While Bob took three of the children back to Columbus for two of them to get retainers fitted, I was left here with only four children. The dynamics of only five people, rather than the usual nine was pretty different. There still weren’t enough Clics for all of the children’s ideas, but overall, they played together and helped each other out really well. I didn’t sleep much past 4:30 am any of the three days, thanks to Abigail on Monday and Wednesday and thunderstorms on Tuesday. I’m not a big fan of thunderstorms in a standard house. They are even more unnerving in a house on wheels.
After running laundry most of the day on Monday (only five loads this time!) and having Midtown RV Services out to repair a water leak in the back bathroom, we were off to the grocery. I know, fun times, right? Midtown was easy to deal with, fair in their prices, and came to us. Gotta like that.
Ian has gotten hooked on Myth Busters, so the children managed to use all of their screen time fairly early, watching Myth Busters episodes. While I attempted to catch up on scanning receipts and other important papers, the children passed the time with Play Dough, K’nex, Clics, fashion shows, a pretend party, and Zhu Zhu pets, since it was too cold to play outside.
The girls love doing fashion shows, where they dress up, come show off, then return to the dressing room to change outfits seven or eight times. Today, Eli just couldn’t take it anymore and had to join in. He’s pretty funny when he’s pretending to be a girl. 
The fun of the moment is running Zhu Zhu pets around the table, trying to keep them from falling off. We are so easily amused.
I got the task of dumping tanks for the first time today. It’s not really as bad as might be imagined, and according to Ian, I did pretty well for my first time. Thanks, Ian. Unfortunately, we won’t be going to church tonight, since Abigail has an eye infection and I don’t want to risk spreading it. On the brighter side, that means we’ll be home when the others get back, road weary though they may be.
My song of the week is Francesca Battistelli’s “This Is the Stuff.” It’s so easy to get caught up in our little frustrations, but God can use even the trying times to draw us closer to Him. Great song and great reminder!