Surviving Late Afternoon

Brad left Saturday for Korea, then on to Japan and then Hawaii. He'll be gone two weeks. That means transitioning back into single parent mode. It's harder to make that switch when we've grown accustomed to him being around frequently and traveling less. The hardest time of day for me seems to be late afternoon, about an hour before dinner. I seem to loose all my patience and the girls seem to have more conflict during this time of the day.

Tonight, in attempts to pass the time and avoid the melt down, we headed out on an excursion. We headed for the tennis courts in our neighborhood.
Baileigh really wants to learn how to play tennis but she is pretty stubborn when it comes to taking any instructions. However, today she unwillingly listened to my advice and realized she was able to consistently hit the ball if she actually watched the ball. This led to 15 minutes of her begging, "just one more hit before we leave!"
Mckenna preferred to do other things then play tennis.
Brooke got frustrated and decided to sit in the middle of the court and pout.
After a few minutes of tennis all 3 girls were easily distracted by green beads that they found under a picnic table. Perhaps we don't have any future tennis pros in our family.
Amazing...they are getting along at 5:07pm! A fortunate turn of events.
Daddy doesn't come home for another 10 days...we may be taking a lot of late afternoon excursions.