the one with the sister

When I was growing up, my mom often called me “Trix”. Sometimes “Yvonne”, “Ellie”, or “Daisy”. She called me by the names of her sisters, especially when she was around or had just talked to one of them. I keep calling Kaylie “Erica”, and Erica “Kaylie”. It’s messing with my head. I even called Kaylie “Kaylie”, corrected to “Erica”, and then corrected myself back to “Kaylie”. My brain is fried, is what I’m saying.

I’m quite enjoying having Erica here, though. Sometimes it’s even quite practical, like this morning when Liliana started vomiting BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT HAD ENOUGH SICKNESS and I had to drive Kaylie to school. I took the babies with me and left Liliana with Erica. I like my van to be vomit-free.

Since Liliana got sick at about 8:05am and Kesler gets dropped off at about 8:10am, I didn’t give his parents much notice (I did text them right away, but 3 minutes’ notice doesn’t exactly count). So, I’m just sanitizing everything and keeping the boys as far away from Liliana as possible.

I had a really bad experience with the last daycare I used. I’d show up with Liliana. and the daycare lady would be sick. Like sick sick. Or her kids would be sick. A BIT OF NOTICE WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE. So, I try to let my clients know any time one of us has any type of bug, so they have the option to keep their kid away. Because showing up to a house full of sick without any prior knowledge? It sucks and it is not fair. I had many other issues with that daycare, but that was one of the things that bugged me the most. (The thing that bugged me the most was the yelling. I can yell at my kids (although I do my best not to because I am not a fan), but DON’T YOU DARE YELL AT MY KIDS. Not okay.) Maybe I was so spoiled with our incredible daycare in Regina, and Kaylie’s daycare (my friend Jodi) in Terrace, that it just seemed extra horrible. I’m so glad I got Liliana out of there.

Anyway, so we took all four kids swimming yesterday. Uh, that was interesting. The babies LOVED IT. They were so hilarious. And Preston tried to drown himself about a dozen times. The rest of the time he was splashing everyone. And not that I ever thought I could take two toddlers swimming all by myself, but now I know that I could definitely not do it. I mean, I could probably handle it with Kaylie with me, as she was quite helpful when Erica had to take Liliana to get her foot bandaged when she cut it on the bottom of the pool, but not by myself with just the boys. Oh, heck no.

So, yes, having a sister around is quite helpful. It’s also hilarious, especially when she walks down to the drug store to buy blonde hair dye and gets lost on the way back.