Tuesdays are for crazy

Here is another installment of "a day with the Bickels". Lucky you!

Today Luke and I woke up and compared our crazy dreams. There seems to be an insane dream epidemic going on in this household. Maybe we need to stop eating hoagies before bedtime. Wait, that was Cliff Huxtable, not me.

Anyway, William was up and immediately became hypnotized by "The Electric Company". For those of you without the opportunity to watch PBS 24 hours a day like yours truly, they have remade the 70s classic show and air new episodes now. It is a cute show and I enjoy it as much as William. I'm still able to function as a human being when it is on though. William is not.

I went up to get Jack when he started calling for me and he said, "well there's my mommy" when I entered the room. Not sure who he was telling this to since Henry was still asleep.

Luke left for work, Henry woke up, we walked William to school, came home and ate breakfast (or chocolate chip cookies, whatever). Lucy arrived and we got down to the business of a crazy day.

Lucy is a little girl I watch sometimes and she is 6 months younger than Jack. She and Jack have cultivated a love-hate relationship that is worthy of any sibling rivalry. It entails hugging and rejoicing when they see each other in the mornings, running over and hitting or pushing the other person when they least expect it, yanking toys out of each others hands, screaming as the other person walks by and looks at them funny, having a perfectly civil 2 year old conversation over lunch (e.g. "That Jack hot dog." "Yes, my hot dog." "I eat all my hot dog." "No, I eat all my hot dog." "I need goldfish." "Lucy eating goldfish!"), and winging toys at each other.

Henry is a perfectly innocent bystander in all this insanity. He is more interested in telling me bad jokes he finds on PBSkids.org and messing them up completely. "Mom, what did the Grandma say when she picked up the kid?" "I don't know, Henry, what?" "Underwear!"

Yesterday I had a bit of a scare with my job security. Long story short, I think everything is going to be fine. But, before I knew that this morning I spent part of the morning online. Why? Was I job searching? No, I was entering on-line contests. I mean, if you are faced with certain poverty, isn't that what you would do too?

Also this morning I decided we needed to clean the rooms upstairs. Why I decide to do this with three kids, I'm not sure. I spent the morning picking up and they spent the morning taking everything back out. Fun for all parties involved.

My favorite time of the day when Lucy is over is nap time. Usually both Lucy and Jack are so exhausted by their interactions with each other that they actually sleep. No so today. Jack yelled and babbled in his crib for an hour and then started insisting "I wanna go downstairs!!" Lucy was laying on the couch and every time I told her to close her eyes and go to sleep she would close them for 7 seconds and then open them and fling her feet into the air.

We walked to get William. When we go I usually let the kids run in the soccer field as William makes his way to us. Today Henry and Lucy both got stuck in the soccer goal. Henry took a spectacular spill when he tried to take off running while his foot was entangled. Lucy just stood there and patiently waited for William to come rescue her.

Back home, William did his homework in record speed since I told them we were going to play outside when he was done. It was so beautiful today! We all went into the backyard and discovered quite the ladybug infestation by our shed, much to the delight of the boys. William got out his net and they chased and captured bugs. Lucy spent the time licking bubble wands (even kids who are only with me occasionally are nutty).

My neighbor came out and gave us a bunch of Einstein bagels and bagel poppers. This resulted in four children being covered in cinnamon, sand, bubbles, and ladybugs. At one point Henry excitedly pointed out that, "William has a ladybug on his booty!"

Lucy went home and Luke came home. I decided that it wasn't going to be worth making dinner since everyone filled up on bagels, so Luke got us pizza (yeah, Luke!). Henry tried his hardest to give us indigestion for dinner until Luke and I both declared, "NO MORE TALKING" at the same time. William said it would be funny if there was plastic pepperoni on the pizza and we could call it "phony pepperoni". It is funny to see the way that kid's mind works.

Well, we are off to put everyone to bed. Should be fun, as always!