Thanksgiving Countdown - Tuesday

Well, the countdown is proceeding on schedule (knock wood). Actually, I'm a bit ahead of schedule. My class ended early last night so I was able to finish up Monday's list and scratch a couple of things of Tuesday's list. The girls did a good job of cleaning the dining room while I was at class. They also did not kill each other. Tonight I will have one cleaning upstairs and the other cleaning her room. That should keep them busy.

Tonight's activities include: cleaning out the refrigerator (as tomorrow is trash day); sweeping and mopping my kitchen and bathroom floors (so a quick once-over with the Swiffer before the guests arrive should suffice); and steam cleaning the carpets. I'm also making my chex mix and then putting it out of sight because dude, that stuff is like crack to me.

My parenting class was better than I thought. The instructor said she knew we didn't want to be there, so we could skip the break and end a half-hour early. Yay!

We watched a DVD of some scenarios and then discussed what not to do. The scenarios were a bit overdramatic but I can see them happening with divorced parents - complaining about late child support in front of the kids; calling the dad a deadbeat; calling a mom irresponsible because she was late picking up the children for visitation. However, one scene involved a dad and his new girlfriend drinking and smoking pot while the kids were in the other room. The kids complained to the dad that there was no food in the house. I'm thinking "if you're going to smoke that much pot, you should have food to combat the munchies!"

The instructor did tell us that the number one thing kids wish they had more of was *drum roll* - time with their parents. So, in the spirit of that, I had Maddy read out loud to me while I was cleaning in the kitchen. Kelli and I stayed up until about midnight just talking about different stuff. I'm busier than a one-armed paper hanger, and yeah, I'm a little tired today. But having that time with them was cool.