Not what I had planned.

Ever have one of those days? Our day today wasn't necessarily bad, but just about everything I did went wrong somehow.

Let's start with getting up. Grey got up first. DH forgot to lock the computer room when he left this morning. Somehow, and I'm still not sure how because there wasn't a chair in sight, Greyson got a hold of the bottle of dish soap. That bottle is now empty. Use your imagination on the rest. All I can say is that it's a good thing I got off my procrastination wagon yesterday and printed up and mailed the homeschool group's stuff that I needed to do this month because the computer that the printer is hooked up to just goes beep beep beep now.

Next was my OB appointment. That I expected to go totally wrong because (a) I forgot to write down when my appointment was and (b) I had to take everyone with me. But when I got through to the front desk at about ten minutes after nine, I found out that my appointment wasn't until 9:45 so I still had plenty of time. The kids were great while we were there. The OB was very tolerant of their myriad of questions too. So that whole thing went a thousand times better than I expected, lol.

At home I had a day of cooking and such planned because we didn't have anything else on the schedule. I made some beef broth in the pressure cooker. The recipe said to let it rest and depressurize naturally for twenty minutes and then release any remaining steam. Well, when I did that it seemed to almost boil over and broth, not steam, bubbled out of one of the release valves. I should've taken it apart then and cleaned the valve but I didn't. I went ahead with my second batch of broth. (My pressure cooker is only about 4 qts so I had to cut the recipe in half. But since the first part of the recipe calls for roasting the soup bones in the oven, I figured it would be easier to roast all the bones now and then just make two small batches.) The second batch wouldn't come to pressure and so I had to take the cooker apart, rinse things a bit and try again. The second time it worked. I still didn't take apart the release valve and clean it though. More on that later. The broth itself came out ok, I guess. It is very pale though and doesn't really smell like beef broth to me. I haven't tasted it yet. I can't imagine it went all that bad though. The worst case scenario is that I don't use it for soups and only as an ingredient in sauces and such.

Greyson has been doing fabulously with potty training. Yesterday he actually woke up from a nap, ran to the changing table to get his underwear that we had exchanged for a diaper before his nap, and then ran to bathroom. I lifted him onto the potty and voila, he peed! His diaper had been a little wet but I was so proud of him that he actually woke up to pee. Today was not one of those days though. Today was one of those days when he would want to go to the bathroom every five minutes but then would not stay on the toilet for five seconds. He would instantly jump off and say done. Several of those times he did that just in time to pee on the floor. Or five minutes before he peed on the carpet. After thirty false tries and about five accidents, I put him back in a diaper. Boy, was he in a mood today. That dish soap thing was just the start. He got into everything he could today. It wasn't long after the potty frustration that I put him down for a nap.

Once Grey was in bed I tried to get school going. Cassia begged and begged to go first. I agreed, even though I was afraid it might set a weird start to things, because I don't want to discourage that kind of enthusiasm. We did the second page of a lesson that she got too distracted to finish last week. She was still distracted (because Distract Your Sibling seems like the game to play during phonics time) but we made it through and by the end she was reading the sentences pretty well... though she cannot remember the word "the" for the life of her, lol. She has "cat" down though. She got that one right every time. After that, I had to jump up to do something - I think it was to tend to that second batch of broth - and C&C had gotten into a shouting match over something nothing. And then I realized that the kids' bedroom door was wide open and Greyson was stirring from the noise. Grrrr. He got up about two minutes later and that was that for schoolwork.

I was really annoyed at that point but they all were happy and joyfully playing together. By the time I was done with my stuff, they were playing house out in the Little Tykes slide house thingy in the back. Cameron was the father, Cassia was the mother, and Greyson was the baby. They took all their blankets outside and were happy as could be. What could I do? Rather than yell at them to get back inside and get to work, I decided to stick to my frequent claims that I don't force school when it obviously isn't working. It obviously wasn't working, so I gave up and turned on DOOL. ;) Nothing like daytime drama to make your personal drama seems less dramatic.

Cameron came wandering back inside at some point and wanted to watch gymnastics so I put on the Men's Big 10 Championship for him. He was really into it and told me that he would really like to compete. What a big switch from last year when the only reason he agreed to even stay in gymnastics was so that he could be in the Big Gym Show again! I told him he'd have to work hard and get super strong. He agreed to always try his hardest.

And then I started craving brownies for some reason, lol. So I got up to make some and then Cassia wanders in and asks if she could help. Since it was a day for doing things NOT the way I wanted, I went ahead and let her. ;) She was actually a really good helper and even cracked the eggs into the bowl without getting a single piece of shell in. The oven was acting wacky though. It never got up to temp. I waited a good 20 minutes and it never beeped, so I figured it must be close enough and put the brownies in anyway. They cooked for almost half an hour and it never did make it all the way up to 350. We had had issues with this same thing a few months back and had to replace the heating element but it was working fine until today. DH had moved the stove out yesterday to clean up some oil that he spilled down the side, so I'm guessing that must've done something to it again. *sigh* Just what I didn't need. The brownies still taste good though.

By then it was time to start dinner so I did the dishes really fast and got started with our quickey dinner of polska kielbasa and mashed potatoes. I put the potatoes in the pressure cooker and again it never came to pressure. I figured it must have something to do with the seal being wet or something (I don't know what I was thinking) but I did the same thing as I did with Batch 2 of the broth this afternoon: I turned the heat off, rinsed the top and the seal off, dried it, and tried again. But this time it still didn't work and by the time I figured that out all the water had steamed away and the bottom of the pan was horribly burned. The potatoes came out great though. I just hope I can salvage my pan. I really, really love that pan. So, lesson learned: if stuff comes out of the safety release valve, TAKE THE STUPID THING APART AND CLEAN IT.

The kids were more interested in playing in their mashed potatoes tonight instead of eating them so after a half hour or so I decided that I was just done with the day and sent everyone to bed. It was really only half an hour early (where did the evening go?) but it made a big impression. Cameron wisely said, "I know why you're sending us to be early." I figured he was going to say it was because I was tired and needed some alone time - which is true - but he said, "It's because when we act crazy it's because we need more rest," which is also very true. Apparently, they do listen sometimes. ;) They're also still all sniffling from this mystery cold that appeared out of nowhere this weekend, so that tends to make them insane as well. I'm going to use that as my excuse too.

Speaking of excuses, I'm going to stop making them and actually do some yoga tonight. I really need it today and I also happen to be all caught up on my TiVo'ed shows so I have nothing else to tempt me. Except cleaning that is and that is not really very tempting at all at the moment. ;)