It's 7:30...

It is 7:30 and GB and Ellie are quietly in bed. I don't expect them to get up again. I should be thankful, appreciative or something. All I feel is tired. When GB got home from daycare, it was just her, Ellie, and I tonight. I let her unwind with legos as she was telling me about her day. It is the first week I've let them put her back in the lunchroom, instead of eating in her classroom. It is Wednesday and it is the third time she has had a problem in the lunchroom. She wants me to email her teacher "and fix it". I went to reheat pizza and make us salads, and within a minute of leaving her, she's doing the maniacal laugh thing and Ellie is whimpering. We pick up the legos and move Ellie's bed to the kitchen so she can help me with the salad. I put the pizza in and she switches to making herself chocolate milk. I catch her in time, and let her do the stirring. She is talking about the weekend, getting very excited about the birthday party on Sat. and ice skating on Sun. In the process of counting how many days until the weekend, she spills chocolate milk everywhere. I get her a towel to mop it up. As I hand it to her, she says"Don't need it." and point to the dog. Sure enough, Ellie has the floor pretty well cleaned. I point out the chocolate milk on the cabinets and set her to wiping them off. By this time pizza is ready, and I am hurrying to finish salads, when I hear the front door close. Since nobody is due home, I quickly look for GB and Ellie and figure out that they were outside. It is below freezing and her coat is hanging up by the door. I quickly went to the back yard and heard GB crying. She had slipped on the ice and was afraid of the dark.  Ellie was right next to her, trying to get her to stop crying. I got all of us inside and rocked her until she settled down. Right about then, I smelled the pizza burning. After we threw it out, I cut up some pineapple, finished the salads and that was dinner. While we were eating, I asked her why she was in the yard. She said she KNEW Ellie had to pee and it was an emergency (a situation GB herself is very familiar with) and there was no time to let me know. We went over all the applicable ground rules she had broken (a lot) and came up with the "next time" better solution.
She had finished her math HW at daycare, so all we had was reading and spelling. Ellie helped us with HW and with 2 bathroom breaks, a drink break, and an I-can't-find-my book break, it took us to almost seven to finish HW. She wanted to watch PBS with Ellie before bedtime, so I set them up and went to clean up after dinner. I noticed an unusual odor, almost like sun block. I followed it into the kids bathroom and realized it was MK's shea butter she had just bought. I cleaned it up and went to talk to GB. I asked her if she was into her sister's stuff again. She said no and when I looked at her skeptically, she started crying. She insisted that she thought about using it, but after she spilled it, decided that wasn't such a good idea. It was now 7:15, and I said "bedtime". As I was tucking her in, I reminded her she was not to touch anything that wasn't her's with out asking. It is now 8 o'clock and I am heading for bed.

 

The only peaceful part of the evening