My Sleepy Valentine

Tuesday means story time, so we had an eventful morning here (and there!).  We started off by finishing up our Valentine Cards.  Some were for us to take to our friends at the library, some were to mail, and others are for delivering on Thursday.  We counted this as handwriting since Rachel and Ford wrote their own name twenty times each!  Then Rachel did her math quickly while we gathered up all of our library books to return today.  We read a few Valentine-themed books and re-read any books they wanted to hear again before they returned to the shelves (re: every.single.book).  We did so much reading, I wasn't sure if they'd even be excited about going to story time, but today was the big Valentine's Day party, so they were ready!!  They had a blast listening to Mr. Jason and then another girl came and read a book, then they got a stamp and watched a short Donald Duck Valentine's video.  Then the real fun began....snack time!!  It's hysterical to see these kids get cheese doodles, cookies, chex mix, chocolate, and JUICE BOXES!!  Poor deprived things attack that stuff like they don't know when they'll ever see it again!  Our new favorite part about story time, though, is the puppet theater they've added.  After everyone else left, Rachel, Ford, Ruby, and Kingston played puppet theater while Vanessa, Hyland, Mr. Jason, and I watched (and set up barriers so they couldn't run all over the place).  It was at this point that I discovered that Ruby had a MAJOR accident in her pull-up and I had not brought any pull-ups or wipes (And the Mother of the Year goes to....).  Thank Goodness Vanessa came to story time today, we "borrowed" one of Kingston's diapers and some wipes on our way out the door and got cleaned up before the drive home.  I really didn't think they'd want any lunch after all that junk, but, little did I know....Actually, the girls just wanted some fruit and Ford wanted a peanut butter sandwich (I also forced him to eat some grapes).  After a rousing game of Jake and Smee steer the ship, we read three more stories and headed to nap time.  The big news here is that RUBY actually put herself to sleep in her crib today!!!  I covered her up and told her I'd be back after I got Rachel settled and when I came back, she was asleep!!  I love that she can do this sometimes now.  I mean, my goodness, she's over 2 years old!!!  We probably took the side off her crib way too early, but she could climb out at about 13 months and I was really worried she was going to get hurt, so she's never been trapped in there and forced to put herself to sleep.  I swore with the third child, I was going to keep her in the crib until she was 3, but she stubbornly changed all that.  Hopefully, she'll get better and better, though, at not needing someone to sit in her room so that she doesn't keep getting out of bed or screaming and crying for someone to be in there.  Every day things get easier and everyone learns more and we just keep plugging along.