End-of-Summer Report (aka Nothing to Report)

• Sleeping in. Every day. Til all three lil ones get done with cartoons and come stand at the edge of my bed and stare at me. (The older three share in the joy of the super sleep-in.)
• Answering random questions from Mia like, "Do we have olive oil?" at 11:40 at night.
• Going to bed after 1 a.m. so I have one hour of personal space.
• Texting MK after midnight, "You're late. Hurry on home. HURRY. Don't speed. HURRY. Don't speed. @#!!*@#*#!?! arrrrghhh."
• Grounding MK for curfew violation.
• Ungrounding MK for scoring goals in pre-season games. (Rob's idea :)
• Emptying the dishwasher twice a day and still running out of cups.
• Doing the kids' dinner dishes because they're at practice again.
• Running through every sprinkler on my route, because it's almost noon and 80 degrees before I can get away from chores and needs in the kitchen.
• Scheduling all possible dental-cleaning and wart-freezing doctor appointments before school starts.
• Giving back-to-school haircuts. Getty wanted a mullet. (Okay... I talked him into one.) He said it's his "favorite haircut ever." Love that boy.
• Experimenting with washing my hair every other day. Not working. Takes just as long to doctor it as it does to wash and dry it. And, yes, I'm sure I care too much. It's a Briner-female tradition. (Jen has been rehabilitated and just gets on with her life :)
•  Making some room in my heart for scouting (not a Briner-family tradition) as I watch Getty become a fishing, backpacking, knot-tying patrol leader who eats dehydrated ice cream and loves every minute of it.
• Birthday partying, shopping, hiding, wrapping, floating balloons around the house from June through August, and eating donuts for breakfast. (Five of eight birthdays are during summer break.)
• Remembering that we were going to do "brainquest" study for an hour every day. (I think we did it for four days in June.)
• Thinking of enrolling Elle in disobedience school. (Dumped Tang all over the kitchen floor, sprayed the entire contents of a new Febreze bottle onto a chair, and scattered every article of new school clothing in several shopping bags. That was 25 minutes of yesterday.)
• Back-to-school shopping.
• Deciding that Mia likes skater clothes, while MK likes florals.
• Deciding that I get to pick out the boys' clothes until they get married.
• Driving Cy's soccer carpool.
• Driving Mia's cheer carpool.
• Driving Getty's football carpool.
• Keeping track of when to drive which carpool.
• Coordinating two new school carpools.
• Drawing up a master list of carpools.
• Reading "Emma."
• Finished reading "The Help."
• Saw "The Help."
• Could use some help.
• Help is on it's way.
School starts Tuesday :)