Is there anything cuter

...than hearing the excited little voices upstairs, drifting down the stairs, chattering a mile a minute, telling their Daddy about their day? They're in the bath. Esch got home a few minutes ago (about an hour earlier than he had been expecting, with a Carlisle Theatre board meeting after work) and JUST in time for the bath and bed routine. I'm taking this five minutes while Esch and my dinner is baking to sit down.

Today was a great day. We've had some really, really, REALLY trying ones lately, so I feel like I need to commemorate this. William has been acting up at school recently (kicking? really? you're five!), talking back at home, and we've been clashing. A lot. He gets in trouble on purpose. He's influencing Gwen, who, at two, is using some not-so-nice words ("I HATE you!") and our days can be very, very long. But today was good, and I feel like I should mark the occasion.

Wednesday is the only day of the week that William doesn't have preschool. He is going to two different ones - the church preschool that he's been attending for three years now, for two days. Another, that's new to us this year, is called the Creative Pre-K and is in a former public kindergarten teacher's home. They do all kinds of great hands-on things and she's very outdoorsy. She takes them on 2-hour nature hikes (even in winter!), they get nice and messy - he loves it.

So today, on our "Mommy day" I took them to a new place to burn off some energy. It was a reward for W for having a good week so far. It was a huge indoor trampoline center. Not even sure how to explain it. It was enormous. They loved it. They bounced and ran, played with the other kids there, and the instructors (William immediately found the prettiest girl working there and followed her around the whole time - ha!).

It was 25 minutes or so each way, and both kids couldn't have been more pleasant. We sang along to the Disney movie "Hercules" soundtrack over and over, at the top of our lungs. William asks me to sing along with him. Gwennie quite literally yells and calls it singing. They were sweet and cute.

We had a battle-free lunch, they went down for nap (Gwen naps at 1:00 and I still put William in his room for "quiet time" - he hasn't actually napped in months, and then only when sick, but he does usually play with his Legos or read books for a good hour or so). When W snuck down the stairs, we cuddled up on the couch and I read him "The Three Little Pigs" (which is a shocking choice for him; he is so into robots, Star Wars, and lately, prehistoric animals). Then we worked on his writing for a bit. He's definitely behind in his fine motor skills. He completely detests coloring and writing. Poor guy. He avoids it and it frustrates him. So we worked on his name, which he has been able to spell for a good two years now, but his handwriting is pretty rough. We moved on to the word CAT, which he can now read, and he got very stuck on the round letter "C". After a full page of practice Cs, he was starting to improve, and wrote the full word a few times. I know that someday we'll look back on this and none of it will matter. The kid will learn how to write. But right now it's a big concern that worries us a lot - we don't want him to be behind when he starts Kindergarten in the fall.

Tomorrow is his snack day at school, so I packed a snack for 16 kids before making dinner for my own two. I usually feed them at 5, and then make something separate for Esch and I later, since he gets home at their bedtime or even past it. Tonight the kids had spaghetti with chicken Parmesan. And carrots. They are pretty darn good about their carrots. Other veggie standbys right now, that they both eat, are peas, lima beans, and broccoli.

This all seems so mundane, but having just printed our 2009-2013 blog book, I've seen how priceless it is so look back at the little details as well as the big milestones, vacations, and celebrations. I showed William the book when it arrived on our doorstep yesterday and he asked me to read him some of the "stories." I choked my way through tears when reading him the entry about leaving our first family house, where we'd found out we were pregnant, brought him home from the hospital, and seen his first smiles. Time really flies.

He's currently upstairs begging for a few minutes to play video games on Esch's phone. When I took Gwen's warm milk up a second ago, which she hasbefore bed each night, Esch was trying not to laugh as she was yelling,"PENIS!" and giggling uncontrollably. Maybe it's time to stop their joint bath time. Again... the lovely things William teaches her and tells her to say. Oh dear.

Off to finish our dinner, do a quick picking up of the living room before Esch comes back down to eat, and settling in to watch a show together. I miss those little faces as soon as they're asleep (and we sneak in to look at them every night before we go to bed) but I certainly do love the instant quiet at 7:15 p.m. or so!