My MIL has been out of commission this past week. She has been diagnosed with vertigo.
So.... I have been doing her daycare this week. I normally don't mind, but I don't like feeling like I am forced to do it. I love helping her out. She is such a blessing to me and our whole family, I seriously could not have made it though H3's pregnancy without her help. But I was just so out of joint about this week, since I had to adjust my plans so much. But I know what the right thing to do is... even when I don't want to do it. So I can't get to my parents until next week.
Even with my poor attitude, it hasn't been bad. Most of the little kids are not there - this week, due to vacations and then a set due to MIL's vertigo - we felt it wouldn't be safe, for her to have them even just a little bit. Not that I mind the littles, at all, but it does make it hard to go places with them. Usually if there are a lot of littles, we can only venture as far as the old school park. BUT when there are not littles, we head out further.
Monday we walked to Minnehaha Creek and then found a "hidden" path and headed up the big sledding hill (some of you will remember my wedding pictures on this hill in July - I will have to re post them somehow.) Two of the kids I have are HUGE HUGE HUGE complainers and they did soooo GREAT! I was so surprised, they got scared when the path was so overgrown it was higher than them, but they stuck it out. Round trip was about 1.5 miles, so for the youngest (aside from H3 (age 1) - I carried her - on the path -or she was in the stroller) he was 3 and by the time we headed home he was dragging.
Tuesday, I was just there enough to have them play outside. Today, we took a nice long walk, past Hiawatha Golf Course, Across the Creek and to Lake Nokomis. I wasn't going to let them play in the Lake, there were 8 of them, but then it was so nice, they were listening so well, I let them wade in, with the reminder if they got their clothes really wet, it would be them that would have to pay the consequences walking the 1.25 miles home in wet clothes. H3, of course, sat in the Lake and played. She just went in the stroller with a fresh dipe and her t-shirt and a blanket over her. They were so great, deciding to build sand castles, with no huge load of buckets and shovels, just themselves.
We continued back on the walk - going on some newly explored paths (for them). The best part of the trip back was when I decided to cut through all the softball fields and the kids ran out onto the field and took their positions for a game of pretend ball. They were so hilarious. They were so into it. I love watching their imagination run free. Then we ended up at Super America just to get hot dogs for them. I wasn't trying to feed them lunch, just tying them over a bit and have a little treat for being so great. They thought I was the best. LOL. We then picked some wild flowers for MIL. Here they all are, after our 3 miles and lots of playing, with MIL and her flowers.
3 comments:
That's a vat load of kids!
Sometimes we will have playdates so large the neighbors come out of their houses to watch us walk down the street. It's the neighborhood joke that I run an unlicensed daycare. I will look around at the gaggle and think -- again-- "why did my dh ever want me to start a school???? this would suck!"
I am glad you managed to wring a good time out of a poor situation. I bet that later, all you'll feel in remembering this is how good it felt to be there for MIL.
(hug)
This is not even half of them. Most days there is a good mix of kids - ususally right at her 10 kid limit. She likes to have different kids on different days. Like I said on this day - a lot of the littles (3 and under) are missing.
Missing are
# - age
1 - 8 yo
2 - 5 yo
1 - 4yo
2 -3 yo
1 - 2yo
2 - 1 yo
1 - 9 month old
She has 1 infant on the way - at the end of the summer - w/b 3 months
2 more infants in the wings (twin due in Oct - but she will only take one per day - giving the mom a little break - that mom will have a 4 yo, a 2 yo and infant twins )
Then she has a set of twins (infant) begging to get into the rotatation - but she is just too full
that boy in the front seriously looks like T's RD
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