It's Only Wednesday!--running hard with no end in sight!

Crazy week already..
if you've noticed the absence
of my comments,
this has been my week:

* Monday--
no wait,
let's start on Sunday--
since Dani has been here,
I've been getting up with her
at 2am to feed the Ninja child...
I keep her company
while he eats and then I go back to bed.
I don't know why this baby doesn't sleep
all night long.
He's twenty pounds!
We feed him dinner
we bathe him
and put him down at 9pm.
He sleeps for about 5 hours
and then wants a bottle.
All of my yahoos slept thru the night
around 3 months
some sooner.
So if you've got any ideas,
I'd love to hear them.

Okay, and up at  6am,
to let the dog out.
by Monday morning,
I was already tired...
and if you recall,
my Monday post was actually
written around 2am
because of the cold spell (oh how I wish it'd come back!)
and Mr W's snore-fest.

Daisie returned from her Arizona
trip to visit her birth father,
Monday night.
The excitement to see her--
I even made a door poster--
"Welcome Home Daisie! We Missed You! We Love Your Gutz!"--


quickly evaporated when I saw her
hair.
It's dyed blonde.
There are no words to contain
express
my feelings about this.
She's fifteen.
We talked about dyeing her hair
in depth
and I said
"NO." ---
it's inappropriate for a young woman her age,
it's expensive to maintain
it's unhealthy for your hair,
and all those chemicals into your skin.
blah
blah
blah.
So the homecoming went from
"WOW! She's home!"
to
"Crap! What'd you do to your hair?"
in less than a minute.
In reflection,
I guess I should be grateful she didn't ask
for a tattoo of the Grand Canyon.

After I reattached my head
to the rest of me,
I calmly went down to her room
and handed her two letters
I'd written to her while she was gone.

We talked about her hair--
her plan was just to return to AZ
everytime she needed her roots dyed.
Uh, no.
School is coming up
and there's not going to be a break until the holidays.
Which means,
come September,
her roots may be down to her ears
and that's a natural consequence of her choice.
I'm not bending on this.

She went to visit her birth father
over Spring Break and came back with
highlights--
after Id' already told her "NO.",
so it's not like this is a new thing--
she knew exactly what she was doing.
I think she's at the age where
she's making choices based on the thought,
"It's easier to get forgiveness than permission."
So come September,
October,
November,
December,
with her brown roots lining her blonde dye,
I hope she will learn this lesson:
"When Mom says No,
she means it."
or some other grand lesson on
Choice and Accountability.
Pray for me.
No, wait,
Pray for her.

IN less than 12 hours later,
yesterday morning by 7am,
she was packed to go to our
Stake's
"Daughter of Virtue Camp"...
our Stake just bought some sweet land
in southern Colorado,
where many many hours of work
has been spent clearing the land,
running electricity,
digging a well water system
building pavillions,
several bathrooms with showers!,
raised tent sites,
clearing paths
and establishing grassy gardens areas
in the middle of a lush mountain area
has been created specifically for our
daughters.
I forgot to take pictures yesterday
of
"Camp Joseph"--
but both Nana (who went up as a leader)
and Daisie took their cameras
so we'll put some pics up next week.

I wasn't planning on
driving the two hours south
yesterday morning when I got up--
nope,
I went to drop Daisie off at a meeting place
where it was discovered that there wasn't enough
room in the leaders' cars for both Stuff and Girls--
so my thinker started thinking,
and I said,
"Here, send me."

There was joy and rejoicing in my Suburban
as they filled it to the ceiling
with Stuff,
and the girls left with their leaders,
while I ran home and woke up my yahoos
and told them we're going on a roadtrip today!

We got there about an hour after everyone else,
so that the tents were set-up,
the matching colored t-shirts had been donned,
and the girls were gathered at the flagpole
being greeted and briefed on the rules--
only one really stuck out to me--
"Always have a buddy with you. There are bears in the area."
Got it.
Take someone with you to the bathroom that you can outrun.
Easy-peasy.

The camp is lovely,
it's going to be even more lovely as
we continue to make it so.
The girls were as happy to see us
as we were to see them--
nevermind that we'd just seen them
before they left.
We all mushy-gushy that way.
I don't know why--
it's a sickness really.

After Dani and I and the yahoos
toured the Camp,
we left and drove the 100 miles home.

It was too hot to cook last night,
so we went to

"REDDDD ROBBBBBINNNNN"--
 love their fries...so soft and yummy.
Addictive in every way.
I would in fact, give a kidney for a
bottomless basket of their fries.

What?

Today is supposed to be a scorcher--
over 90-stinkin-degrees
so we're headed out to the pool
to the mall
to anyplace air-conditioned
for the whole day...
We'll hit Costco up at lunchtime--
their free samples tour is to die for--
and love those buck-a-piece-churros,
am I right or am I right??

I love air conditioning.

It's only Wednesday
and there's more to come--
more hot weather
more running around
more "teaching moments"
in every direction.

Catch me if you can...