In my head

God must really get a kick out of me.

I have this apparently unbreakable habit of creating in my head perfect visions of how things will be. When I started staying home, I imagined a sparkling house, laundry always caught up, quality time reading and playing with the kids, and having time to volunteer regularly. I was sure the last two summers would be an organized montage of library events, summer excursions and water play. I'm pretty sure I don't have to paint the picture of how NOT any of those things my time has been.

Abby and Ethan are in school now. Ever since I knew we would be having Aaron in May, I've been imagining this time when both of the others would be gone all day and I would have hour upon hour home, alone, with my baby. I could clean house! I could play pattycake and organize the kids' clothes and clean out the pantry! I could take long walks pushing the stroller and meet the school bus every day and be holding the baby in one arm and dinner in the other each night!

See what I mean about God? He must think I'm hysterical.

So far, Ethan has missed 1 day of school for fever and Abby has come home early and then missed 2 days for a virus. Today, in theory, I will be alone with Aaron. I'm pretty sure that things will be a bit more survival mode than Martha mode, though. At least for a while. I'm not as concerned with getting the laundry done as I am getting to take a shower. Not as concerned with making dinner as I am with getting to eat lunch with both hands. Not as concerned with meeting the school bus as not being asleep on the couch when it gets here.

It's okay though! It's only August. I'm sure that by October Ill have found my stride and things will be great. By then I should be able to work on the kids' scrapbooks for at least half an hour each day.

Shhh. Do you hear somone laughing?

Daycation

A couple of weeks ago Matt took the day off of work so that we could take Abby and Ethan on a "daycation." (I made that up. Or at least I think I did--if you've ever heard someone else say it, please don't tell me.) We left Aaron with our friends Chad and Marla and their 3 girls and headed to Tulsa. We went to the Oklahoma Aquarium (surprisingly great for a water-themed destination in the middle of the landlocked heartland), Cheesecake Factory for lunch (worth the trip alone) and Kaliedoscope Children's Museum (no extra comment here, but the parentheses seemed necessary for consistency). I think my photos tell the story of the day best, so here we go:

You can feed stingrays at the aquarium. I have to admit, they freak me out a little after the Croc Hunter thing. Also, the food you give them it totally gross. A and E loved it though.


Proof that a shark could indeed eat both of my children whole, and that contrary to popular belief A and E do NOT have the biggest mouths on the planet. Note that I did not pose for comparison myself.

They fed some turtles too. Much less threatening animals, and the food was only carrots.

Warm fuzzies in the tropical room.

More warm fuzzies in my happy place, The Cheesecake Factory.

While perhaps totally irrelevant to the story, I want to record for posterity how ridiculously good my food looked. It tasted even better.

The best strawberry shortcake I have ever had. Yes, I was at the Cheesecake Factory and I did not get cheesecake. Back off.

The kids' museum was great. There was tons of stuff to do, but what our kids seemed to enjoy most was the little town they had with all these rooms where the kids could do grownup stuff. They had a post office, restaurant, grocery store, salon, doctor's office--you get the idea. This first picture is funny because I don't know that Ethan has ever seen anyone do this--he was just following my prompts.

This was Abby's process to diagnose my stomach pains.

Abby loved to play the busy grocery shopper. Here she's the doctor on her way home from work.

Ethan made an excellent checker. Matt's purchase cost "two hundred and fifty nine seventy fourteen."

Abby in her other favorite role, injured elderly citizen.

At the salon they had several mannequin heads for kids to work on. They were mostly fine, but one was downright creepy. I took its picture and someone must have noticed, because less than 5 minutes later an employee replaced it with a much more normal head.

The kids went ballistic when they found the jail. They marched us in, laughing maniacally the whole time. We tried to convince them to leave us there, but it didn't work.

We had a great day and were worn out when we got home. It wasn't the beach or Disneyworld, but it was more than sufficient.

Things I Could Live Without...

...but would prefer not to:

(in no particular order)

1. Diet Dr. Pepper, preferably from Sonic

2. My TV shows

3. My pillow

4. My cell phone

5. Paul Mitchell styling glaze

6. Wal Mart

7. Marketplace's chicken berry salad

8. Yellow Box sandals

9. The remote opening doors on my minivan

10. Spider Solitaire on the computer

11. Facebook

12. Houndstooth Razorback t-shirts

13. Cherry Chapstick

14. People Magazine

I'm sure there are more. I'll add as they occur to me. What are yours?

Countdown to quiet

A week from today Ethan starts pre-K. Three days after that, Abby starts 2nd grade. And thus will begin a phase of my life in which I will be home all day, every day with a tiny baby who can't talk back, throw toys or ask for a snack every 25 minutes. Can you sense the joy in the words I type?

Actually, and I can't believe (I mean REALLY can't believe) I am saying this, but I will kind of miss this summer. Back in April, when I was hugely pregnant and the kids were in school all day, the prospect of week after week of being at home with 3 kids, two of which I knew to be a little high maintenance and one whose maintenance level was yet to be determined (but let's be honest, anyone who requires being fed and having their bottom wiped clean can be classified as high maintenance) was straight up terrifying. And I have surely had my moments when I wanted to hide under the bed and cry.

But there have also been the other times--teaching the kids how to hold Aaron without breaking his neck, playing marathon games of Sorry and Candy Land, successfully convincing Ethan that only very cool and brave 4 year olds can help with laundry--when I found myself quite content and even entertained.

I'm sure that the school year will pass by in a flash. Then I'll be facing next summer, when instead of two kids and a baby, I will have two kids and a toddler. I need to start storing up on Prozac now.

Turns out you DO know a place

Wow. This little blog got a BIG surprise yesterday.

I was at home, feeding Aaron and playing Chutes and Ladders with Ethan (yes, at the same time)(no, it's not easy) when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the area code or number, but I forget my own kids' names these days, so I answered anyway. You know who was on the phone?

A lady named Angela from Cracker Barrel's corporate office.

OH my goodness! She explained that Cracker Barrel is sent an alert when their company name shows up online, and she had read my blog about our church's little incident with a CB manager last weekend and wanted to let me know they regret what happened. I immediately pleaded with her not to let my blog get the guy in trouble--none of us were really mad about what happened, we just thought it was funny. I blogged about it because I thought the 7 people who read my blog would also find it amusing. She promised me he would be spared any wrath.

I also promised her that we understood that what happened was most likely the result of a guy having a bad day, and that we know CB is not an anti-rummage sale company. She was very gracious, sweet, and exactly what you'd expect someone who works for CB to be--the epitome of southern hospitality.

That reminds me--in my original blog post, I said that CB's headquarters are in NYC. I said this because when our church rented the space we use, we had to notify all adjacent property owners (conditional use permit--you don't want an explanation, trust me), and I had to send a letter to CB. The address I had to use was in NYC. However, Angela was calling me from Lebanon, Tennessee, which is the location of the headquarters as listed on their website. So I don't know if they just have an office in NYC, or if I mistakenly sent that letter to some random barrel company in New York, but either way I made a dig there that was unwarranted. They are nothing if not authentic.

As I said, Angela was wonderful to talk with and didn't even seem mad at me for the jokes I made about CB. Hopefully she realized that they were said in jest (does anyone even say "in jest" any more?) and that I am a big CB fan. Their hash brown casserole is the stuff dreams are made of. To even further show the value CB places on community relations, Angela told me that our church pre-school program is to recieve a CB rocking chair as a donation. Now THAT is a cool thing. If you have never experienced a CB rocking chair, you don't know what you're missing. We'll all be fighting over it. In fact, I bet anything Chad will want to start preaching from it.

I have said many times before that a company that messes up but works hard to fix it has a more loyal fan in me than one that never messes up at all. In this situation, CB didn't really even mess up--they just had an employee that had an off day. But Angela's phone call and the rocking chair proved to me that CB is a first class company. This is a huge relief, for two reasons: 1) You like to know that there are people and companies still like that out there, and 2) I can go eat some pot roast tonight.

You think you know a place

Last Saturday our church, The Harbor, held a rummage sale to raise money for our pre-school program. It went really well. We had a crazy amount of stuff given to us to sell, and we were busy with shoppers all day. One good reason for the crowd is that we are in a great location. We're right off of the freeway, and everyone going to either Cracker Barrel or Hobby Lobby go right through our parking lot.

To make sure people knew we were doing a sale, we put some signs up--not billboards or anything, just those little signs that stake into the ground. We put several up, including one that went right where you turned off of the road into the parking lot between us and Cracker Barrel.

Well.

Around noon, some people came in to shop the sale and told us that they had seen a Cracker Barrel employee walk out to our sign, pull it up, and take it back into the Cracker Barrel with them. What?! Cracker Barrel stole our sign?? So our pastor, Chad, went over. He asked for the manager, introduced himself, and politely asked for our sign back. The manager was likely embarrassed that he had been caught. He gave Chad the sign, but justified taking it by saying "I'm trying to sell stuff too." I don't even want to take the time to talk about how ridiculous it is that he would think our rummage sale goods would be competing with Cracker Barrel. Whatever.

After Chad returned and relayed the story, most of us got pretty worked up about it. The main things we couldn't get over were: If he didn't want the sign there, why didn't he just tell us so? Does he even have a right to ask us to remove the sign? Who steals a rummage sale sign? Put up by a church?

Next we moved on to what action we should take next. We came up with several options: painting the words "Cracker Barrel steals from churches" on our windows, making a giant rummage sale sign, putting it in the back of a truck, and parking it right in front of Cracker Barrel, moving the bake sale that Abby and her friends were conducting outside to more directly compete with Cracker Barrel's cobbler sales. Chad reminded us, though, that churches shouldn't really partake in revenge, and we reluctantly agreed that he was probably right.

I debated whether or not to blog about it but I finally decided that the public has a right to know about what happened. We have no way of knowing whether the manager was acting out of independent outrage or following orders from the top of the Cracker Barrel chain (incidentally, do you know where the headquarters for the Cracker Barrel corporation are located? Tennessee? Alabama? Nope. New York City. Yeah, super authentic.) Regardless, I think I would want to know about this before I ordered my next stack of pancakes or slab of hamburger steak.

So there you go. The story of the church that was victimized by Cracker Barrel. Now that I've shared, I feel much better. Perhaps I'll even send a note to the manager, telling him there are no hard feelings and that I sincerely hope we didn't permanently destroy the market for country goods in Northwest Arkansas.

Always blame the laundry

Geez, it's been almost an entire month since I last blogged. That's terrible! When people call me out on it, I tell them, "I think about doing it every day, but something always comes up and I never get around to it." I can tell they think it's a cop out. Usually beacuse they something to the effect of, "That's a cop out!" But it's true! My days seem to be passing at warp speed. I don't expect you to take my word for it, though, so I am going to give you a rundown of what a typical day is like around here for me. I know better than to hope for any sympathy (and really, I'm not exactly worthy of any) but at least you'll know that I'm not just neglecting the blog to, you know, paint my nails or something.

7:00 Wake up to feed and change Aaron.

7:30 Put Aaron down to get Ethan breakfast (Abby's still asleep).

7:35 Sit down at computer.

7:36 Aaron starts fussing; pick him up.

7:45 Put Aaron down to get Abby breakfast .

7:50 Pick Aaron up again and get him to sleep.

8:15 Lay Aaron down; load dishwasher.

8:30 Sit down at computer.

8:31 Separate Ethan and Abby, who are wrestling in the living room floor for control of the remote.

8:35 Remember the laundry in the washer and dryer that I never finished the day before. Re-run both machines.

8:45 Get ready to take a shower.

8:47 Aaron starts crying; abandon shower.

9:00 Put Aaron in swing. Fold laundry from dryer.

9:05 Interrupt folding to get Ethan the first of the 12 snacks he will request.

9:15 Clean up milk that Ethan has spilled on the carpet.

9:20 Play a game of Uno with Abby.

9:30 Play a game of Candy Land with Ethan and Abby; referee argument over whether Abby cheated to get the Princess Frostine ice cream card.

9:45 Remember that there are no clean bottles; rush to clean them before Aaron wakes up.

10:00 Feed and change Aaron.

10:30 Prepare to lay Aaron down; abandon plan when Abby's friend from down the street rings the doorbell, sending the dog into a barking frenzy and scaring Aaron half to death.

10:50 Lay Aaron down; sit down at the computer.

10:52 Tell Abby and her friend that they can have a snack when they ask.

10:53 Listen to Ethan explain why Mario could beat Bowser at bowling.

10:55 Remember that I never switched the laundry in the washer to the dryer. Do so.

11:00 Sit down at the computer.

11:01 Tell Abby and her friend that they cannot play with makeup as they are requesting, becuase the last time they did they used 3 of our bath towels to get it off. Ponder how children with 2 million toys each can justify claiming boredom.

11:02 Let Ethan lead me to his room "without peeking" to show me the block tower he has built.

11:05 Sit down at the computer.

11:07 Surrender the computer to Ethan after he hangs on my arm whining about wanting to play games on Nick Jr.'s website.

11:30 Make sandwiches for lunch.

11:40 Spend 10 minutes getting Ethan, Abby and Abby's friend to all agree on a movie to watch while they eat lunch.

11:50 Sit down to eat lunch.

11:52 Aaron starts crying; pick him up and finish lunch with one hand.

12:15 Lay Aaron down; clean up from lunch; remind Abby that her friend has a house that can be played in, too.

12:30 Take world's fastest shower; put on the only clothes that aren't dirty or still in the dryer.

1:00 Tuck Ethan in for nap; threaten his life if he gets up.

1:10 Feed and change Aaron.

1:30 Jump out of my skin when Ethan materializes beside me claiming to have finished his nap. March him back to bed.

1:50 Lay Aaron down; sit at the computer.

1:55 Abby and her friend come back from the other house and--surprise surprise--ask for a snack.

2:00 Remember that there is laundry to be folded; start the dryer again to get the wrinkles out.

2:05 Pour myself a glass of Diet Dr. Pepper. It's not the first of the day, and it will likely not be the last.

2:06 Answer the knock at the door while kicking the dog to keep her from barking. Tell Abby's friend her brother is here to fetch her.

2:10 Play 4 games of Skipbo with Abby to keep her from dying of boredom, poor thing.

2:45 Abby's friend is back. Skipbo is abandoned.

2;46 Remember to return 2 phone calls from the morning--my friends and family are fortunately used to me calling them "right back" about 4 hours after they call.

3:05 Ethan wakes up and requests a snack 47 times in 30 seconds.

3:15 Watch the dance routine that Abby and her friend have created.

3:30 Sit down at the computer.

3:34 Tackle Ethan to keep him from climbing the entertainment center.

3:40 Hear my cell phone ring. Spend 10 minutes hunting for it.

3:50 Feed and change Aaron.

4:30 Dang-the laundry! Start the dryer. Again.

4:40 Closely supervise the kids playing with Aaron to ensure his survival.

5:00 Sit down at the computer.

5:05 Realize I should be figuring out something for dinner.

5:06 Figure out McDonald's.

5:07 Tell Ethan that I enjoy listening to him play Mary Had a LIttle Lamb on the piano, but it loses a bit of its magic after the 23rd time.

5:10 Sit down on the couch to play with Aaron myself.

5:30 Matt comes home. He sees me lounging with a smiling baby, Ethan watching Phineas and Ferb on tv, and Abby channeling Hannah Montana with her pal. He knows better than to be fooled by the tranquility.

Evenings are a wild mix of soccer practice, church, dinner, 7 more snacks, more feeding and changing Aaron, reading books and tucking kids in. Then it's time to collapse myself and prepare to do it all over again.

Hopefully you can see how this is an environment that is not always condusive to blogging. For example, I have been writing this blog post 2 minutes at a time for the last 7 hours. Soon, though, the older two return to school and Aaron's schedule will be more predictable. I figure by September, I'll be settled into the school year groove and be able to blog all the time.

Let's be honest, though. That laundry will probably still be in the dryer.