7 Quick Takes

1.  Toddler Boy has a new favorite chore...that of youngest resident dishwasher.  Anytime we are doing dishes he is ready and willing to push up a chair and help.  He'll stand there playing in the water for quite awhile so it's been a somewhat convenient way for me to keep him occupied while I'm doing supper prep or finishing a lesson.   Playtime always ends when he starts dumping cups of water on the floor (although my kitchen floor right in front of the sink has never been cleaner since it has soapy water dumped on it at least three times a day).

2.  Today his favorite hobby was not as convenient...since he flooded our kitchen! Toddler Boy managed to sneak downstairs to the kitchen and came back up without anyone knowing where he had been.  Game Boy saved the day by hearing the running water and going down to investigate.  Toddler Boy had plugged the sink and turned on the water!  Luckily we caught it early enough and it was only a minor flood, it could have been much worse.  Clean up didn't take too long, a couple of drawers (thankfully, empty) below the sink were also filled with water.  Now I just need to teach Toddler Boy how to use a mop...

3.  Our cable TV / internet / home phone went out earlier this week for about four hours.  When I called it in to the cable company they reported other outages in our area and I chalked it up to the weather.  It went out again this morning and once again I called it in.  It came back on about three hours later.  I had a knock at the door this afternoon, lo and behold it was the cable repairman.  I told him the service was back but he still wanted to check it out so while he was outside working on the lines I had the kids do a really quick pick-up so the house was somewhat (and I use that term loosely) presentable for the repairman.

4.  At times like this I wonder what kind of homeschool representation we are giving to:
a)  cable repairmen (who drop by without an appointment)
b)  roofing contractors (who just want to give me a "quick" quote for that hail damage from last summer)
c)  financial investment people (who seem to be canvasing our neighborhood)
d)  people who want to invite me to go to their church (instead of the one I currently attend)
e)  anyone else I don't personally know who want to drop by our house in the middle of our homeschooling day to sell me something.

I can imagine what goes through their minds as they see my kids playing video games instead of doing schoolwork.  In fact, I would love for one of them to ask me "why aren't your kids doing their homework" and then I could reply "well, they would be, in fact we're supposed to be in the middle of a history lesson right now but their teacher is busy dealing with you".  Sigh.

5.  Toddler Boy had a doctor's appointment scheduled this week (I made this appointment months ago).  I got a message on my phone the day before the appointment from the doctor's office.  They tell me they had cancelled his appointment and rescheduled it with the nurse practitioner for March.  If I had any questions I could call the office.  When I tried to call the office I could not get through to an actual person, I couldn't even get to a machine to leave a message.  It just kept looping me through the phone menu.  Frustrating!  Why not just leave a message saying "if you have any questions, need test results, or need to reschedule because the day and/or time we assigned you does not work...well then you're just sorry out of luck.  Goodbye."  At least that would have been more honest of them.

6.  We've been playing a lot of chess around here lately, thanks to Soccer Boy's birthday gift (and the cold weather outside).  Doug is still the undefeated reigning chess champ of the house, followed by me (I've only lost to him).  The two oldest boys are pretty evenly matched.  The younger kids like to watch and play with the pieces that are off the board.  Game Boy understands how the pieces move but has yet to venture a game himself.  We all like challenging Doug, we figure one of us will eventually win and knock him off his high horse, so to speak.  Only a matter of time, dear...

7.  Down to my last take and it's time to head to bed!  Have a great weekend!!


Head over to Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes for this week!