This week we had a water gun fight planned with a friend from CC.  He was scheduled to come over Tuesday at 1:00 p.m..  I was woken up at 6:15 a.m. Tuesday morning to Caroline rattling off, "I already finished my math work.  A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, activity, or idea.  Can you listen to my Awana verse?"  That was three subjects rapid fire and my eyes were still opening up and trying to focus.  The kids were so, so excited to see a friend again.  They all finished school really early only to have hours and hours to wait and anticipate.  Finally Bobby arrived and our neighbor friend came over for the battle as well.  While they got themselves wet, I got to sit and chat with Bobby's mom and play Blokus together.  It is crazy to think that I had not really talked (in person) to anyone outside of the family in eight weeks.  We had a nice time together and we're going to try to do it again next week.  Either a Nerf battle or a bike day.  That way we maintain our distance, but still enjoy each other's company.

In food news, Todd made an amazing Lo Mein dinner one night.  It tasted just like Chinese take-out.  We've lived here for coming on six years and have yet to find a Chinese take-out restaurant so we were so excited to find a recipe.  We even cooked bok choy for the first time to use in it.   Now we need a fried rice recipe and we're game.

Since they were the parents,
I didn't tell them to spray oil on the pan.
The brownies stuck.  

The week was fairly normal - school, play outside, eat, bed.  Then came Saturday.  I do not know how it started or when the idea ignited in the kids' head, but they wanted a day where they switched places.  The kids would be the parents and vice versa.  It went from a flippant idea to, very quickly, this-is-going-to-happen-and-it's-going-to-happen-tomorrow.
Though we never really officially signed onto the whole thing, Todd and I went into it with the goal of showing the kids that they leave their things everywhere. All. Day. Long.  The kids went into it with the goal of eating cookies while staying up late watching TV.  Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. so I could go downstairs to watch TV á la Josiah.  Of course, I am not Josiah, so I fell asleep 20 minutes into the movie while the kids joined me (but I got the TV, so I won).  They were in charge of breakfast.  At 7:30 a.m., Josiah asked, "Do you want pancakes or brownies?"  Uh...are those the standard breakfast choices?  I picked toast.  I received toast and ate it while the boys mixed up some brownie batter.  While I was eating, Todd came downstairs, shirtless á la Josiah again.  Then he put his shirt on backwards and picked up a football and started running all over the living room, throwing himself repeatedly on the couch.  That was Henry to a T.  Every day his shirt is on backwards.  Every day.  Throughout the day, when the kids made us any sort of food, we ate as they usually do.  Messy.  Chewing with mouths open, talking with food in our mouths.  Todd made me laugh out loud because when I looked over at him, he was eating his lunch over the table, with his plate off to the side.  Totally what they do.  Eat over your plate!!  The kids never picked up on this one, though they did have to clean up his mess later.

Note placement of plate.

The after lunch mess.  I was starting to twitch at the sight of it.

Todd and I fought over who got the paper towel roll.  We bickered about who got to do what, who got to go first, which piece of cornbread we got.  He drew a picture in the school room and left all the pencils out, several on the ground.  I started drawing my own picture with all the markers, but kept leaving it on the table saying, "I'm going to finish it later."  We had fun with it.

All throughout the day, Todd kept yelling out, "Henry!  Henry!  Henry!  Henry!  Henry!"
Henry, "yes..."
Todd, "I love you."

The kids, meanwhile, believed that they could do as much media (Netflix, TV, movies, video games) as they wanted.  That's not quite how we live.  After we had finished lunch, and the kitchen was in total disarray, the kids all disappeared to play Minecraft.  Nuh uh.  That's not how I leave it.  So we called the kids back down and said that if they wanted to be the parents then they needed to act like the parents.  We don't play Minecraft and we don't leave a messy kitchen.   Then it got to be the fun part.  They got to do dishes, clean the counters, put everything away, fill the dishwasher.

In between they also managed to do a ridiculous amount of media.  While they did their own laundry, they sat there playing Minecraft.  They tried to tell me they weren't until I called them out saying I heard Caroline talk about respawning animals.

Caroline spent a lot of her day sneaking off with the iPad.  That's adulthood to her.  Endless Netflix binging.

They had fun, we had fun, but Todd and I were incredibly grateful for the day to end.  I spent this morning really cleaning the kitchen and getting the dishes under control.  They did ask to continue doing their laundry, though.  Just so long as they realize they don't get to sit there for hours playing on the iPad.  And so another week begins.