Today …
…we had toast with jelly for breakfast.
…we sat on the swing together, my mother and I, vehemently trying to avoid a water gun assault. Twin B, standing across the yard, held his feet in guerrilla stance, pressed his gun, about two feet long, to his hip, and with a look of pure focus and an evil laugh aimed the barrel directly at our faces. He usually missed, but once in a while he sprayed us… directly in our faces. My mother stated that this would be a perfect photo op, but I told her that although Twin B had terrible aim, there was a chance he could douse my camera. Not worth it.
…we did our chores, including laundry.
…we ordered burritos from my father’s favorite dive, and ate them for lunch at the park, since it was his posthumous birthday. We call it “Special Ed Day”, and all of us do something he would have done to honor him. My sister, in his honor, sat on the throne and had deep thoughts. Toilet time was when most of my father’s inspirations came, like when he decided to purchase 50 buses that didn’t run. They still don’t.
…I asked my mother and older kids to babysit while I went to get a haircut. I had no idea what the end goal was to be, so after leafing through the 1001 hairstyles magazine, I found something I thought would be different, easy, and cute, explaining to the hairdresser that I didn’t want the back so short that she would need to get the razor out. At the end of the cut, she got the razor out, and my hair now looks like it always does, except much shorter. And because she told me that there was a great sale going on right now at Ross, I had her style my hair rather than leave it wet, which cost an additional unexpected $20, plus tip.
…I went to the great sale going on right now at Ross, and bought four outfits for $80. Excited!
…I came home, put my head under the faucet, and redid my hair.
…I did more laundry.
…we had peanut butter and honey half sandwiches for a snack.
…we reinflated and hosed down the baby pool, as we must do daily due to the slow and undetectable leak, and set up the Slip ‘n’ Slide. The six littlest, who are the only ones currently at home, mostly just fought, but I think Baby Hippo had fun digging in a 3-inch mud hole between the flagstones.
…I called my sister to tell her that the 11-year-old boy asked me if I was pregnant. I asked, “Why would you ask something like that?” and he said because he had heard Daddy John mention something about that on the phone. I told him no, that he was talking about the parakeets, and he asked, “Are you sure?” and I said, “Yes.” and then he said, “Anyways, I was able to extract the DNA from the peach like the internet instructions said. It was awesome.”
…,after John arrived home, we headed to Sam’s for snack shopping for the trip to California. John refused to put anything in the cart without my presence because he said if he messed up, he would get “the look”. He was right. The only unhealthy things we purchased were Nilla Wafers and Goldfish crackers. Disaster almost struck when he tried to stack two boxes of Caprisun, which happens to be on the top-ten list of horrible foods for kids, on the flatbed. I had said I wanted juice, and he said that was juice, and I said, no, it’s sugar, and he pointed to the box and said that it was 25% less sugar, and I said “still”, so he put it back and we purchased real juice, you know, like from an orange.
…, after our trip to Sam’s, we went to Burger King since it had an indoor play place, as a refuge from the heat and humidity. The restaurant itself smelled like grilling burgers and bathroom cleaner, but upon entering the play place, we were assaulted by the smell of old urine. After a few minutes of sitting there, I went back to the register to ask to speak to the manager and told him about the problem. I went to sit back down, repeating to my family how horrible it smelled, and John said, “You get used to it.” Soon thereafter, the manager came in with a spray bottle of air neutralizer and sprayed it near all the patrons. It greatly improved the air quality, but only for about six minutes. He profusely apologized, saying that they deep clean it every Tuesday and Thursday. I assume he wanted us to come back.
…., when I couldn’t stand the stench anymore, I called the kids down from the stinking play tubes and told them we had to go. They kept saying “One! More! Time!” so I let them, but then I forgot who I said could go one more time, so everyone kept repeatedly going one more time and it took another ten minutes before we were able to escape. My mother had gone to the Hallmark store while we sat in the play place. I think she owes me.
…we came home, gave all four of the little boys a bath together, John told the twins a story of The Three Bears and tried to rock Baby Hippo to sleep (He’s such a doll.). He’s still awake.
…I blogged.
…after feeling bad that Baby Hippo wouldn’t be rocked to sleep by John, I will now take him and try myself. Wish me luck….
Thanks for listening. :)
…Here I am again. After trying to take Baby Hippo, John refused to allow it, and is still rocking him. He’s not fussy, just talkative, Baby Hippo, that is, so he’ll fall asleep soon. John is an angel.
Addendum: Baby Hippo asleep. :) Now time for cheesecake! :) :) :)
I seems as though whenever I read a new post of yours, I keep saying to myself, "Self, I LOVE Jen's blog." I am now going to read this whole post, between laughter and smiles, to D, who will LOVE it too. And we will remember everything we miss about you and your awesome family. Have I mentioned I can't wait to see you at the end of the month????????
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C, you can't imagine how good and missed you make me feel. I wish we were together. I love you guys! :)
ReplyDeleteYou know, I only have two kids running around the play area and I still forget who I said one more time to, so I just set time limits. "Five minutes and we're leaving!" Works like a charm.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a fun filled day full of family and love. You are so blessed to be a mother to this great bunch of kids and they are lucky to have you!
ReplyDeleteHi Jen :->
ReplyDeleteRemembering your father.... he sure gave you lots of material for memories, didn't he ;->
You were very right about the likely hood of the twin drenching your camera with his water gun. 'Murphy' and his laws, would not have been able to leave a situation such as that alone!
Did the scrap guy finally get all 50 of those buses off of your moms property? I remember you posting about that (and so much more) when you were trying to unload a lot of your dad's collected 'stuff'.
About your haircut story - the other day our daughter-in-love-to-be commented about how much my hair had grown / how it was starting to get long again, and inquired if I was going to go get it cut shorter. I had out right laughed. "This is the length I had requested in the first place!" The hair dresser had thought it would look cute shorter ....
She had also thought I should have my eyebrows waxed - and then charged me for it. I had NEVER had them done before. Not sure I ever will again either.... ;-p
So-o-o, you not yet serving John cake for breakfast yet huh? o;-p!!!
You and John, with your two varying views on nutrition (you) vs. fun/smiles for the kids (John) would make a trip to Sam's mighty challenging!
It is kind of humorous that you went to Burger King after struggling over what is and isn't healthy snacks for your kids ;-p
I agree with the commenter who said she would announce "5 more minutes" and then that's that! that was the only method that actually worked for me as well.
You youngest enjoys his captive audience and having the parent all to himself at bed time ;-)
"Cheesecake"... thanks, now I want some too o:-}
I took the three girls at home to a shopping trip to Sam's recently and a woman stopped us and said about our full cart,
ReplyDelete"Your cart looks so healthy!"
It's nice when the kids want to eat healthy and that compliment made me feel good. But, I'm glad she couldn't see us at the movies last night:)
Lovely and fun post to read as always :) :)
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