Weekly Accounting

Items on the floor I recently vacuumed:
* 3 pairs shoes
* 1 enormous can Lincoln Logs (thanks, Costco!), empty
* 8 gazillion individual Lincoln Logs (picked up very quickly by children, to their credit, when threatened with the idea that I would simply vacuum up said logs)
* 1 bright pink rubber monster finger puppet
* 1 pair eyeballs for Mr Potato Head
* 1 tiny plastic crouching soldier, in desert fatigues
* half a dozen random wooden blocks (mostly the simple bridge shape, which makes an excellent telephone; apparently the soldiers need command centers under each table in the house)
* 1 wide purple rubber band that used to hold broccoli stems together ("So handy for making bow and arrows out of Lincoln Logs! We can't throw it away, Mama!")
* 8,000,000,000 crumbs, assorted

Times I've vacuumed the house in the last seven days: three

Times I've picked the hand towel up off the floor in the bathroom this morning: three

Song and dance routines Daughter has performed this morning while practicing her "ballerina twirls" for the ballerina classes she will begin taking next Friday: three

Number of cherry tomatoes harvested off our very late plants this week, which Son has proudly taken for his snack time at Kindergarten: nine

Times I've called the school bus transportation office to try to remedy the fact that Son is not on their list of children who need to be picked up for Kindergarten: five

Weeks we are into school: three

Times the bus has actually stopped at our house to pick up Son: zero

Hours until the bus arrives for the very first time to pick Son up: two

Quantity of elation this produces in a five year old: immeasurable

Quantity of relief this produces in a mother who was not looking forward to dressing everyone in snow gear, and loading and unloading the preschooler into the car just to drive Son one mile to school several days a week all winter: immesurable times 100

Number of mouse traps purchased: none

Number of mouse traps to be purchased this weekend, in an effort to turn our house into a Hotel California for mice: two frillion ("you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave")

Number of air pizzas I've eaten while writing this post: one gajillion (according to the small pizza makers in my house)

Number of home-made cinnamon-sugar doughnuts I intend to eat this weekend while on our annual field trip to the cider mill and pumpkin patch: as many as it takes to make the day absolute perfection.

May you have a happy autumn weekend in your neck of the woods.