My Days

My time spent every day is basically spent in a few broad categories:

1) Keep kids alive

2) Keep kids stimulated/enriched (that is, not parked in front of a device)

3) Cook

4) Clean

5) Laundry

6) House errands, like grocery shopping, addressing emails and things regarding the house

7) Keeping myself sane

8) Making sure I get adequate rest so I can perform the more critical duties like number 1

And thanks to Madeleine not sleeping by herself any more (she will instead scream/cry for 2h 30min+ without napping - that's the longest I've held out so I'm not sure how long she can actually tolerate), my time for doing all of these things is woefully constrained. 

Last night was the neighbourhood Block Party. While I really enjoyed it, it did push everyone's bed time later, and then E was awake throwing a fit in the middle of the night. I ended up sending her late to school. Meanwhile M is as clingy as ever and not sleeping alone. I know it's only these 2 weeks that I'm flying solo, and while I relish being independent and being able to make my own decisions with zero input as to how to spend the day, I am just tired.

Bye Pin Oak, Bye Silver Maple

When we first moved into our first

 house, it was partly because Jon and I fell in love with the landscaping and all the trees. In particular, I loved the big Pin Oak in our front yard. It provided a lot of nice shade, especially in the summer. As we don't have much space in the back yard, I used to inflate the baby wading pool/sprinkler toy in the front yard, under the shade of the tree, which was fine because we lived on such a quiet street anyway.

However we are are moving in a few months, and both big trees in our front yard, the Pin Oak and the Silver Maple, are sick and dying. Today the tree people finally came to cut them down, and I am feeling very sad. It costs over 5k to get them removed, and their loss will be keenly felt, especially since so many big trees have been dying around our little subdivision of Morwood Hills. Once shaded streets now feel the full blast of the Midwest sun. Maybe we will plant a new tree before we go, maybe we will leave it to the new house owners, but either way the removal of those trees is just yet another stage in our departure from St Louis.

Edit: this is how M has decided to watch the tree chopping