Foster Further

 It's Friday after five full days--after six months of nothing much--and wow, I have three exhausted little people. They haven't protested a bedtime one night this week. Here's the rundown on what I observed.  At pick-up the second day Kate jumped in my arms exclaiming, "Mama!" She was relieved I was there to pick her up, still a bit unsure of her new schedule and when she'd see me. Once in my arms she got a bit weepy and whispered in my ear that she'd been looking for me alllll day long . I sat down and cuddled her on my lap and assured her that I loved her and would always come back. Very poignant moment.  James also ran to me, hugged me, and said how happy he was to see me. He held it together in school but in the car he used a lot of big facial expressions and sad words to tell me about all the hard times in his day. At one point his voice got very sad and he said his teacher was, "not nice to me" because she wouldn't let him look at the ...

But, first, Gus is supposed to be making family dinners now that I'm headed back to work. Tonight's exciting entree was ramen noodles, after past exciting entrees of spaghetti and mac-n-cheese. He also did some fancy math to try to convince me every serving of ramen contains 24 grams of protein to meet my "every meal must have protein and a veg" mandate. No, son, cooking up four packets so the pot has 24 grams does not mean each person consumes 24 grams, nice try. Besides, ramen packets? Actual protein in that powder? Hmm, I'm skeptical. The best part of the meal was teaching Kate to say "ramen", though: Wobin? Mah-ben? Amen? She finally gave up, stared at her bowl and said: "It good! I yike it!"  So, day 3 of preschool. On Wednesdays they start the day with a 45 minute Mass. Serious flashbacks to my days in a Christian school when we had chapel every Wednesday. Except we didn't have to go to chapel until we were in 6th grade. Mass is...