Week five. Is it really just week five? Doesn’t it seem like longer? And also shorter? And like we’re already well into summer but yesterday was Easter?

This week, SURPRISE, Tom got strep. Now we’ve each had it twice, and I’m living in a constant state of thinking I have strep. We were talking about his symptoms one day and I said, “You started to get sick on Monday…”

Tom stopped me, “No, I started to get sick on Wednesday.”

And I said in complete sincerity, “But today’s Tuesday.”

It was Thursday.

Who can keep track of the days?

This week we started a little more school (I will submit, I will submit). Overall the kids are doing great. We limit it to an hour. That seems to be the sweet spot for my ability to plan, the kids’ attention span, and it’s juuuuuuuust before Anna and Thomas stage an actual revolt.

Don’t laugh, but one thing Tom and I are focusing a lot of our parenting energy on is keeping shoes on the kids. They love to discard their shoes outside, and we’re trying to break the habit.

David and Thomas were playing at a creek and when I went to check on them, this is what I see. Thomas barefoot in the creek.

I turned a blind eye, honestly, because I didn’t want to fight him. Sign up below for parenting tips! Always choose the path of least resistance!

Thomas was barefoot all the way until I spotted a huge chunk of glass.

WHEW.

Is anyone else exhaling every time they avoid a trip to the emergency room these days?

(I made Thomas put on his boots — he didn’t want to because they were wet — and he limped home. Better to limp home in wet boots than limp home with a laceration, that’s what I always say!)

Every now and then you tell your kids to look at the camera, and they actually do.

Life with a two-year old. It’s hard to understand most of what she says, but when she shouts “GO AWAY!” it’s clear as a bell.

Thomas found two frogs. He named them Komodo and Nightmare.

This kid. If I ask him to hold a crayon he will literally run and hide in another room. But he will study frogs for an afternoon.

I’ve said that our swing set is the hero of the pandemic, but this week it was…a giant mulch pile!

When we said “mulch” the kids heard “playhouse.”

The kids have loved the mulch pile. There has only been one scraped toe, one splinter, and one broken sled.

We asked the kids if the broken sled was worth it and they all shouted “YES!”

If you’ve ever let your kids play in a mulch pile, you already know the repercussions. Mulch is super, super dirty. It’s somehow dirtier than…dirt.

Every time they played they had to come in for showers, which was a huge pain if you ask the parents.

BUT! If you ask the parents if the showers were worth all the fun their kids had, they all shout, “YES!”

Onward.