Claire joined the summer reading program at the local library. Last week she read tens hours. Ten hours of peace and quiet.

Her prizes for reading: A kazoo and a slide whistle.

The house is clean, the food is made and now we are just waiting for the usual suspects to arrive for the fun to begin.

As the girls get older it is nice to have help around the house that is really help. When they were much smaller I would give them jobs to do, but I had to supervise the event. And the small job was an event for them.

Today I assigned jobs: dishwasher emptied, floors mopped and bathroom cleaned, and then I went downstairs and worked out with Jillian Michaels.

It is a good thing the kids can clean because after Jillian was done with me I don’t think I even could lift a broom.

My ninth grade year I was Vice President or something like that of my class. I don’t remember many of my my responsibilities of being class Vice President of a class of 36 kids, but the most important one was on the first day of school. I got to sit in the lobby and pass out class schedules to all my classmates. I wasn’t really interested in any of my old classmates schedules, I was interested in checking out the new boys that would be entering my class that year. There were quite a few new students coming into our ninth grade class and some of them were boys.

One new name that I did not recognize was Larry Castle.

He came in and I gave him his class schedule. I vaguely remembered seeing him around the school at games and events with the Zimmerman boys, but I had never met him. And I don’t know if handing him a schedule actually counts as an official meeting. But I knew who he was.

I had know idea the adventures we were to have.

I still get a few people coming to the site hoping the Daily Castle is daily again. Or maybe they just like to use the links on the side bar. Not sure.

I need to change the picture in the header.  Valentine’s day is way gone. Maybe I should just leave it up till next year.

The girls are gone on their first over night trip with some friends. They went to Irish Hills with the neighbor kids for a couple of days. Larry and I don’t know what to do with ourselves with all the finished thoughts and conversations.

Emma texted Larry goodnight last night.

We went to the Dollar show. It smelled.

I will be back.

A few nights ago Claire and I were snuggling in bed watching Jeopardy! together. We burrowed down into the covers like bears ready to hibernate and decided we were not ever leaving. It was just too cozy snuggled up like that. 

She has always been a little cuddle bug. When she was a baby she was a little chubbers and she was so smushy you just couldn’t help but squeeze her. Her cheeks were little kiss magnets. 

She is no longer chubby. She is so long she barely fits on my lap anymore. Her limbs are getting to that gangly stage and she smelled like she might need a little deodorant last week.  It is hard to believe she is ten years old. 

Ten years ago yesterday I went to the hospital to be induced to have my second child. Compared to the first go around it was very uneventful. I was going to try to have this second the child the old-fashioned way, meaning to push her out instead of going under the knife. The doctor did not want her to get too big so he scheduled an induction on her due date. 

Claire, being a people pleaser, decided to get the show on the road early on the morning of the induction, so by the time I got to the hospital at nine, I was already in labor and dilated to three. The doctor still gave me the dreaded pictocin to keep things moving along and the blessed epidural to keep me comfortable. I think I felt one contraction. 

Some highlights I remember from the day:

1. I was surprised the doctor still wanted to induce labor. I thought he would let nature take its course. Ha!

2. Larry did not pack any food to eat for the day. We arrived at the hospital at 9 in the morning and he did  not eat breakfast. Around noon he finally had to leave to get something to eat. What does he bring back? A Rodeo burger from Burger King. Some super stinky hamburger to make his wife sick from the stench. Ha!

3. I had a really nice nurse this time. I wish I could remember her name. 

4. My doctor was delivering another lady’s baby in the room next to mine at the same time as me. He kept running back and forth between the two rooms. He made into a little competition as to who could deliver first. I won. She won the loudest screamer award. 

5. I had several medical students in the room during delivery. I was a vbac delivery so it was special. Ha! One that I remember was a little Chinese girl that was so timid and so excited to see a birth. On of the interns actually delivered Claire. As I was pushing her out I was thinking I did not pay you to do this I am paying him (meaning the doctor)!

6. I had to push for an hour. Enough said. 

7. Larry picked Claire’s name out. He just liked it. No other reason than that. 

8. I wanted to name her Margaret May after our grandmothers. Claire is glad it was Larry’s turn to pick the name. 

9. As soon as Claire came out Larry said, “She looks like you.”

10. My parents brought Emma up to see her new little sister and she called her “Clow”. 

Happy Birthday Claire.

Why do parents take their kids to the doctors when they are not really that sick? Is it really necessary to have someone tell you your kid has a cold, drink some fluids and get plenty of rest? Apparently, I am that parent. Because why else would I have spent two hours at the Pediatricians yesterday? I must feel the need for validation. Yes, I was right! You are sick! And now that I have made you sit in this germ infested waiting room filled with screaming, hacking kids for two hours you should have pink eye and strep by Monday.  

Sign me up for Mother of the Year. 

So Claire is sick. She had a fever for three days and has been laying on the couch for four. She has barley eaten anything and if she opens her mouth and says Ah! you can see her tonsils from across the room. Her glands are so swollen they look like rocks on the side of her neck. I got a little worried. She’s not my whiner so you don’t really think about how bad she must be feeling. But she had Mono when she was almost 5. And after looking up on the internet about reoccurrence of Mono I thought I had better take her. The doctor did not take blood or feel her spleen. She told her to eat oranges and rest for three days. 

Two hours for that. Next time I may just stick with WebMD.

Yesterday I lost a day in my children’s lives. I woke up and went to work and worked  and worked. There is a special project going on at work right now called lay-offs. So the left-overs work. Sometimes they even call in friends to help for free. 

I went to work at 8 in the morning and I got home at 10 at night. I saw the morning child before I left and I saw the two night owls when I got home. All together the minutes totaled about 10. 

I am a working mother. But I have always been. When the girls were little I stayed home with them. I had three little kids under the age of three. That is a pre-school. It was work. Lots of spills and diapers and whining and crying. And lots of snuggles and kisses too. That was my pay back then. They did not give me quarterly evaluations, but I knew they appreciated me by all the sticky fingerprints on my shirts and pants. 

And I am still a working mother. My job has just changed a little bit. I don’t have to wipes noses or other body parts. The girls can make their own food and clean up after themselves. They read books to themselves and play games other than Candyland. 

But they still need me. And when I miss a day in their lives in makes me a little sad. But today is different. I will take off of work early so i can go to a lunch at their school and see two of my kids get an award for all the books that they have read. I will sit proudly and smile. 

And I will enjoy my job as a mother.

I can not tell you how many contests I have entered on blogs to try to win an awesome prize. Bloggy Giveaways and Pioneer Woman and Rocks in My Dryer are just a few places I have entered. And I have never won. Until now!

Sarah over at Shortstop had a contest for a Blurb photo book. I started reading her blog when she had the 12 days of cookies at Christmas. I made several of the recipes and they all turned out great.

She had made a cookbook at Blurb for her sister-in-law for Christmas and it looked awesome. So I entered and I won a photobook! And like a dummy I forgot to go back and check until today. Yeah! 

I am a winner. Thanks Blurb and Sarah!

5:30 a.m. Looked out the window, snow just starting to come down. Go back to bed.

6:30 a.m. Wake up again. Check to see if it as a snow day for the kids. Yes. Wake up Larry and tell him. Get dressed for work.

7:07 a.m. Leave for work. Roads are snowy which is better than icy.
7:50 a.m. Arrive at work. Only took me 10 extra minutes. Went about 25-30 MPH most of the way.

7:52a.m. Run into the office.

8:00 a.m. Arrive in building huffing and puffing because I have not ran in years. Shake 6 pounds of snow off. Wonder why I bothered to brush my hair.

8:15 a.m. Make coffee and relax. Answer the phone 4 times. 4 employees tell me they are working from home today. Wish I could get my calls transfered.

8:55 a.m. Take head count of number of employees at work so far. 3.

9:07 a.m. 2 more employees arrive. One of them looking like she just came through a blizzard. Time to get my second cup of coffee.

9:18 a.m. An employee that live about 3 miles away just called in. He said the plows had not come there yet. Yeah, they weren’t in my town either and I live 12 miles away.

9:45 a.m. Call Larry to see if the girls are awake. They were up by 7:15. No coaxing them out of bed this morning. They were begging to go outside by 8:00.

11:00 a.m. Just got my third cup of coffee. I usually only drink two, but since today is a snow day I’ll make an exception. There is still fudge is the kitchen from yesterday’s party. That should make a good lunch. There are now about 11 employees here. The sky is white out my window.

12:15 p.m. There are 18 employees here now, but who’s counting. I am having fun shopping online and reading blogs. Too bad they blocked us out of facebook.

12:55 Just ordered lunch from Jimmy John’s. A Snow Day bonus.

2:20 Packing it in for the day. Most employees have left except for the hourly peeps. Now for the drive home!