Sunday

For breakfast, I made cinnamon roll pancakes. They were anticipated to be delicious but they were only ok. The "cinnamon filling" was supposed to be made with dates but I only had dried figs. Um, they aren't really interchangeable. Unless you like seedy pancakes. So boo. But the bacon was a winner. And I tried to get them to eat an orange but they weren't into it.

So then we were off to church. Finley totally freaked out that I as going to leave him "with the kids." I have left him with strangers only a couple times and it's never gone well. But enough is enough. Mama needs church and he needs to be in "Sunday School" or whatever my alterna-churches call it. We had about a 30 minute pep talk about me needing to do this for myself and him needing to meet new friends because all of his friends right now are my friend's kids and he is old enough now to pick his own friends. I was hoping that would be somewhat enticing. NO. I ended up having to give him some Rescue Remedy and rubbed some Young Living Valor on his face and told him I understand he is nervous because everyone is nervous in new situations. But he needed to learn to introduce himself and be nice to people and he will feel just fine. Luckilly when he got there he saw many people introducing themselves to each other so I was able to show him how he wasn't the only one who didn't know anyone.

I went to the Center for Spiritual Living today.  Everyone was very nice but I felt the service was lacking. What exactly, I can't say. The music was uplifting. I guess they spent a little too long on things that I didn't care about like upcoming events and saying goodbye to music directors. The pastor or whatever she's called took a ridiculously long time to tell a story. It bugs me so much when people repeat themselves for dramatic emphasis. Like, I get the picture, just tell the story already! But I was probably more impatient because I really wanted to go get Finley but knew that I needed to stay until the other parents came in to get their kids. So after resisting boredom induced temptation to flee, I see the kids all coming downstairs. Oh my poor Finley. I just knew that he was horrified to have to stand on stage in front of all those people. FOr some dumb reason, they feel the need to "include" the kids in the service toward the end by bringing them onstage and having some kid tell about what they did that day and then the congregation says an affirming verse for them.  I may have been more horrified than Finley though, he seemed like ke was about to cry but I asked him about it later and he said he was happy to go so he could find me. He didn't see me till the end when he was walking back. But he did say he had a good time and liked the man who was the leader of his class.

So woo hoo- he liked it and was fine- I decided to stay for a class on the 5 love languages for kids. At first the kids were sitting with me but I swooped them upstairs because I knew they would get too chatty and disruptive. It ended up being a long day for the 2 of them, it was only a 1.5 hr class but still, C was tired, and I know they were both hungry- only an apple and some peanuts for a snack, and some nasty rancid graham crackers that the church was serving. Literally smelled like 10yr old vegetable oil. Hope F doesn't get gluten diarrhea- I let him have some yesterday!   So they didn't like the part 2 of childcare but darnit I needed that class. It was very insightful!

After church we came home and had "lunch" and by that I mean all the kids would eat was frozen blueberries. I heated up some leftover paleo chicken pot pie but they weren't having even a bite of it.  I reminded F how much he loved it the first time but he said he just wanted the juice box I promised after he ate it. Hmmm, effective coercion or backfiring plan?  Then we dropped some books off at the library and went to get chicken feed. I came home and mowed the lawn while Finley made "potion" in the driveway. We had ravioli and asparagus for dinner- with a bit of force they both ate all their asparagus. I guess partial starvation is how to get them to eat their veggies! 

I had some special time with F after C went to sleep. We thought of silly names for the chickens. So far we have Fiona, Tarzanna, and Rose-ella.   The unfortunate last one has yet to be named- we threw around a few like booger head and fart face and some other ridiculous non words F came up with. I could tell that he was really benefiting from our silly convo and I really became aware that I don't spend enough time with him- really devoting all of my attention to just him.  Also I asked him how he knew that I loved him and he said because I stay home with him. He said when I leave him he feels like I don't love him. Then he made up a song about me staying home with him but needing to go to work so we can eat and do fun things and if I don't work then we have to stay home all day every day. So maybe he's working through that. I'm just glad I have been able to spend the last 2 weeks at home with him and wonder how I"m going to manage in the future.  Homeschooling remains a top priority for me but I have faith that everything will work out.