What a difference a week makes.

This week is going MUCH better than last week. We're two for two on schoolwork. We're two for two on morning chores... though we seem to lose steam for the afternoon and evening chores. Laundry is caught up. Living room is not so bad. Kitchen, well, once I get the dinner dishes cleaned up it will be looking fine. Potty training is going great - only one pair of underpants used today! And... we still have the rest of the week pretty free!

Yesterday, Monday, I started the day with the lovely one hour glucose tolerance test. Oh, joy. I actually hope I pass because the orange drink seemed to hit me much more than in the past. I felt really funky, like I drank a whole pot of coffee; the world seemed a bit glossier and I could not stop tapping my foot. Weird. I never noticed any of that with any of my other pregnancies but I don't think I was avoiding high fructose corn syrup as religiously as I do now either. I used to drink the occasional Coke, meaning two to four a week, and now I have one maybe once a month, if that. I even quit drinking natural sodas made with cane sugar because the sweetness just started getting to me. My favorite drink lately is half juice and half Italian sparkling water. Mmmmm. Cran-raspberry is my favorite, but cherry juice is really good in it too. Oooh, I bet pineapple juice would be fab too. I'll have to see if I can find me some of that. (LOL at the power of suggestion. Just typing that made it necessary for me to go make myself one.)

I went for my lab work first thing in the morning and almost as soon as I got home, Cameron was asking to do school. He was very aware of how procrastination led to ZERO video games last week. He was determined not to let the same thing happen this week, lol. I guess it was a bad week for everyone. The problem was that Greyson was still awake and very rambunctious. Ugh. He and Cassia were playing with these ancient (as in from DH's childhood) letter toys. They're really cute. There are 24 little plastic things and their first letter clicks into the back. Well Cassia and Grey were pretending that they were food items and put all the letters into a bowl for alphabet soup, lol, and the other things were other foodstuff. Very cute and very creative but they both insisted on serving us while Cameron was trying to read or do math or listen to a story. I mean, they wouldn't stop! Well, Cassia finally did once I snapped at her a few times, but Grey would just keep dumping it in our laps and yelling "Eat! Eat!" I finally said that in the future we would just have to wait until Greyson was asleep to do schoolwork, even if it meant that video games had to be put off until late afternoon or evening. The interruptions were so bad that even Cameron agreed that that was a good idea. Somehow, we managed to do a phonics lesson on the "tion" and "sion" endings, a grammar lesson on state of being verbs, a math exercise on making change from $10, and read the final chapter on Greece in SOTW.

Cameron played his video games (he's currently working through The Legend of Zelda and the Ocarina of Time... and actually reading the dialog instead of just clicking through it!) and then it was time for gymnastics. Sunday both Cameron and Cassia were in The Big Gymnastics Show and did fabulously. The great thing about the show is that all the different team members do exhibitions. You get to see everything from the Level 1 - 3 kids who are "on the team" but can't yet compete (no, I don't really get that either), to the Level 4 - 6 Compulsory Teams who all compete with the same routines, to the Level 7 - 9 Optional Teams who get to make up their own routines, and the Rhythmic Gymnasts, and the Creative Dance Class members, and the Cheer Team, and it is all just really impressive. It really makes an impression on the younger kids too because I noticed everyone in both Cameron's and Cassia's classes was trying extra hard on Monday. They were all out there dreaming of someday being as good as A.J. on the rings or as graceful as Alejandra on the floor. Cameron, especially, is determined to make the team. He's still having a problem with it being hard though, lol. He wants to do it, but he doesn't want it to have to hurt. I can't really say that I blame him.

Today, Tuesday, we didn't do a darn thing except some laundry. C&C were playing Lego Zelda adventures all morning. Greyson kept finding bottles of either sunblock or lotion in random places and then squeezing them all over the floor. One time was tolerable but he did it three or four different times! I don't know what gets into him some days! And I don't know where he kept finding all those bottles, lol. I guess it's time to clean out the cabinets. Once he finally went down for a nap we pulled out the schoolbooks. Cameron did a phonics lesson on the "ture," "ible," and "able" endings and read the three paragraph story at the end of the lesson with remarkable ease and speed. I was truly impressed and I think he was too. Grammar was a lesson on linking verbs. Cameron impressed DH at dinnertime with a three-part definition of a verb ("A verb is a word that shows an action, shows a state of being, or links two words together.") but then couldn't quite remember what a linking verb really was. It is kind of confusing but I was impressed that he even remembered the name of them and that we learned them today when asked, lol. How many kids when asked, "What did you learn today?" can actually sit there and come up with something? Especially something from Grammar! LOL. I think it was the only new thing he could come up with though since math was word problems with making change from $1 or $10 and history was the last of our library books on Greece. Well, I do have one more, Archimedes Takes a Bath, but it's kind of long so I don't know if I'll bother trying to start it. I think they may be burned out on Greece. I think I am too.

And then it was time to make dinner. I made homemade whole wheat naan and this really simple but tasty bean dish. It was just beans (supposed to be chickpeas, but I used great northern), garam masala, ginger, and salt. It was also supposed to have this exotic Indian spice made from ground dried pomegranate seeds but the recipe said you could substitute a tsp of pomegranate juice instead. I was going to use cherry juice since the stuff I have is pretty tart, but then totally forgot to put it in. It was good anyway though. It was also supposed to have thin onion rings (raw) and lime wedges on top, but I knew the kids wouldn't go for that. So we just had the spiced beans and naan and it was really good. Well, I thought so anyway. ;)

Tomorrow we have nothing planned. Thursday is nothing but ballet. Friday is park day and a birthday party. I think it's going to be a good week.