10/28/2008

Ugh. I hate being sick. More than anything else. Some icky scratchy throat/sinus/snot thing has struck the house. Me and Tim seem to be suffering the most, probably because we have been all up in each others business the last week. I feel a bit better today with the aid of copious amounts of Tylenol and naproxen, but yesterday, oh my. I ended up begging Tim to come home early from work and he managed everything while I passed out on the floor of the boys play yard and let them crawl all over me. Apparently my comatose body is endless amusement for two toddler, who knew? I slept for about an hour, maybe a little longer, before it was dinner time. I could barely hold my head up through dinner but started to rally a little bit after taking some Tylenol and getting the kids into the bath.

This morning, I think I might live, but it was touch and go there for awhile.

Chantal managed to kill her one month old cell phone last night. And she REALLY killed it, it won't come back on for anything. It's dead dead. How she managed that I have no idea. She's pissed off about it, I am just amused. There's been issues lately that I won't get into because I don't feel like it, just the usual, so karma having fried her phone amuses me. Of course, it meant that I had to give the phone I was using, her old Blackjack, back to her, but I am the least phone obsessed person here. There are literally four other phones laying around for me to choose from to use, so it doesn't matter to me. I would like a new phone, but at this rate, I will NEVER get one, so I'm not getting worked up about it.

Well, time to feed the ravenous boys. I swear, we spend half the day in the dining room

Hey, at least I am getting closer to being caught up here!

10/7/8

I am so so so happy because we have finally rented out the Little House! Woohoo! We rented it to someone who up until recently used to work with Tim's brother, and he came over and paid rent for October on Sunday. Yay! So that is one worry off our minds. I am really really glad that the house won't be sitting empty this winter.

My SIL's wedding is looming large. I still have to find Savino something to wear. *sighs* What a hassle. At least Haley is done, I got her a dress on Sunday and just have to make sure the shoes she has still fit and maybe get her a pair of tights. Of course, I have to make the cake and make sure I have everything prepared for the pictures. I need to go buy a few more SD cards for my camera because I plan to shoot in RAW at least part of the time so I can fix any exposure mistakes.

Oh, a bit of sadness. I went to take my wedding rings off last night so I could put lotion on the babies and noticed that my diamond band is missing one of the diamonds. Sadness. I was not entirely surprised though because I think the diamond that fell out was one that wasn't the right size or color anyway, it always bugged me that when you looked at the ring from the side, it didn't look the same as any of the others. Anyway, I took it into the store today and they are sending it out to get an estimate of how much it will cost to replace the diamond. It turned out one of the prongs snapped and that's why the diamond fell out so the prong will have to be rebuilt too. I am hoping it won't cost a lot because the ring didn't cost that much to begin with. I will know in a week. I had my solitaire checked while I was there too, just to make sure that I hadn't done anything horrible to it. I swear, I shouldn't be allowed to have nice jewelry anyway, I just bash it up. Thankfully, the solitaire is in good shape and the sales guy cleaned it for me. I love the sales guy that was there today, he fawned over my rings and when he was putting my information in the computer to print out a claim ticket for my band, he was all "Girl, you got a good deal!" when he looked at how much I paid for the solitaire. I don't think I'll ever shop at another jewelry store, I like them too much.

Something is going on with Jaden. I don't know what, but his behaviour the last few weeks has been unreal. Today and yesterday he was reverted back to the crying and whining that he was doing the first week that they moved in here. He hasn't been acting like that for awhile, and then it just starts back up again. I am wondering if there is something going on with Shawn that he is doing that. I don't know, but I hope Jaden settles back down soon because the crying over every little thing is unbearable. Between Jaden whining and crying and Savino on his hunger strike, these babies are wearing me down!

I need a nap so badly. I am so tired. Of course, I have to go rouse the babies in a few minutes and change diapers and get them into the car to go get the girls off the bus. At least we don't have to go to the store today. I think I am seriously going to just start going to bed with Savino. I'm always exhausted by the time he goes down, I always feel like I ought to just lay down and go to sleep but I usually force myself downstairs to work or clean or hang out with Tim. Then I don't end up in bed until midnight and then Savino wakes up at some point between midnight and 4 and the last few days several times during that four hour stretch, so there is no real rest. No wonder I am tired. I guess I just have to accept that I need an earlier bedtime. Sucks. I'm too old to stay up until midnight, I guess.

The leaves are changing colors again. I guess that means that fall is really here. And winter soon. I am not ready, bring back summer please! Ah summer, I took you for granted. Now I have to deal with impending Christmas. There are holiday decorations and Christmas crap all over the stores already and we're not even near to Halloween yet. I can't deal with the celebrating Christmas for the four months before it even happens. That's ridiculous.

We let Steve the cat back into the house on a trial basis after a haircut (I shaved him with the clippers) and a flea bath. My cat M'El has vanished. *sighs* Steve is beyond ecstatic to be back in the house. The first night back he slept on everyone's bed throughout the night. He started in Chantal's room and then came into our bedroom and was laying on Laila's bed when I got up that morning. Since then he has been super affectionate, despite having clawed and bitten the hell out of my hands while I was giving him his haircut. He looks ridiculous, just utterly ridiculous. At least it has cut way way down on the amount of cat hair we have to deal with, which was one of my big complaints about bringing him back in. If he doesn't do anything horrible, like covert peeing or whatever, he can stay inside. I am sad to say, but I think it was M'El who was doing 99% of the bad outside-the-litterbox madness.

Oops, time to get the kids.

9/30

I am waiting for Tim to get out of the bathroom and finish messing around with this DVD before I go to Wal-Mart. He took another day off because his foot is still MASSIVELY swollen, his skin is so tight too, it's very hard to the touch. I am worried about him. He's been taking the steriods they gave him and they gave him a shot at the dr's yesterday too, but the swelling looks worse, if anything. He says if it is still swollen tomorrow that he is calling off again too. I kinda hope it is just so he can stay home with me, because I love having him home!

I have to make the Wal-Mart run to get supplies for making the practice cake for my SIL Dawn's wedding in two weeks. I am making the grooms cake in the shape of a guitar. I need to buy a much larger sheet pan, the fondant, the gum paste, and perhaps different icing colors. Tim was all "Why don't you just use icing instead of fondant?". I don't know when the last time HE tried to smooth icing was, but it is a royal pain to get perfectly smooth and level. No thank you. Fondant just looks nicer, that's why they cover wedding cakes in it. I am not so psyched about how much all the supplies are going to cost me, but it's part of my SIL's wedding present from us, so I guess I ought to just consider the money as going towards that. And I will be able to reuse the sheet pan again, of course. I am hoping to get the cake done completely before the kids get home since I have Tim today here to entertain the baby so I can focus on cake making. If it turns out nicely, I will make the cake again this weekend and freeze just the cake part of it in the deep freezer so that the day before the wedding all I have to do is cover it in fondant and put the gum paste decorations on and finish it off. So, fingers crossed that it turns out nicely. I don't want to be in tears four hours from now because it looks like crap.

It has turned COLD for some reason. It seems a bit soon for it to be getting this cold. The high today is supposed to be 68, which is obviously not that cold, but tomorrow it is only 58 and will be in the upper 50's for the rest of the week. I guess I will have to bust out the babies long sleeved shirts and pants sooner than I thought. I have managed to get all their new clothes washed and folded, and I still have to put away Savino's but I gave Jaden's to Chantal. All that is left to wash is the mountain of 2T - 5T stuff. I am holding off on washing it all until I have a container to put it all in to store it.

I'm so tired for some reason. I don't think I slept very well last night. Savino woke me up RIGHT after I fell asleep, literally moments after, at 1am. He drank most of a bottle and fell back asleep. I am dying for this kid to SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT. What will it take? I don't know. He's going through a picky eating phase which is so bizarre for him. Usually he eats pretty well, if not a ridiculous amount, but the last few days he has been turning his nose up at the things he usually eats, so I don't know what is going on. I think it's his teeth, but I hope it gets better soon because he's not eating very much. I think we are going to take him in to have his labwork done today. I've been putting it off for almost a month now, I really hate the thought of them drawing blood from my baby, but it has to be done because our house is so old and I would feel better having his lead levels checked. Our house is seriously old. I wonder if we would qualify for the EPA to do renovations or whatever it is that they do if you have a really old home. I should look into that, I guess.

9/29

We are not having the best day! Well, Tim's bad day started yesterday afternoon when he was cutting the grass in the back by his truck and was stung on the calf by a wasp/bee thing. We've been battling them lately, there was a nest in the front yard on the property line between our neighbors house and our house and Tim put two cans of poison down in the nest and then ended up pouring gasoline down the hole and setting it on fire. Needless to say, he got them, but this other nest in the back he didn't even know about until he was stung. Well, at first it looked like his calf wasn't really going to swell up or anything, but today, oh my, it was BAD. His whole foot was swollen twice the size of his other foot, he looked like half-Frankenstein's Monster, half man. His calf and ankle were really swollen and it was going up his thigh. He came home from work because he couldn't just ignore it anymore. Benadryl wasn't helping, so we went off to the Urgent Care which was also his new PCP because of the fiasco with insurance with our old PCP who has a walk-in clinic. Well, we get to Urgent Care and they don't take our insurance anymore. Um, thanks?

Came home and found another Urgent Care in the next town over in WV that does take our health insurance and the doctors that practice there are also preferred providers with our insurance plan so hopefully he can switch to them, he needs refills on his medications too. He is going to try to get them to write the prescriptions so that we can do them mail-order which is much cheaper and that way he only has to go in for checkups, not just for refills. Anyway, he is out there at the dr right now while I am here so that I can go get the girls from the bus stop when its time. I didn't think he would be done in time for me to go with him, which he was bummed out about.

So, onto the poor me. I went upstairs to get Savino from his nap earlier, and he was crawling down the stairs (well throwing himself backwards down the stairs really) and I was below him with a hand on him so he didn't fall down. He was about five steps from the bottom and I went to pick him up to carry him the rest of the way, I turned to go down the last few stairs and somehow managed to trip myself, fall down the last three stairs and over the one step up to the landing all the way into the stair hallway while holding Savino. Thankfully, miraculously, Savino was comletely unscathed. I managed to twist and cradle him against my body so that all that happened was that he got set down onto his butt on the floor sitting up a little roughly. He wasn't even scared by falling, he just looked at me like "Whahuh?" On the other hand, I hit the wall at the bottom of the stairs HARD with my shoulder and left arm and was twisted half on and half off the landing. Owowow. It really hurt. At first I thought I broke my arm or dislocated my shoulder or something because the impact REALLY hurt. No, instead I just really bashed the back of my upper left arm and have a rash all down the rest of my left arm from sliding against the rough plaster/textured paint of the wall. I also managed to put a big long crack in the plaster of the wall where my shoulder hit it. I had an instant bruise and it looks pretty rough on that spot on my upper arm. It huurrt. I'm OK though, I will just have a really nasty sore bruise tomorrow and an embarassing story to tell. Still, it made the day a little less fun!

I made a few batches of Lara bars today. They turned out so good! I don't think that I have ever had dates before, and I didn't realize that they were so good! They're very sweet, almost like brown sugar. I made a big batch of Walnut Coconut bars for Tim because those are his favorite, and I also made half a batch of Apple Pie bars and half a batch of Banana Nut bars. I think the Banana Nut are my favorite so far, but I would like to try making the Key Lime Pie version too. There's about 20 bars in the fridge right now setting up, so I think we are set for the week. They're really easy to make, I wonder if anyone else outside our family would eat them. Even Savino likes them. I want to make the Very Cherry kind next as well, but I need to get some cherries for that.

Savino is cutting some teeth hard again, which means that he is not sleeping. *sighs* He is mighty cute though, and that makes up for it a little. He just started saying a bunch of new words yesterday and trying to mimic anything you say. He says, "Haley" (Aaa-lee) and "Laila" (sometimes it comes out Laila, sometimes it's just "La la" which is what we also call Laila),"Bye bye","Uh oh!", "Thank you" (Hank Oo), "Jay-d", "Kitty" (itty), "Hello?" (Eh-row?), and "Hey!". Tim was pretty stunned, we just kept saying words to him to see what he would say back, what he could manage and he would keep saying them after we asked him if he could say (insert word). He's too much. He definitely takes his milestones in leaps and bounds! He's 13 months today and I think he's right on track.

He has been standing up alone without holding onto anything quite a bit and has been experimenting with taking steps without holding on. Today he was standing in the front room while I was getting my shoes on and he was holding onto the back of the race car Power Wheel we keep in there when the kids aren't playing with it, and I said "Come on, let's go!" and held my arms out to him and he let go of the Power Wheel and took a step right into my arms! This isn't the first time he has taken a step by himself, the other day he let go and took two steps around Jaden in the play yard to get to a toy and a few mornings ago took two steps from the night stand in our bedroom to the bed. Soon, soon.

9/28

Oh my. We are in funnel cake heaven over here. Instead of driving all the way out to the Pumpkin Festival this weekend, we bought a bunch of "fair food" fixings and had a festival dinner last night. We have been buying funnel cake mixes but Tim decided he wanted to get a good recipe to make them at home and I think he found the perfect one. The downside? I can't even LOOK at a funnel cake anymore. I had one last night and half of one for breakfast and I am on funnel cake overload. I think we are going to have to give away the other 10 that are sitting on the counter right now. Too many funnel cakes!

I don't know what the plans for today are, but I am sure they include cleaning, and probably washing laundry. I am trying to dig my way out of the mountain of laundry I have. I don't know if I wrote about it, but one of Tim's co-workers gave us like 5 big black trash bags full of clothes leftover from their yard sale. There were clothes from 18months to 5T in boys and then clothes in Laila's size for girls. And I mean a RIDICULOUS amount of clothes. As in, don't go buy anymore, whatever you do. And half of them still had tags on them, they were never worn. This was excellent for Jaden because he really really needed some nicer clothes. That poor kid, I could not dress him in clothes that didn't have stains on them or weren't really worn, unless I put him in Savino's clothes. So he needed it more than anyone. Most of the clothes are really nice Old Navy or Children's Place, and half of them are expensive Thomas The Tank Engine track suits and matching outfits. Lots of jeans and pants and t shirts too, so the boys are totally set until they are about 5 years old for clothes. I am taking most of the 18 month stuff for Savino because it's all Old Navy and really nice and that's what I like to put him in. There was a giant stack of 24 month clothes for Jaden and the 2T - 5T pile took two giant bags. Laila has an entire bag full of almost new really pretty girly clothes too, all the kids except for Haley made out like bandits. Of course, everything has to be washed though, and that means about 10 loads of laundry. Fun fun fun. I have made some headway, the 18-24 month stuff is all clean and Laila's clothes are all in the washer and need switched over and then I can start on Jaden's clothes. I don't know where we are going to put all these clothes, we don't have enough dresser space. Jaden just has three tiny drawers in the dresser attached to his crib, and that's it. Laila at least has some dresser space that we can probably cram stuff into.

Of course, now I can't buy Savino any clothes, really. I might anyway! I really wanted to get him the last few peices of this rock and roll line at Old Navy, even though he doesn't need them. They're just terribly cute! Oh well. I didn't think that it would be fun buying boys clothes when I first started shopping for Savino, but I was wrong. It is fun! It's just harder to find the cute stuff, I think. You have to wade through a lot of generic "boy" crap.

I am on the hunt for the right double stroller. I found one at a flea market yesterday, but it is an older side by side model, and I don't think that is going to work for us. I really wanted to get an inline double stroller. Well, the one I REALLY want is like $250 and that's not going to happen. I refuse to spend that much money on a stroller we probably won't be using for more than a year or so. I want to find one used. Ideally, it would be one where you can rearrange the seats so the babies face each other, and then they can keep each other amused, but I will settle for one that is just inline. Though, if I really can't, I will probably go back and get the one for $20 at the flea market, I don't think anyone is going to go buy it any time soon. We just need a double stroller so I can start walking down to the bus stop again. I've been having to drive the car and it really sucks to waste the gas to just drive around the block, but there's not another option unless I have a double stroller.

9/26

Lara bars. Have you heard of these things? They're 100% all natural preservative free additive free fruit and nut "energy" bars. They're mostly dates with different fruits/spices/etc. Chantal loves the Lara bars, but they are RIDICULOUSLY expensive, like $2 a bar. You can make them at home though from dates and nuts and fruit. Chantal made some the other day and everyone seems to like them. I haven't tried them yet. I have been sticking with the SoyJoy because they are good. But I am going to make some different sort of Lara bars this weekend for Tim. He liked ones with walnuts and coconut in them. I am going to try making Cherry ones and Banana nut ones. A package of dates makes like 6 or 8 bars and costs $1.58 and then whatever you mix with it, banana chips are $1 for a big package, and we have a bag of coconut, and walnuts, and some cherry flavored cranberries. So, maybe $3 all together for 8 bars? A lot better than $2 per bar. If you're curious, the ratio of dates to nuts/fruit whatever is just 3 Tablespoons chopped dates to 1 Tablespoon fruit/nuts. I think it is more just however you like it though, not so much sticking to exact measurements. You just pulse the dates in a food processor until they become a sticky mass (it took awhile in my Black and Decker food processor, the dates were really hard and dry but eventually softened up and got sticky with some heat and friction from the food processor), take the dates out, put the fruit/nuts in, then mix together in a bowl and form into a bar shape with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge.

Savino signed "nurse/milk" to me today, asking to nurse! I about fell over! I was laying on the floor with him in his play yard and asked him if he wanted to nurse because he was burying his face in my boobs and pulling at my shirt. He sat up and sat back on his heels and did the sign for "milk". I was so impressed! He does the sign for "eat" and "more" but other than that, it seemed like he just wasn't interested in signing. I guess he is just more interested in communicating and getting more interested in signing. I am all for it! After he was done nursing on one side, he sat up and climbed over me and then did the sign for "milk" again and so I let him nurse on the other side too. He is getting so big! I just want to snuggle him up and hold him close forever.

Oops, did I say I was going to update more regularly? My bad. I think a cut and paste from the last month of my diary is in order...

9/24

Poor Tim. He came home today and announced that he has been demoted at work. Say what?! Yep. He's no longer the Director of Admissions. Um, yeah. The CEO called him into her office and told him "It's good news!" and that they are restructuring these departments together so that everything from intake to discharge is all in the same department, so this other guy is going to be the head of the new assimilated department. Tim seemed pretty upset by it, but I tried to tell him, it really IS a good thing. I mean, his job title changes obviously, but I don't think they will cut his pay (and even if they do, it won't be more than a dollar an hour I don't think) and he has less responsibility. Less stress! I told him, let someone else get yelled at because you don't have enough beds filled. Let someone else deal with all that nonsense. It's just the CEO's attempt to save her job because the hospital is in a bad position with Corporate who wants to see the numbers up, the beds filled, the budget fulfilled.

Tim, however, is taking it very personally, like they think it's his fault they aren't making budget and he can't do the job, etc etc. I told him he needs to stop making it about him, because it's just not. He has no control over the pencil pushers in corporate saying "you need to have x number of kids admitted every week", and he has no control over how many crazy kids get admitted to the hospital. But the stressing about it, I am 100% positive, is contributing to his health problems. So I think it is a good thing if he is being relieved of that stress! He thinks that the numbers are going to go up next month because last year October was a month that they surpassed their budget goals. I think the economy is crappy, the hospital is in a bad place having just come off that hold they put on admissions from July or whatever, and I don't think that next month is going to be better, but even if it is, so what? Tim says then they will think that it was him that was holding the hospital back. He is just so sensitive when it comes to this job! Everyone knows how hard Tim works, they can't fire him even if they wanted to because he is the one who designed all the programs that they use to track admissions and referalls and everything and he is the only one who knows how to use them.

realized that I have fallen into a very regimented schedule. The only deviations are days when we go shopping, or Eleni comes over, or something out of the ordinary.

7:00am- Savino is invariably up by now, and Tim gets up with him and changes him and tries to give him a bottle. Gone are the days when he would go back to sleep. He throws a fit until I take him and nurse him, he will nurse for 10 minutes or so on each side and then it is TIME TO GET UP.

7:30am- Downstairs with the girls to feed Savino breakfast and oversee the getting ready for school.

7:50am- The girls and Tim leave, I finish up breakfast with Savino and have a cup of coffee and a Soyjoy

8:00am- Savino plays with toys and makes a mess and talks to me while I work and check e-mail, usually I end up in the play yard with both of the boys and we play with the blocks and puzzles

9-9:30am- Savino goes down for a nap at some point here, whenever he starts looking really tired. Usually he has been up since 6:30 or sometimes even earlier so he is pretty tired out by this point. He nurses and sometimes has a bottle.

9:30- 11am- I do the dishes and sweep the dining room and then workworkwork until Savino wakes up from his nap, change Savino and bring him downstairs to play for a little bit while I make lunch for the boys

11:30-12- We eat lunch, the boys take their time eating, and Chantal starts getting ready for work

12:30- Clean up from lunch, figure out what I am making for dinner and take it out of the freezer/off the shelf/whatever.

1pm or so- Chantal leaves, and I get back down on the floor with the boys, they get the run of the living room and we get out the pop up tunnels or make a mess with the toys

2pm- NAPTIME! Jaden lays right down (usually with a little bit of whining, but no crying anymore) and Savino nurses to sleep and has another bottle if he feels like it.

2:30-3:45- The babies sleep and I work and put the TV on Bravo to keep me company. I play with the dogs and get the mail and prep a quick snack for the babies to eat in the car or when we get back. Make a bottle for Savino and a sippy cup for Jaden to drink in the car.

3:50pm- Go pick the girls up from the bus stop. 50% of the time we make a quick run to the grocery store straight from the bus stop because god forbid we have a day when we don't go to the store.

4-4:30pm- (Depending on whether we go to the store or not) The girls start homework, Laila usually only has one little thing to do and Haley has, literally, at least an hour and a half of homework every night. I change butts for the fifty millionth time and either start dinner if it's something that can cook unattended but if not, I get back on the floor with the babies to play while the girls do their homework thing.

5:30pm- Tim is usually home from work about this time and is greeted by two little boys who go nuts with happiness and joy that their personal jungle gym has come home. He changes out of work clothes and we swap places, he lets the boys jump and climb all over him and hangs them upside down while I go finish dinner and get the table set.

6:00pm- 7:00pm- Dinner. It takes four children a ridiculously long time to eat. I haven't eaten a hot meal in like, a year. I feed babies, I help Jaden mostly by loading up his fork and letting him feed himself and keep Savino supplied with a steady stream of food. Savino is pretty good with feeding himself, but can't get it on the fork by himself yet. It takes about 20-30 minutes just to feed them and then I can eat and Tim takes over. The babies are STILL eating at this point, they've just slowed down and the edge is off the hunger. Jaden is just a slow eater and can be picky, so he has to be constantly reminded and prodded to try what is on his plate.

7:00-7:45- Baths, pajamas, playtime if there is time but usually there is not. Haley has to finish whatever homework she hasn't completed (usually there is something), and both the girls have to pick out clothes for the next day and get through showers, hair washing, teeth brushing, etc. The babies have to be bathed which takes some wrangling, neither of the boys like having their hair washed so there are complaints and tears. Then they both have to be wrestled into pajamas. Jaden is not so tough, he is very cooperative about being changed and dressed. Savino is another story. He tries the entire time you are changing or trying to get him dressed to roll away and escape. It is extremely frustrating. He does not lay there and just cooperate. It takes a lot longer than it should.

8:00pm- On a good day, bedtime. The girls get in bed to read for 30 minutes, and I lay Jaden down. He goes down so easily, everyone gets kisses and I tell him I love him and Sweet Dreams and Don't Let The Bedbugs Bite and See You In The Morning and he just lays down and goes to sleep. No crying. No fuss. Just down and out. Savino has to run around the bedroom (well, crawl or cruise) and be captured and held down for kisses, and he and Tim have this game they play where Savino starts nursing and won't give him a kiss until he starts to walk away and then he unlatches and yells at Tim to give him a kiss. Tim turns the light off and I nurse Savino and then give him a bottle and try not to fall asleep myself (if I was smart, I would go to bed at the same time as Savino, I could use the sleep). It usually takes about half an hour to get him to sleep. He is still awake when I lay him down most of the time, but he just rolls onto his stomach and curls his legs up under him with his butt stuck up into the air and lays there until he falls asleep.

8:45 or so: I come downstairs, very sleepy, make the girls lunches for the next day. Do the dishes. AGAIN. Sweep the dining room floor and mop and straighten up all the boys toys and put them away. Work. E-mail. If Tim's not using his computer, I edit pictures if I am in the mood. Watch TV in the background.

Bedtime for me is a crapshoot. Depends on how worked up I am. Lately it has been between 11 and 1am. It also depends on how much work I can cram in, whether it is busy or not. Also, if Savino wakes up and is inconsolable, I try to get up there before Tim wakes up (he usually goes to bed at 10) and nurse him down or whatever.

As long as we stick to the schedule, things usually go pretty well. If we get an hour off in the evenings, it throws everything out of whack so I try really really hard to make sure dinner is on the table by 6 and the bath/bed routine is started by 7:15 or so. Otherwise, mass chaos reigns.