It is going to be a very long day, but I'm going to take a couple of minutes for myself. The three oldest kids all got sick Monday night, but while Anna and Jack have recovered easily, Jeremy's bug is still hanging around. At 11:30 last night, Don was shampooing the carpet in the living room, down the hallway and into our room. While I was gathering up many disgusting towels and trying to convince Jeremy that sneezing and throwing up are not necessarily connected. He was not easily convinced.

While neither Don nor I has gotten a full-blown case of whatever the kids had/have, our mothers managed to get it after only a brief time in our house. I wish I could've avoided exposing them to the germs, but I had to go to Tulsa Tuesday and conduct the same meeting in Edmond on Wednesday. It has been a miserable week, so there has been very little time or energy for posting. I haven't even managed to check other blogs.

And now my time is up. Back to cleaning the house...

One page almost down...37 more to go. Sight words are going to be the death of me. Jeremy "learned" 33 pages of sight words, approximately 10 on a page, in kindergarten, and now he has to learn 38 pages this year. Of course, they are the same words, and after three months of summer vacation, he doesn't remember them. Of course, if I was SuperMom, he would've continued to work on them over the summer and be prepared to read chapter books this fall.

Yeah, right. Who has time for sight words when there is popcorn to be sold? Jeremy went to his first cub scout meeting and brought home the popcorn order form. At least we will have a break between selling popcorn and cookies.

I have Internet access for the time being, but I have lost everything else. Christmas list, resume, Web site favorites. It's very depressing. I have also been unable to connect to my work's remote desktop, and that is driving me crazy. Yes, I wanted a new computer, preferrably a laptop, but I wanted it on my terms. I wanted to be able to transfer all the stuff I want to keep, but that is not possible now. Let's just hope the computer will boot up properly tomorrow.

In other news, Anna had her first soccer game. The first three-fourths of the game was very bleak. We trailed 3-0 most of the first half, and then in the last 5-10 minutes of the game when we were down 4-2, our girls finally got the hang of it. We are playing on a bigger field with a couple of boxes around the goal and a goalie who can use her hands. Our team finally figured out that they can keep going inside those boxes to kick the ball. Our last two scores were back-to-back goals made by probably our best player. It was very exciting. Anna isn't playing goalie but defender and that's fine with me. We just need to get her to be a little more aggressive and used to running.

Nothing else to really report since this computer issue has cleared most things from my mind.

One more night and order will be restored -- well, at least Anna will have her bed back. It has been a nice visit with my BIL, SIL and four nephews. The boys have been relatively well behaved. Their youngest and Jack are the same age, so they really hit it off.

D, his sister, brother and SIL took all the kids to Turner Falls Sunday afternoon while Baby and I enjoyed a quiet house. Baby finally took some decent naps, and I was able to fit in a nap around my efforts to clean up the house.

As we've gotten older, I think we have all mellowed. Personally, I believe D and I have always been pretty mellow, but it helps that we are all even more relaxed with so many kids around. I'm glad they were able to come, and I hope they enjoyed their visit. Now I'm ready to get back to the usual schedule...

We spent the long weekend with my childhood friend/college roommate and her family. It has become an annual event, meeting at Grapevine, sharing a suite, shopping and playing cards. We always have a great time.

There's something about those friends that you don't see very often or talk to regularly, but when you get together, it's like you've never been apart. Even better, our husbands get along -- almost too well sometimes.

I splurged and actually got fitted for a bra! Now, I actually own three bras that each cost more than a 24 pack of pop. I also found a purse that is the same style of the one I had a few years ago that was perfect. The old purse was a simple black design, but this new one is pushing at the boundaries of my comfort zone. It's red. Those were my attempts at doing a little something for myself.

Of course, I still managed to find many clothes and good deals for the kids. They each even ended up with a stuffed animal (like they needed one more of those).

That's probably enough procrastinating for now. Sitting at the computer is not going to get my house cleaned before the in-laws and the nephews arrive on Thursday. It will probably be another week until I blog again (unless I decide to hide out in my room).

And we thought Jeremy was particular. He's got nothing on Jack.

After a challenging morning getting the older two off to school, I was faced with the task of preparing Jack for his first day of preschool. He had me fooled because he wasn't particularly grumpy when he woke up and then it came time to pack his lunch. Maybe I gave him too many options. Maybe it was too early to be thinking about lunch. Whatever the reason, this job was too much for him.

Dinosaur sandwich, circle sandwich or rectangle? He opted for the circle. Once I finished making it, I quickly slid the round pb&j in a baggie and hoped he wouldn't notice that the bread was cracking a little on top. However, he demanded to examine the sandwich to determine if it was perfectly made. Of course he noticed the crack and that led to the first meltdown.

After he calmed down and decided to go with four little triangles, I made another sandwich. Then it was time to actual pack his lunch bag. Somehow his three-year-old brain forgot that he chose the lunch bag that looked like big brother's rather than the colorful Diego lunch box. He insisted that I was using the wrong bag. He tried to find room in the backpack that contained a change of clothes, but he realized the effort was futile. Finally, we decided to go with a paper sack, but before I even unpacked the first lunch bag, he decided it would work.

Now it was time to decide what he would like for breakfast: cereal, frozen waffle or an apple. He went with the apple but wanted to pack the cereal. I was able to talk him into eating the cereal on the way to grandma's house.

During this entire time, Baby was a real trooper -- alternating between crying and chewing on the nearest object. He deserved the one-on-one attention he got from grandma today.

While preparing for school was frustrating, he did provide me with a little after-meltdown entertainment. He sang Oklahoma! over and over and over on the way to grandma's house and then to school.

I visited my hometown today. While I was in California, a hurricane or significant storm or whatever you want to call it, hit the small town in northwest Oklahoma. When we arrived at the airport yesterday, my mom decided to stay at my house rather than return to a house with no electricty, which means no AC.

Power was restored late today, so I took her home. The flood and wind damage was obvious soon after you entered the county. Bales of hay had even been shifted by the flood waters, and railroad tracks had been washed away. The town was literally littered with tree limbs and other debris. There was even a mangled trampoline on the side of a road.

Fortunately my parents' house sustained very little damage. The rain gutter was blown off in one spot, and the antennae they don't use was blown over. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the old, run-down building they have downtown was not damaged enough to warrant an insurance claim.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow.