Carter, Julia, Luke and Jackson take in the Old Fashioned Christmas Parade. Many thanks to Matt and Melissa for taking on my bigs so that smalls could get to sleep and I could go on a cleaning binge!
When I say "cleaning binge" I really mean that I put Jake to work while I kick back and eat more pizza.
They love watching it cook. If a watched pot never boils, it is nothing short of a miracle that our pizza cooks with 6 little eyes peering at it.
It's a group effort. I was recently laughed at for saying that cooking with a one year old was a great form of down time. I don't care.....because it is true. The kids love to cook, and when Luke told me yesterday (cooking zucchini bread) "now we have to mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients.....I know that it is actually paying off, beyond entertainment.
There is nothing necessarily hygienic about it, but it sure is fun.
So! Its another wild and crazy Friday night here at chez Mangan!
I have to admit, I was really really scared about Nate starting school. The big huge fear was never seeing him, him being stressed out all the time....and Friday nights. Friday nights are family nights! We have (or had) a great routine ~ Friday morning was my errand running time with my boyfriend Jake, they napped, I got in a great workout in the post nap afternoon, and we picked up pizza oe had it delivered, then Nate and I had our home date night. Fun and relaxing. I was really afraid of Friday nights alone ~ those are nights where my friends are generally unavailable as they are all doing the family thing. I had visions of me sitting around feeling sorry for myself and crying into my pizza while pining for my husband. However, that routine has continued every other friday....and on the weeks that Nate is at school, I have found myself tremendously happy. I've hosted occasional sleep overs with my girlfriends, and I have rediscovered my passion for both serendipity and cleaning.
Back in the work days Friday nights meant happy hour, or a date night with Nate. In the post kid world, down time at home hosting a game night with friends or simple down time with my family. In the school era? It's like the magic 8 ball is in charge. Tonight was the wonderful "Old Fashioned Christmas Parade" in WC. Living in the Borough, this was a no brainer, we walked up, pregnant, with Luke and pregnant, with two kids, with three kids........and this year? It was just too hard. It was too hard to ruin Jake's bedtime and face the prospect of rolling into the house alone to put three over tired kids to bed hours past their bedtime solo. Much to my delight, friends came to the rescue. Matt and Melissa graciously volunteered to take the bigs to the parade, while Jake and I got to hang out for an hour, and then I went on a ferocious cleaning binge. I love throwing things away. Love it. I get a visceral thrill when I empty more than one large bag of trash into our bin. Is this sad? Am I pathetic? I admit to even getting greedy, eyeing up projects for two weeks from now. Tackling those sneaky little areas where things seem to multiply and collect. We are hosting a party on Sunday, and I am READY. We have not yet put up our tree (which, traditionally we would do tomorrow, but Nate is at school, so we will probably do next week), but most of the Christmas decorations are up. I'm a dork. I probably err on the side of being a bit of a neat freak, but these nights where I have few options socially I admit to greedily hoarding my time to myself, to do something that I enjoy. I really, really love it when Nate comes home on Saturday night and the house is pristine.
Today I also got selfish ~ Luke and Jules live to go to "lunch bunch". Luke goes every Tuesday, because he has enrichment those afternoons, and I have recently come to know the joy that is Friday afternoon lunch bunch for two. This is only the second time I have done it, and it is MAGICAL. The kids get so excited to make their lunches and pack them up in their bags.....I drop them at school at 9:10 and am free (with Jake) until 12:30. The big guy and I do the town (today Gentiles for pointsettias and greens (so cheap!) then Target, a lovely lunch while I unpacked everything, then off to pick up the kids. All three napped, I organized, took a jacuzzi, then rescued a crying Jake for an hour of nursing naptime in my bed, all warm and cozy. We woke to head into West Chester, Luke got a haircut and we picked up our packets for a race that we are running on Sunday with friends before the post race party we are hosting. So dorky! But so fun. It was a lovely sunny crisp day and we had a great time walking around town taking care of business. We came home in time to make our own pizza, which the Reed's shared with us before taking the kids off to the parade. I got the entire upstairs cleaned and organized after I put Jake to bed. Again, not the Friday night that I ever thought (in my 20's) would bring me joy....and it brought me mad joy. This school thing is working out about a million times better than I had ever dreamed. I'm so crazy proud of my husband for the hard work that he is doing, and I am so enjoying the time to do wild and crazy things like clean or dream up marathon schemes. I love our little life. It isn't glamorous, but it sure is fulfilling.
