Liam's in the middle of a big weekend.
Yesterday after school (which finishes at 12:30 on Fridays in the kindergarten) we had his friend R over until his Dad could come get him after work, which ended up being about 6:00. Then we up and decided to go out to dinner, despite still being on a spending freeze, despite Liam being of course quite exhausted. I don't think Kaely's ever been out to dinner before, that's how often we do this (Liam might have been out two or three times in his life before). But she'd had a long nap - normally I wake her by 3pm to ensure an orderly bedtime, but with R here all afternoon I decided to cut myself some slack and she ended up sleeping until 4:15! - so she was fine.
Then today we had another friend, S, in the afternoon. When her mum came to get her (shortly after five) she and Liam were just about to start colouring in*, so her mum dashed off to the shops and they ended up not going till I guess fairly close to six too. We also had visits with my mum and from Chris's dad today, so it's been a social sort of day.
And finally tomorrow - forecast to be the coldest day of the season so far, truly wintry - they have the autumn picnic on at Liam's school, which is the big family event of the season. I'm not going, because it's my writing day and I only have three weekends left before it's all due in (gotta try doing a substantial re-write of the essay tomorrow). I was feeling quite sad about missing it, but now I've seen the forecast, I'm feeling sort of lucky. Chris and the kids will still go though. And I imagine they'll have lots of fun.
But, even this morning Liam was already showing signs of being tired, after his big day yesterday. By this evening he was getting quite annoying (though he was fine up until the moment S left), and I really had to try to remember that he's overtired. By tomorrow night I hate to think what he'll be like. And unfortunately he has swimming after school Monday. After this sort of weekend I would probably keep him home from that, but it's the last class of the term, and he doesn't go back until Spring as the centre is closing down for the winter to do some work. I'm almost wondering if I should keep him home from school Monday instead. I guess I'll play it by ear, but either way I must remember: Liam is tired, and tired children find it hard to behave 'well'. Must remember!
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*Before this, in the three or so hours S had been here, they had built a boat (a box with a small broom for a mast), played with cars, done chalk drawing outside on the driveway in the freezing cold (but under cover from the on-again off-again light rain), rolled wool into small balls suitable for making gods-eyes, started making gods-eyes, and very briefly played with lego. S had also had fun playing outside with Mikaela, and told me several times she wished Kaely was her little sister.
