Who is where Wednesday? (aka Part 3 of 'This is How I do it')

Wednesday is my super long day. Same as the other days I leave the house by 6.30am (well this is the plan), but on Wednesdays I don't get home until almost 10pm.

The fabulous Apple picks up the girls from school and gets dinner ready for all of us. I pick up the girls and Apple after work and we go straight from there to Guides.

I whinge every week that Wednesdays are too long, and it is too hard in the middle of week. I have never been able to think of an alternative though.

Despite the complaining, one of my regular happy moments is when I get changed from my work clothes into my Guide clothes. When I am not running super late, I love that we have time to have a picnic and catch up with my co-leaders. I love watching my three do weird acrobatics against the wall while we are gasbagging. I love watching the other Guides go and join in. I have no idea why they do this but it is funny to watch. Plus I always sleep really well on a Wednesday night.

We do have a theory that the first thing we do at Guides should be a running around game to calm down the girls and wake me up. Sometimes this happens. Sometimes it even works.

Tired Guide-leader-Mama me
(and a do-you-remember-these-shirts selfie for some former Guide committee friends).

This week karma bites back! It serves me right for complaining about Wednesdays so much. Just in case they weren't long enough, this week has seen us triple booked.

• Buglet has her (school) year 10 river cruise from 7pm to 10pm.
• Tink has her soccer awards dinner (same school!) from 6pm to 9pm.
• Guides is from 7pm to 9pm, and I am the only qualified leader in our unit at the moment.
• Pixie exists and it is bad form to abandon her.

Team Village to the rescue! The purpose of the post is so that I can write it all down and attempt to make sure I know who is where when. My darling, super-organised daughters have sorted so much of it out themselves that I am feeling a bit flustered.

Wish me luck .... and here goes ...

Buglet is being picked up from school by Mrs Bee who is also doing her hair. Then  she is going across the road to get her make-up done. Apple is dropping Buglet off at a friend's house to go the cruise. I am picking her up from the cruise.

Tink is catching the bus home from school. She is getting herself ready for the soccer dinner. We both go to the soccer awards dinner before I pick up Buglet.

Apple is picking Pixie up. She is taking the Pixie to Guides, and is keeping her for the night. Marsh is going to my Guides tonight to be the qualified leader.

Simple? Sorted? I hope so.

I need to:

• Remember to leave work early;
• Give Apple the Guide hall keys;
• Find the address Buglet put in my purse;
• Not get lost; and
• Find appropriate clothes for an awards dinner.

I will let you know later how well the plan worked.

Disclaimer:

• It is doubtful I am qualified to give parenting advice, there is still time for me to stuff up.
• I am definitely not qualified to give organisation advice.
• My map-reading skills are suspect.
• I am not even allowed to give legal advice without supervision.

I would recommend finding more reliable sources for any advice of any nature.

Positively Negative or Negatively Positive (aka Part 2 of 'This is how I do it')

Or the alternative title could have been the "Trials of Tuesday". If you read Part 1 of 'This is how I do it'. You have a pretty good idea of how a general day works.

Tuesdays are a bit special though. They are my "play each week by ear" day. Tink has soccer training at 5.30pm and I don't have a regular babysitter to take her on Tuesdays. Some weeks she has a game after school. Some weeks it is cancelled due to rain. Some weeks she goes to a friend's house. Some weeks Apple takes her. As I said, I play each week as it comes.

One of the other options is that Tink and Pixie catch the train to me at work. I drive to work those days, then drop Tink at soccer (usually a bit late). Pixie and I head straight to dancing for boot-camp yoga (me) and hip hop (Pixie). By the time they have afternoon tea, and I try and have a job for them to do (parenting tip of the day: buying cards is an awesome job if you need them to go somewhere for 20 minutes), it usually works out ok.

The week in question was one of those weeks.

Pixie decided to her home work in the car on the way home. Please note I did tell her maybe it would be better done at home, but my suggestion was ignored.

I was trying to explain the concepts of adding negative numbers.

I was failing.

Pixie: I don't know why I have to learn this anyway. I will never use it in real life.
Me: What did your teacher say about that?
Pixie: She said we have to learn it because it is in the curriculum.
Me: You have these conversations a lot don't you?
Pixie: Yes.
Me: Well, there you go then. Plus you never know when you do need to know things like this.
Pixie *grumpily*: I don't want my life to be ruled by negatives.

She has a point. I do try to concentrate on the positives, but this wasn't exactly what I meant.

Tink took pity on me at this point and explained to Pixie how to do it.

Tink got her to understand it about 30 seconds.

It is probably a good thing I decided not to be a teacher. I have I mentioned my subject is History, not Maths?

Some days, this is how I do it.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering about Buglet, she goes home has a quiet afternoon and cooks dinner.