The weather alone was enough to make today a remarkable sort of day. Winter needs to end, now. It’s TRYING. And even though I know that we will most likely have at least one more big snow before it ends for real, a day like today gives me hope.
It also gives me little muddy footprints all over my nice clean floor. Oh well.
But before that, it gives me children who rise at the butt-crack of dawn because strange and unusual things are happening, such as:
A) Sunlight! In the morning! Like, early!
B) Birds singing!
C) Tingling kiddie-sense that maybe Mama is dying to sleep in!
Sometimes I can sleep in on a Saturday, if the planets align correctly. Today was not one of those days. The television was “all snowy” and the kids couldn’t figure out how to fix it and couldn’t figure out how to not scream their heads off and torment each other while doing so. So we were ALL up early, albeit ONE of us stomping around and muttering while a little black cartoon cloud rained down from above.
It took me about three seconds to fix the television. “GEE,” I announced to no one in particular, “I could be wrong, but I don’t think you can use the cable box to watch Cartoon Network when your television is on channel ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT instead of channel THREE. I wonder how THAT happened.” The precipitation was obscuring my vision, but I swear both children suddenly sprouted wings and halos in the face of this news.
[Complete non-sequitor: I just watched a commercial for the Sunbeam TeaDrop and thought it was a spoof. But it’s NOT. “Hot tea in minutes, JUST the way I like it!” Really? Because the horribly labor-intensive method of putting the teabag in your mug and pouring in hot water was… too much for you? My mind has been blown. Also, suddenly some of the things I saw at the Invention Convention seem a lot less dumb.]
The kids ate breakfast and trashed the house while I attempted to wake up. Allow me to take this opportunity to let you know that if you have not finished up a shower only to find a small child patiently waiting to ask you if you have any bottlecaps (Me, in my towel: “On me? No.”), you really have not experienced ALL of the joy that parenthood has to offer. (And by “joy” I of course mean the perfect situation in which to call your kid “Rainman” to his face.)
Eventually everyone was ready to go, and then the fun began.
Took Chickadee to Tae Kwon Do. Monkey came with me to the bank, then we went back to watch class.
After class we stopped for bagels to take home for lunch. Went home, ate lunch, wrapped a birthday present. Loaded recycling into the car.
Took Chickadee to a birthday party. Monkey came with me to the dump, where we unloaded our plastics and newspapers only to fill the car back up with books from the book swap. (I picked up Bel Canto, because it was there and I have never read it. I heard they were going to revoke my membership in the Big Girl’s Writers Club if I didn’t check it out.)
Picked Chickadee up, went to gas up the car and go through the car wash. Fortunately only EVERY OTHER PERSON IN TOWN had the same idea. Spent several years at the gas station, both in line for a pump and then in line for the car wash. Went through the car wash screeching loudly, because that is what car washes are for. (“Help! HELP! THE CRAZED SPACE WORMS ARE TRYING TO EAT THE CAR! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!”)
Came home, played outside (without coats!) for a couple of hours. Made dinner. Ate dinner.
The kids got on the phone with their dad, and I overheard Chickadee telling him, “Well, I don’t really have anything to talk about. Nothing interesting happened today.”
I’m thinking that the next time she has an uninteresting day, it should involve less spin-kicking, cake and prizes for her, and a heckuva lot less driving, for me. But maybe I’m just crazy. And sleep-deprived. Or short on bottlecaps. Who knows.
Dare I ask what the handsome young Rainman wanted those bottle caps for?
Love,
Mom
YOU SAID:
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT instead of channel THREE.
that was hilarious. LOL
I wake up just like that! Oh, the glory of parenting.
I haven’t the slightest idea how you do it all, Mir. You’re an amazing lady.
What I want to know is: When are we going to get our, “Thank you mom, you are wonderful and I appreciate all that you do for me?” Will we have to be on our deathbed??
Of course, my kids can barely talk in complete sentences yet, but dammit, I want this one to be their first!
It must be the sleep deprivation or I am sure you would have noticed that the teadrop has brushed chrome accents. Can any of us really enjoy a cup of tea without that? It just feels…empty somehow.
Bless you for having clean floors to be muddied up. I only faintly remember a time when I had more than clean floor, since by the time I get to the second one the first is no longer clean. I’ve decided that I just have a very long learning curve for housework.
I saw that teamaker commercial too — WTF?!
I hope you love Bel Canto; I did. And if you do, then read The Magician’s Apprentice, which is by the same author but a wholly different type of novel.
The teamaker? I had the same exact thought…. like it’s so freaking hard to nuke some water and drop in a bag?? Insanity.
Love hearing stories about your kids. Makes me feel normal to know others are in this boat of “can’t help but love them to pieces but sometimes I Really want to sell them on ebay” with me.
I’d like to hear what you think of “Bel Canto” when you’ve finished it. It’s one I keep being told I should read and I’ve picked it up in bookstores a half-dozen times and I look at the synopsis, and I look at a page or two inside, and I put it back down. Maybe one of these days I’ll actually try it.
It started out as a dark dreary day here with a lot of rain. The sun is trying to come out now though.
Hello from Pennsylvania, where I am visiting my parents, who have the world’s s..l..o..w..e..s..t internet connection! But you’re worth it. What is it with kids and coming into the bathroom to ask for stuff while you’re in the shower? It’s like my boys are magnetically drawn there while I’m shampooing my hair. “MOM, can you get me a SNACK?” Oh, yeah! I’ll just jump right out and DO that! Because I’m clearly not BUSY, or anything! ;)
In all fairness to the TeaDrop (not that I am a Tea Drinker) I will share a little story.
I have purchased my mother over the years, a number of Automatic Drip Coffee Pots. They get used once or twice (usually at a holiday get-together or the like), and then break from lack of use (I guess).
My mother has always explained that she never understood why people (like me) insisted on buying a product like this, “After all how hard is it to just put in the coffee and let it perk on the stove?”
So, how stupidly simple vs. how convenient is in the eyes of the beholder.
Oh, and based on my niece and conversations with her estranged father, “Well, I don’t really have anything to talk about. Nothing interesting happened today.” equates more to “I really don’t fell like talking to you” more than “Nothing was of interest”
Bottle caps…the candy?? LOLOL Oh, my.
The tea maker thingy. My mom-in-law came home from the thrift store one day with some used contraption to “make” iced tea. It was bigger than my coffee maker. Wouldn’t matter if she didn’t live with us. Or if she didn’t bring useless stuff home every day. It’s like having a toddler, a teenager and a dog all rolled into one. She has used it once. Maybe. Much like the original owner, I suspect.
Put some tea bags in a jar of water and stick it in the window. Criminy.
Yep, we do the Rainman thing here, too. I think it’s even more evil here, given his autism but he’s seen a bit of Hoffman’s part and thinks it’s funny. Bad mommy moment.
I don’t know how you do it all but you do and you make it amusing for us. I hope it makes it all a bit more amusing for you, too.