Update of a very short week

Our school week is over already! We've put in two good days of work, and tomorrow we plan to leave bright and early, drive five hours to drive Phoenix, and (hopefully) catch a 3:00 p.m. flight to Seattle. We will stay with my parents for six days, and on Thursday, Papaya Daddy will interview for a family practice position with an Indian tribe in the Pacific Northwest.

[Sorry about the super long looking paragraph below - Blogger keeps on removing my paragraph spaces - frustrating!]

There's nothing particularly exciting to report about our two days of school (most of our energy & excitement is directed towards the next few days), except that I finally understand why there are seasons. I could have told you before that it's because the earth is tilted on its axis, but I didn't intuitively get it. After explaining it to the Papaya with pictures, computer animations, and models (a blow up globe & a candle for the sun), I finally "see" it - hooray! Hopefully the Papaya does, too!

We are all tired. Papaya Daddy worked all weekend. Saturday alone with the kids was okay (we did some fun things together & everybody was healthy), but Sunday got a little long - caring for three kids ages 5 and under, alone, for the duration of a 2 1/2 hour church service with no Sunday School or nursery is a little tiring, especially when they (and I) start getting hungry & behavior begins to deteriorate! Finally, we broke for our potluck, & I got home around 2:30 (I had left home at 9:30). A long Sunday!

Yesterday, the baby woke up at 5:00 a.m. & refused to go back to sleep - a less-than-stellar beginning to a tough Monday. A 17 year old in labor came into the health center in the morning, and Papaya Daddy cared for her until midnight (eventually delivering a baby that needed a helicopter transfer due to pneumothorax - everyone's doing fine this morning). This means we didn't see him at all during the day. By the kids' bedtime, as I read a bedtime story to the two older kids, raising my already strained voice to be heard above the baby's screams (she was overtired & refused to be comforted unless I gave her 100% attention), I was feeling a little crazy!

We're all feeing like a bit of vacation would be nice, and, after a long weekend & tough work day, are feeling like a job with no nights or weekends (i.e. the job Papaya Daddy will be interviewing for) would be a good thing - not to mention being near to family & living in a real community!

One of the most fun things I did with the kids this week was read Richard Scarry's "Please and Thank You Book" to them (I wanted to prepare them for the week with their grandparents). I must have had this book read to me many times when I was little, because I remembered each page and each picture with crystal clarity, & even remembered my own childhood delight when my parents read it to me. It was so much fun to see my kids enjoy it, too! Hopefully, they'll take some of the light-hearted lessons to heart! I think I'll take it on our trip so my mom can enjoy reading it to her grandkids.

I didn't take any pictures of this week's school doings, so I'll close with a couple pictures from our weekend before last in town. These (and the picture above, of the Portabella) are from our lovely late autumn hike in Oak Creek Canyon. Yes, my shoulders were sore! But it was worth it.Enjoy the rest of the week!