Saturday Summary Part 1: 9.20 to 9.23

Last weekend: September 20

Buying a new car takes forever. We've been looking and looking and looking for weeks--and we still spent several hours over a two-day period at dealerships before we finally found the one that works for us. I wanted to be a 'green' mom and do everything I can to help the environment and save the polar bears. Well.........................

Yeah. BUT--and I do mean BUT, they are giving away these giant gas guzzling beasts at the dealers for practically nothing (seriously this was the same price that my new Camry was 8 years ago!) and we really need a second car AND I have always loved driving the big giant truck mobile.....AND--we literally drive about 50 miles/week--maybe 75 if we go to the zoo. So, the way I see it? I am helping the planet because I am taking this dirty pollutant emitter out of the hands of someone who will drive it the average 230+ miles/week, thus preventing almost 75% less gas emissions on the environment PLUS since we don't drive much we won't need to spend too much at the pump. It is only 2 miles to the grocery store.

It's a really pretty truck too and Sophie LOVES the fact that she can sit in all sorts of places in the back and still have lots of room for her giant dog and all of her toys. Now, if I can move along the growth of this family and actually have more children--we're all set.

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Monday, Sept. 22, 2008

We had to grocery shop in the morning, and I let Sophie help me bag the fresh fruit and work on getting the twist ties around the bags. It's hard for her to manipulate the twist ties, but she's getting lots of practice. Then she was being so good at the store, I felt compelled to take her to open gym for an hour before heading to the health club. By dinnertime we were both exhausted and feel asleep very early. It was a great day though and the elliptical machine is getting easier!

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Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

There is something about Tuesdays. I don't have a clue why they are so trying, but they really are. Very. This was no exception. I have been behind on our schedule since last Friday, the day after the tea-party, so I feel a little overwhelmed with trying to come up with activities Sophie loves to do that will actually teach her something. On Tuesday mornings they have story time at Barnes & Noble so we headed over there, but we were late and missed most of the stories. We stayed for awhile though and read some books together and played with a couple other kids for awhile with the train set they have out. It's kind of a fun place to hang out when we don't feel like going to a gym.

When we got home, Sophie was itching to go outside so we decided this would be a great day to decorate the front porch for Halloween. Well, after about 10 minutes of trying to tether down the blow-up ghost and succeeding mostly in losing the tethers in the ground, Sophie got bored. Unfortunately for me right before she got bored she opened all of the boxes containing the 'stuff' and dumped it all out on the porch. I quickly changed the front screen to the glass door and let her decorate the door with window clings. This gave me about another 20 minutes of frantic 'let's get the stupid lights up and plugged in' time. Once she was done she gave up and went inside to watch Underdog for the trillionth time-leaving me to finish the front porch--or so I thought.

This is what happens when you leave a 3 year old unattended. She's done this before too--and I guess I just didn't learn my lesson the first time. She went out to the porch in the back--OK, no big deal right? I figured she could play out there until I was done out front. We have a fenced in yard so she's perfectly safe.

Anyway, when I first saw the chalk I quickly decided no use in getting mad and frantically trying to clean it up--I just let her be. I would have to clean her up anyway, so I might as well let her enjoy herself while I got dinner in the oven.

When I went back out to check on her I noticed that she had not only covered herself with chalk but had also decorated Jack with a bucket of yellow chalk. Poor guy, he just got over a round a antibiotics from an allergy to shampoo and here he was covered in chalk. My frustration level is quickly being bumped up to explode mode. But I hadn't blasted yet at this point.

I simply dusted out as much chalk as I could from Jack and then brushed his fur really well. I got it all out and let him back inside before she doused him with the bucket of bubbles she found while I was brushing Jack.

Now I should go back and say that I had made a homemade lasagna that day for Nate and the two guys that also work out of our house right now and part of the whole process was cleaning up the giant mess--including washing the kitchen floor--after it was all assembled and in the oven.

This is after an entire day of B&N, porch decorating, dog grooming, and now Sophie was a giant mess on the back porch.

I did what any normal mom would do and hand Sophie the hose and ran back in the house. I gave her the pleasure of washing off all of the chalk and bubble juice off the porch. Of course, her dress apparently needed cleaning too as well as the side of the house and all of the windows.

I had to yell at her through the back door to put down the hose, before I came back out.

Then I realized that Sophie needed a bath and some dry clothes before dinner and I only had about 20 minutes before it was done.

******sigh*******

I'm exhausted but "kept moving forward" as the Robinson's encourage and just got it done. Once Sophie was all cleaned up and changed, I was able to run downstairs and make the salad and get the bread out and set the table and serve the lasagna. I had given Nate and company a 10 minute warning. Then I had Sophie go downstairs and announce dinner. 10 minutes later I sat down to eat with Sophie. 20 minutes after that I had her run downstairs again to remind them that dinner was ready and getting cold.

They finally came upstairs and my top was literally boiling over with steam. I was super p/oed and wanted to scream--but couldn't do that in front of Nate's business partner. He knew how pissed I was though by the look on my face and the fact that I said nothing to either of them when they first came up. I sat with them though and chatted anyway while they ate their nearly cold lasagna before tackling again-cleaning the kitchen. I figured the best way to diffuse my frustration was to at least talk to adults for a little while, before the Wonder Pets came on.

At this point I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see my computer again--I'm just too jammed packed with things to do, and now I was too tired to even fire up the laptop in bed. At least Sophie was ready for bed. I can't remember how quickly we fell asleep that night, but I do know that both of us were in bed by 7:45 that night. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep before Sophie.

This picture doesn't do it justice--it almost looks better during the day because of the giant spider web--but it still looks pretty cool.

I think I just love this picture because of the possessed dog --his ears are sooo funny!