Aftermath

Palmer's birthday went off without a hitch this weekend. It was fun and not that stressful. He loved it and I think everyone had a good time. There was plenty of food and train cake decorating was a hit for everyone.

It always cracks me up that you spend a ton of time cleaning to get ready for people to come over and trash the place. The kids room is a tornado. The dishes are piled up and everything needs to be cleaned again. The good news is that since the party was on Saturday I had all day yesterday to clean the place back up. Things are 95% back to normal. I don't mind messy. I understand that where there are new toys kids tend to go into overload. What does bother me is when the break/destroy things.

Palmer got a new train table and set for Christmas and there are no two pieces still together. I know that kids just play different but man. What is the purpose of taking everything apart? Poor Palmer tried to put some of it back together so he could run his trains but couldn't even do that. It would take me months to put it all back together so luckily Dr. Heskett doesn't mind that sort of thing. Needless to say as I was cleaning up yesterday I was heartbroken to find pieces of broken toys and toys that are now spread out all over the place. My kids are much gentler on toys (at least I think so) and tend to want things to stick together. In fact I would argue that Palmer is super OCD in that he likes everything organized and lined up. When he plays with his cars he first lines them all up and then pushes them one at a time. Even the farm animals from his barn tend to be in specific place.

I got to thinking about parent manners 101. I am not the best at remembering these things always but I try. When we go somewhere else and the kids are playing I try to always remember to have the kids help pick up the toys that they play with. Emily is the best little cleaner and it is always just a given that when you finish playing with something you pick it up. Kids get that. If you teach them from a young age it becomes somewhat routine. My kids know that shoes go in the cubby holes in their closet, coats go on the hooks in their room, dirty clothes go into the laundry hamper, and toys go back into the bins that they came from. Dr. Heskett and I are not the tidiest of people but I think that living in such tight quarters have helped us with this. There is no room to let your crap sit everywhere.

Then I thought even further out and wondered what kind of adult guest we were. Do you take your dishes to the sink and rinse them out and do you help clear the table after dinner? We have this unspoken rule at our apartment complex. Because there is no dish washer if you cooked then you don't do the dishes. I LOVE THIS RULE. It is so nice to just help put clean dishes away and put things back into the fridge. I also don't mind doing someone else's dishes when finishing a fantastic meal. We have done this so many times that we don't argue about it any more ("oh no you don't have to do that") and just get to work.

Anyways I am glad to get back to normalcy and we don't have anything really going on for quite sometime which is nice. This is Dr. Heskett's last week of nights (yeah) but then he goes onto a days rotation (boo).