Today tested my multitasking abilities to their fullest. Christian has been assigned to build a Rube-Goldberg machine and was he was getting so frustrated with it. I was trying to talk him off the cliff and help him to make it work. Bella had to write an analysis of a transcript of Benjamin Franklin's address to the British Parliament in 1766 but the language was complex and she was having trouble understanding what she read. I was going over it with her. Peter was refusing to sleep and kept needing attention/food. We had plans to go to the beach an hour later, so I was also trying to make lunch to eat before we left and snacks for the trip and pack up the car with necessary beach items. All these things were happening simultaneously - project, analysis, fussy baby, food prep, and car pack. Yikes. My brain started to fry and I knew I needed to let something go. So I told Christian he really needed to go back to working on it alone because I just couldn't think about his problem anymore while dealing with screaming Peter. "You're just going to quit?!" he demanded. I explained that I'm not abandoning him but I need to focus on something else at the moment and he would need to work alone for a bit. That was really hard for him. Everything he touched broke or failed and it wasn't long before he was crying. I suggested he take a break and come back to it in a little while nad he responded, "I'm not ever coming back to it!" With that he yanked on our carefully contrsucted ramp and tore it to the ground, thereby destroying the most important part of what we'd accomplished up to that point. I was upset that he'd just destroyed hours of work and I sent him to his room. Well, he was headed there anyway. I felt really bad for him, but his leaving solved a big part of my problem. I finished up with Bella and she helped me pack up the car and make lunch. I fed Peter and the kids and somehow we all made it through that near train-wreck. I'm going to be so happy in a couple weeks when school ends and when everyone's school assignments come from me.
We went back to the same beach as last time but it was so full that there was a park employee at the entrance to the parking lot keeping people from entering. What a difference from last week! So we left the park and headed over to Martindale Beach at Kensington Park. It was also very, very crowded but it's a much larger beach with larger parking lot, so we had no trouble. The older kids loved swimming there, but Peter didn't. He cried most of the time he was in the water. I think it was too cold for him. The kids played a little with him and tried to cheer him up while he got used to the water, but he remained unhappy, so I took him out. He was very happy on the sand, but he had an allergic reaction to something. I don't know if it was from the water, the sand, or the air, but his face got blotchy and his eyes became swollen, red, and watery. His nose was running too. I scooped him and all our things up, and moved away from the beach, up to a grassy, shaded area. He enjoyed it there and after about 30 minutes, all the reaction symptoms cleared up. I was relieved to see that. I have no idea what he problem was but I'm glad it passed. He is definitely a sensitive kid.
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