We made it!

After a summer off, today was Daddy Buffalo's first day back to school.

Which meant it was our first day back without Daddy.

Which meant me, alone, all day, with all 4 kids.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  They're mine.  And sure I can handle them!  And sure the rest of the Mamas do it year-round.

But once you get spoiled to having Daddy around every day.... well... you're spoiled!

Anyway, for all it could have been, the day was very smooth.  Probably partly due to the fact that we started back with school and routine 2 weeks ago, so a lot of things were already in place.

It's a good thing, because the day did not get off to a smooth start.

I woke up in the 1am hour with very little room on my side of the bed, Greg in the middle, and Alan squished up next to him.  I looked over the situation and decided the best option was to abandon ship and go sleep in Alan and Tyler's bed with Tyler.

For whatever reason, Tyler also left for the big bed, leaving me alone in the kid bed.

At 5:45 Greg woke up about to be pushed off MY side of the bed with Alan and Tyler both squished against him, and his side nearly empty, so he escorted all boys back to their bed.  Which ousted me, but at least back to my own bed!

Unfortunately, I never got back to sleep.  Neither did Daddy, Alan, or Tyler, for that matter.

And then....

Trying to make breakfast and get everyone's day started before Daddy had to leave, we had some livestock excitement.

Dale bottle-fed the calf as usual, and then after a second trip to the back yard he raced back in with this announcement:

"The calf is out of his pen!"

Because this post is already long enough, I will only say that this was a very exciting never-seen-before turn of events.

And Dale did get the calf back in the pen.  Eventually.

In spite of our early and somewhat chaotic beginning, it was a good day.  And we were all very, very glad to see Daddy home again at the end of it. :)