Busy Week in the Middle of January

My kids were home from school for an entire snowy week, and then the week they went back to school, I was busy babysitting the whole time!  My neighbor's nanny decided to go home for Christmas for a month, so she'd asked if I could fill in for one of those weeks.  So I had Zevi all day, and then I would get his big brother Noah off the bus with my kids and we'd all hang out for a few hours until one of their parents were done at work.

It was lovely to make some money and Zevi and Noah are really great kids, but this did confirm to me that I'm not particularly interested in nannying full time!  I missed being able to do whatever I wanted with my day and NOT having to deal with a 5-point harness!

I'd planned on just staying home and not going to any stores at all while I had Zevi, but then the forecast had another snow storm coming Sunday (this time they were predicting 12 inches, although we only ended up with 3) so I couldn't wait until Monday to do my shopping after all.  So Zevi got to come to Costco with me!  And he was great-- I set him to work buckling the kid safety harnesses and he was happy the entire time!  I also got to take him to his little gymnastics class, which was a nice opportunity for him to climb on everything.

The hardest thing about babysitting was the mornings.  I had to do my usual stuff getting all my kids ready to go to school, but I also needed to find time to get myself all showered and ready before Zevi got dropped off.  It was a lot to fit into a little amount of time, and I found it very stressful.  After school was also tricky since EVERYONE wanted to talk to me, and I really can only hear one person at a time.  This is hard with just my three elementary school kids (and frequently leads to fighting and crying over whose turn it is to tell mom about their day), so adding two more kids who also wanted my attention did not go very well.

But we did our best.

But I have to admit, I was not disappointed when Rachel had to cancel on me for Friday (because Noah had tested positive for Covid) and I could run around getting everything done that I hadn't been doing all week.  I cleaned house, I ran a whole bunch of errands that were all super easy to do if you don't have to buckle and unbuckle a 2-year-old at every stop.  It was nice to be able to get stuff done and feel all ready for the coming weekend.

Because....!  Saturday we were taking our three oldest kids to the temple!  In North Carolina!  Tom and Donna came and babysat Colton and Camille all day long, and we drove and drove and drove.

Unfortunately, because we had extra people driving with us, Craig insisted we all wear masks the whole time.  So that made for a long and tedious drive.  

The actual temple, however, was lovely!  Bentley is old enough to perform baptisms, so it was really wonderful watching him baptize Ryder and Kendra!  Craig got to be the recorder, and Kendra and Ryder also took turns as witnesses.  I was the only person who didn't do anything!  Normally I would have been thrilled to wander off and do my own service elsewhere, but I didn't want to miss seeing my kids, so I just sat and watched and was very happy.  

Afterwards, everyone was going to go to Chick-fil-A for dinner, but their dining room was closed.  We tried driving to a different one, only to have the same problem.  We were getting hungry and irritated at the idea of having to eat in the car after so much driving (3.5 hour trip one way, y'all!), when Craig looked at his Google Maps and realized there was a Shake Shack just around the corner!

GUYS.  It was a TEMPLE MIRACLE.  I didn't even know Raleigh had a Shake Shack!  So that made everyone happy.  The kids got to hang out with their friends while they ate.  Craig and I got a few minutes together while we shared concretes.  Life was good.