Back to the Grind

Today the kids let us sleep in until about 9.  I heard both kids up and considering that Ben is in his crib until we get him out, I got ready quickly because I hate him being in his crib as a convenience to us.  While I was getting ready, I realized it felt like a pancake kind of day.  I quietly got the griddle out of our closet (we're still lacking for storage in the kitchen and pantry) and headed downstairs.  Rachel came down and helped me quickly unload the clean dishes and load the clean ones and then we got Ben out of bed.  Lori had woken up by then and helped get the kids going on food.  It was more of a lazy day.  Did some deep cleaning in the bedroom, did all the laundry, go some stuff from Christmas sorted and made sure I had a good list of all of the gifts I received so I can start thank you notes.  (Yes, I'm doing them this year, darn it.)  The kids were a little high strung, but I was able to get Rachel to get some chores done as well.  (We'd play a round of monopoly and then she'd go take care of something and then we'd play some more.  She's starting to understand it and it's totally giving her some great math practice.  I do have to say, however, the cards are difficult to read in this version.

She received the Monopoly Pink Boutique version for Christmas which I have to say is quite interesting.  It comes in a box that looks like a jewelry box which is quite clever.  Instead of Community Chest and Chance, you have "Text Messages" and "Instant Messages."  There's a few other subtle tweaks, but it's funny because it seems to be undecided about whether it's girly-girl pink princess or empowered female entrepreneurial business investor-type.  The places are all trendy names of places young girls might stereotypicaly shop and you build boutiques and malls instead of houses and hotels.  The playing pieces are a purse, a soccer ball, a massive cell phone from 1990, a small dog, a pair of sunglasses and the one I always use, a skateboard.  The playing pieces are also charms that can be added to a bracelet if so desired.  And the money is still multi-colored but different from the original so that it ends up being confusing.

And for reasons I can't explain, Lori rolls a statistically improbable number of doubles.  Downright eerie. 

Tomorrow, back to the office.  It should be quiet.  For the one team, I'm the only one in the office.  For the other, most of the team will be there, but they'll mostly have their heads down working hard, only surfacing if they need me to step in and referee something or provide coverage.  I'll be carrying in tasty left-overs from here, so hopefully there will be some other people around to enjoy them.  I'm toying with the idea of finding some other places within the building to work from to make it even quieter for me.  I'm hoping it's the perfect opportunity to get caught up on my email.  I think I have about 165 emails left in my inbox.  They are, however, the most complicated ones - requiring research or reading or attachments or thought.  That's why they're still there, they couldn't be dispatched of easily.  But now, with everything else done, they will become the easiest.