Sunday morning we received the email regarding Jack's assessment at Brighton College. It would be rescheduled for Wednesday. In the end, Stuart had a meeting that didn't start until 10 am so there was no need for me to take the day off because Jack's test was over by 9:30 am.
My poor little sickie!
This was a little more of a stressful activity for Jack because there was no exact way to do it and he felt he was always messing up. Poor kid!
Both kids were pleased with their final product.
After the birthday party we headed back to the club, fed the kids and then it was home and showers for the kids. Stuart stayed at the club with some of his rugby pals.
Sunday evening Millie had gymnastics and I decided to walk. I had told myself that I needed to walk a 15 minute mile, in fact, three of them. I was going to walk for 45 minutes and wanted 3 miles to be what I walked when I was finished. As you can guess, after not walking for exercise for a very long time, my goals were a little lofty. I had to run some in order to get the three miles completed in 45 minutes. It was tough but I did it.
Once we were home from gymnastics the kids he dinner. Millie wouldn't eat her dinner. She was throwing a fit, and since we are tired of her picky eating habits, I took her upstairs, showered her, and put her to bed. I assumed she would be hungry Monday morning.
On Mondya morning I continued to get the exams prepared for each day of testing the following week. The hardest part is filling in names for the students who enrolled later in the year and were not assigned to a class. I had to write their names, in the correct order, sometimes not knowing what that was. I had to defer the Arabic writing of the names to our building manager. I need more practice with my Arabic letters, clearly.
Once school was over on Monday I headed home to homework, not mine of course. Then Jack and Millie were off to play at their friends' house. Once they were home I fed them and then they took a shower. They ended up watching The Good Dinosaur, again, before it was bedtime.
Stuart had rugby, preparing a match with the 3rd team on Friday. But after that he will be gone for the next two Friday's so will miss two matches. While he was at rugby I watched trashy television. I do enjoy my own time on Monday and Wednesday evenings.
Millie woke up complaining about her throat on Tuesday morning. So, being the good mom, I pumped her full of Tylenol and sent her off to school. As you would guess I got a message from the school just before 1 pm to say she was complaining about her throat but she had no fever. They gave her some more Tylenol and she stayed until our driver picked her up. He was going to get to the school before we could anyway, so it only made sense.
Tuesday at my school was a day of organizing with paperwork needed for the end of the term. Since we don't have regular substitutes that would have responsibilities of filling in grades on the computer, that becomes my job for 4 different sections. Such fun!
After school I took paperwork to the central office for flight reimbursement. That only means the end of the year is getting closer. They seem to be paying us our flight monies earlier than last year. That works for me!
Once the kids were home Millie had perked up a bit. So we headed to gymnastics at 4 pm. When we got there the teacher was outside and asked if Millie forgot to tell me there would be no class today because they were painting the ceiling of the gym. I told the teacher that Millie probably didn't remember because she's 4 years old. Now, I sit outside the gym every night she has class. A simple step out to tell me this information could have saved me some time and frustration. Before we left the teacher said we needed to come on Thursday at 5 instead of 4 because there was going to be a Mother's Day celebration. Mother's Day in the UAE this year is March 20. I get so confused and wish all Mother's Days were the same date around the world. We went back home and decided to feed the kids early and then if they wanted some fruit before bed, we could get that for them.
To be fair, Millie was a bit blah by the time we got home, so an early night wasn't totally out of the question.
So they had dinner, though Millie did not eat much, and then fell Millie fell asleep in Stuart's arms at 5:10 pm.
When I went to bed, Millie had a fever. I gave her Tylenol and rocked her for a little while. She woke up at 2:30 am and wanted to get into bed with us. She didn't have a fever but I gave her some medicine as a preventative. Hello restless sleep. I moved her back to her bed at 4:30 am. Needless to say I knew I would be wiped out at work on Wednesday. Super.
Millie was better Wednesday morning when she woke up. I, again, pumped her full of Tylenol and sent her off to school. Stuart took Jack for his assessment and afterwards I spoke to Jack. I asked him how he did on the assessment. He said, without skipping a beat, 'I did great!' He probably did do well, but that statement out of his mouth made me know he would never have a self confidence issue.
After school I went to see Cathy. She had a procedure on Monday, but seemed to be getting on really well. I sat and talked for a bit and then got back to the house for the long awaited delivery of our tumble dryer. Yahoo!
We washed a load of laundry later than plan, so I felt the need to stay up and make sure our dryer worked. I set it on one hour and then fell asleep on the sofa, waking at 3:30 am to not quite dry clothes. Boo! So I sat it for another 2 hours which was probably too long, but then all the clothes were dry when Stuart pulled them out on Thursday morning. My modern convenience is back in working order.
Thursday after school I went to Brighton College to turn in Millie's letter of acceptance to the school. I spoke to Annie, the admissions person, about our resumes we sent in. She said she would check into whether anyone had looked at them or not. Brighton has decided to keep Millie in their Foundation Stage 2 class next year, which is the equivalent of preschool. The school where she currently attends would have sent her to grade 1 next year, our equivalent to Kindergarten. We are thrilled they want to hold her back because she is really young and we would have done our best to hold her back once we moved back to Arizona anyway. Brighton College has noticed her immaturity and lack of skills and is going to do the leg work for us, which is perfect.
After my stop at Brighton, I decided to go to the mall and look for a new swimsuit for our trip to Sri Lanka. I found one and also remembered that we would be in Sri Lanka for Easter so the Easter bunny would need to come while we were out of town. I got some chocolates and a gift for each kid. Oh the trouble we go to for our kids.
Millie had gymnastics Thursday evening, but not until 5 pm for some reason. When we got there I remembered why she didn't have it until 5 pm. There was a Mother's Day program. It ended up just being a presentation but Millie was not involved at all. I don't know why the communication here is so pitiful at times, but it continues to frustrate me.
Stuart finally had had enough of the older kids that play football around our cars. They were also using foul language on Thursday evening. He went out and told them they needed to leave our area. He also informed them that he knew many of them from the rugby club and hey we're setting a bad example for younger kids in the neighborhood. They moved and didn't mouth off a bit. That's the good thing about the expat kids, they usually are pretty respectful and they certainly don't want to get into trouble with their parents, or at least most of them don't.
We got up Friday morning and went to weight in for the Biggest Loser. Because spring break starts in a week the participants decided this would be the last week and they would start up again after spring break. As a part of the celebration of the last week, Stuart made everyone breakfast burritos. 
Here is our breakfast burrito assembly line.
After the burritos, we stayed at the club for a bit and watched some of the kids play rugby.
Around 11 am, Millie and I went to the mall while Stuart and Jack went back to the rugby club. Stuart had a match at 1 pm. Millie and I got back to the club after some shopping. We watched the match, then headed to a painting birthday party.
I know these painting parties are very popular in Arizona, but this was the first one we had been to. The kids had so much fun and painted some beautiful fish.
Millie wouldn't let me help at all. In fact, once I tried to tell her something and she swung the brush at me and said, 'I can do this by myself.' And she did do it by herself.
We got up Saturday morning and went to DeDe's for the Easter party. This is our last craft party for the year. We will have to wait until Halloween for the next one. Again, all of the children had a great time. The crafts were a little bit easier than the ones for Valentines Day.
There were 3 different crafts, but when we realized the third craft had to just be glued and there were about a thousand parts, that became the craft we sent home as a take home project.
Millie made her crafts by herself. There was a door hanger and a picture frame. I love Oriental Trading Company.
Once the party was over we headed home. The Richardsons stayed for a while and the kids played. We then headed to the club for lunch and a swim. I actually swam 40 lengths, which I hadn't done for well over 2 months. It felt good and I knew it was good for me.
After our swim we went home to grab the kids jammies and towels, then headed to the Richardsons for dinner. The kids ended up playing indoors the entire time. Then we had a full English roast dinner and off the kids went to take showers.
Millie and I headed upstairs so I could bathe her. She ended up going back down to the stairwell to do the unthinkable. She gave Henry and Jack the finger. Oh yes, you read that correctly. Apparently she had seen her best friend, Abbey, do that at the rugby club on Friday evening. After the investigation, telling her that was not nice and she must never do that again, I had to message Abbey's dad and tell him. He was grateful that I messaged and had the same talk with Abbey. We watched a bit of rugby and then headed home.
On the way home Millie fell asleep. Jack had some fruit and then went to bed as well. Stuart and I turned in shortly after the kids.
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