Outnumbered: 100 Books

Tuesdays are our one day a week that we don't have to be anywhere all day (well, at least not until soccer practice at 5:30-but that's only for another month). Nobody has school, preschool or therapy. Hallelujah!!! This is the day for us to stay in our pjs until dinnertime. The day for me to catch up on housework. Its the day for the boys to play, play, play.

By 9 am yesterday, it became clear that we were going to need a goal for the day. We read pretty regularly but the busier it gets, the less reading we do. So, I suggested to the boys that we have a day where we see how many books we can read if we spend the day reading. Wahoo..does mom know how to have a good time or what?!?! I mean, she really gets WILD.

And I should confess, the goal wasn't just for the boys. I needed some structure to the day. A way to not turn into the mom who goes crazy seeing how messy the house is getting or loses it when confronted with tattling for the 80th time.

We decided to try for 100. I quickly printed up a 10 x 10 grid for us to fill out. Our plan was that every 10 books, the boys would earn a "treat" of some sort. This might be getting to play something special (like going outside for 30 minutes), something to eat or drink, or getting to watch a tv show they don't see often.

When the boys were having their play breaks, I was switching out the laundry, making lunch, cleaning up lunch, etc. It made for a busy day but it also kept the arguing (and scary mommy) at bay. Before I knew it, it was 4:45 and time to get ready for soccer practice (for the biggest boys) and playing at the park for the littles. We got to 77 books. Pretty good in my opinion.

I did all the reading, but the kids had lots of questions and comments about them. Our reading list included some worn-out favorites like Go Dog Go!, In the Castle, The Kissing Hand, Corduroy, and Where the Wild Things Are. It also included lots of superhero books, books about pirates, Curious George and other preschool favorites.

The grand prize was getting to go to Culver's superhero night after soccer. We are always looking for new places and reasons for wearing our superhero costumes Here are a few snapshots from superhero night. It was hard to get them to hold still in between all their superhero posing.

Before bed, the boys kept saying that they wanted to finish the book chart and read the remaining 23 books tomorrow (Wednesday). Now Wednesday is our busy day. The twins go to school all day (they leave at 8:40 and come home around 3:40). Then, all three boys have Awana at 6:30. So, that doesn't leave us much time to play, eat dinner, get ready for Awana, and read 23 books. I figured they would forget about it and that would be that. We might not have reached our goal of 100 in one day, but I was more than content with 77.

However, the boys were not. As soon as they got in the car after school today, they asked "mom, we're gonna read the 23 books, right?" So we did. We read 13, then took a break to make and eat dinner. While they were finishing up dinner, I read 6 more books to them. Our usual dinnertime entertainment involves spilling things, spinning around and mom repeatedly saying 'sit on your bottom" Tonight we switched it up and read books instead.

By this time dinner was over, it was 5:55. Grandma was picking them up at 6:15 to take them to church. So, while they got their shoes and Awana vests on in the front hallway, I read the final 4 books. Yep...we had to multitask to get these done. And during this time, Caleb was gated into the living room and peering at us over the gate every few minutes (don't worry, I'll give him some attention later).

Before we read the last book, I suggested that we should jump up and down and shout "100 books! We read 100 books" when we finished the last book. Andrew say no way, that was embarrassing.
When we finished the book and crossed it off the list, I immediately got up and jumped up and down and yelled "We did it! 100 books!!! We read 100 books!" Too bad we don't have video of that. Ha!

The twins giggled shyly and Aaron laughed. It took a few tries, but I did get them to do it too and grabbed a few pictures. In addition to celebrating, I also figured they needed to get some wiggles out before heading to Awana for the night.

I love Caleb's confused peering over the jail, I mean gate.

Now they're getting into it

Let's hold hands and jump!

Then we tried out the self-timer (I've just recently started using this setting on my "new to me" camera) so that I could get into the shot.

After I sent the big boys off to church, I got to spend some precious one-on-one time just playing with my very littlest. We built and knocked over towers.