Catching up with the Blasers

This week in the Blaser household:
Eric tried to fit his workout into his schedule. This means that he has to get up at 4:30 to go to the gym, fit in a workout and a shower before leaving for his hour-long commute so he can be to work by 7. He fit in 3 days of this schedule and then started getting sick so Thursday and Friday he slept in an hour. But still, the commute is shorter than Cedar Hills to Seattle.

Paige: Right now my least favorite mom duties revolve around the kitchen. Meal-planning, grocery shopping and cooking are such chores to me of late. I don't want to do any of them. Hence my impulse buys yesterday at Costco. The Super Bowl samples were out and I tried a few. One was a pulled pork sandwich, the pulled pork was already cooked. The rolls were delicious. So guess what we had for dinner? Less expensive than eating out, more expensive than pulling my own pork from a huge slab of meat but less effort for me. I used to enjoy cooking more. I'm sure I'll like it again soon but right now, ugh.

Ridge: We bribed him into taking the test to see if he can be in the advanced learning lab class next year. Tomorrow afternoon he'll spend 4 hours taking a test. School has been a repeat for him this year. He said that last week his teacher offered treats to the first 5 kids in the class who finished their math before Ridge did. One girl beat him. Ridge said that he would have finished first but everyone was turning around, looking at his paper, telling him to slow down so he was distracted. So Ridge got 4 mini candy bars. I told him that next time he can go slower and let those poor kids get some candy and I'll buy him a candy bar. His basketball team lost so badly last week, 4-54. Hopefully this week's game isn't such a landslide of a loss.

Cannon: During science on Wednesday they built little vehicles out of spools, rubber bands and boxes then raced them down the slides. Cannon was running to the end of the slide and twisted his ankle so badly I had to come get him from school. He sat in the wheelchair to get out to my car he was in so much pain. Thankfully it wasn't broken or even sprained but he did have a recovery day at home on Thursday. He was still crying in pain in the morning and crying even more about limping around the school so I let him stay home. Today he wore and ankle brace under his shoe and his limp is almost gone.

Laine: There is a story telling competition at the school in the coming month. Each class sends representatives to tell stories in the assembly. The school winners go to the district competition and those winners go to state then there's a national competition. The idea of competing in DC made Laine so upset that she couldn't even think of a story to tell, nor would she listen to any of my suggestions. She also wasn't consoled with my reasoning that with this attitude she's not going to win any part of the competition so she doesn't have to worry about going to the capitol. Eric finally got her to write up the story about the first time she tried to ride a motorcycle and how she ran into a tree. We've been struggling with this for a week.

"Pollyanna" dress, a birthday gift from Grandma Blaser.

Sommer: We rearranged the girls room on Wednesday so now their beds are right next to each other. She was happy to surprise Laine with the new arrangement after school. The picture is mid-process. There isn't much room to move the beds around and I almost squished myself when I was lowering Laine's bed to the ground. We stayed in our pjs all morning while we worked and then rushed Sommer off to preschool. Sommer has discovered Sesame Street on Netflix. My other kids didn't watch it, though Ridge watched Elmo's world when he was 2-3.

Massimo: Is getting much better at tantrums, especially when I don't let him go outside. Or when we do go outside and he wants to walk in the street. He throws his head back and goes limp. I'm afraid he's going to hurt his neck or back or that I'm going to drop him. Yesterday we were on our walk to the mailbox and I let Massimo lead the way. He only had to be steered back to the sidewalk once and then he decided that we needed to walk all the way down the hill. I wasn't prepared to be outside for long and either was he. It was freezing and there were snow flurries but he just wanted to be out. We stayed out for as long as we could and then I carried him back up the hill. He cried the entire way.

Standing at the sink makes him happy. He made a huge mess with the grapes, chewing them and then spitting them out on the counter and floor, but it bought me the time I needed to help Cannon through his homework and missed schoolwork. He had his first motorcycle ride in grandpa's back yard this week. He stayed very serious the entire time. I think that he liked pointing at the boys and Eric while making motorcycle noises more than the actual ride.

And that's a bit of our week.