Can you believe it? Shaelin is now two years old!

We had a small gathering friends over – the kids she plows over and their parents, mostly. Cake and ice cream, of course, and as is expected much of it ended up on her face. I’m working on getting the pictures off the camera and cleaned up for publishing, still. I promise it will happen before her next birthday.

Of course, that one paragraph doesn’t tell you about the entire week of effort that went into that behind the scenes. You can imagine what three young children can cook up in about 45 minutes or less; Mom played Attila the Hun all week long to keep them from completely trashing the main living areas of the house after working hard to get them cleaned up. I did what I could in addition to my usual chores. The worst part of all, though, was getting the two older girls to do something about their room. We have seen a big improvement in attitudes regarding keeping their bedroom clean in the last year… but that doesn’t mean they actually keep up on it like they should. As a result we spent 30-40 minutes each evening, starting Wednesday.

Friday afternoon I took off from work a little early to get home so that Michelle could get to the Gamblers hockey game I mentioned last week. My yearly performance review cut things a little close, but I was right on time, so I hopped in the car and headed out. On the way I checked my voice mail, which had a message from Michelle about plans for the evening, and so I immediately tried to call her. And tried, and tried… and tried again. Finally, when I was a couple of minutes away from the last exit on the freeway before home, we connected – and she was at a gas station about a mile away from work. “Ooops!” I turned around, met her there, and left with my three girls and an extra child, a stowaway of sorts. It was no big deal, though, and in fact it was quite helpful to have Dax along because she was a great motivator to get the girls to clean out under their beds.

By the way, have I mentioned that I hate mopping the floor at 2 a.m.? Oh, right, I guess I did. (sigh.)

Anyway… long story short (too late?)… they finally pushed through the last part of it on Saturday. As soon as they realized that Dad wasn’t going to let up they buckled down and got it all done. They did a nice job, too.

Sunday morning had a conflict. Shaelin’s first day in the 2’s class for Sunday services on the one hand, and dance class pictures on the other. Regan arrived at home just in time to come with, so the two younger girls and I ventured off to church while Mercedes was primped and preened for her 10 minutes in front of the camera. It went well, surprisingly, with nary a second thought from Shaelin when she went into her new class. She’s growing up so fast…

Sunday afternoon saw the arrival of my dad. He was on his way through to Manitowoc and took the opportunity to deliver Michelle’s Christmas present (a new bicycle), to see the family, and to go over some paperwork with me. That took most of the afternoon, but I’m glad we took the time to do that. It was a short visit, though, and he was gone by the time anybody even stirred this morning.

Happy birthday, Shaelin!