Today, Brenia’s school had a field trip. Brenia rode with me and 3 classmates. Her carpool friend rode with the teacher and 2 classmates.
When I picked them up from school today, she was telling Brenia how great Mrs. L’s car is.: “She had this really cool thing that you twist and the window rolls down!”
Here we all are adding special automated features to our car that take away the coolest part!
Spencer and I celebrated our 11th anniversary with a trip down memory lane. We visited old haunts and enjoyed an entire weekend of fun from our dating days. The actual date of our anniversary was spent at Cedar Point and included lunch at the Weenee Hut (Be sure to use a condiment!).
11 Years and counting
That is how you start a phone call to report an accident in which no one is injured. You do not sob into the phone telling the girls’ mother that you were in an accident and you’re so, so sorry.
On Saturday night, my sister took my 2 oldest girls to see the Hannah Montana movie in a city an hour away from my hometown where we were staying. I receive the above mentioned phone call around 8pm. I was saying goodbye to my brother and his wife after dinner, buckling my youngest into her carseat when she called. My brother says my knees buckled and I nearly went down. I jumped in the car and raced off, apparently leaving my sister-in-law in the dust as she tried to jump in my car to go with me.
My brother called and told me to take the little one to my parents house, which I finally agreed to do against my better judgment. I just wanted to get there, 5 minutes ago. I dropped her off and raced off again, in tears.
As I approached the scene and realized it had traffic stopped on the wrong side of the highway, I started to shake. I went around the traffic and stopped in front of the officers. When I saw the car on its side, I threw up in my mouth. The sheriff helped me out of the car (at which point my knees buckled again), all the while assuring me that the girls were fine and it looked much worse than it was.
The girls were, in fact, unharmed but I’m pretty sure it looked about as bad as it was. My sis fell asleep at the wheel and went off the road. The car hit the median, flipped end over end, landed on its roof and slid a block down the highway in the wrong direction with my babies hanging upside down inside!
Their injuries include a matching scratch on their neck from the seatbelt, a bruise on Stacia’s arm where she landed after she unbuckled, and a bruise on Brenia’s knee from tripping on the highway after she climbed out of the car. My sister has a nasty bruise on her hip from the seatbelt and a bump on the head from a flying object in her passenger seat.
I’m sure there is some sort of irony in the seatbelt Miley neglected to wear in her movie saving the lives of the girls who were on their way home from watching it. It’s just lost on me right now.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people come through the exit of a fast food restaurant and then slide into the drive-thru lane like they didn’t just cut in front of you. Today I went to Wendy’s for the first time in quite awhile. Now I remember why—it’s not really faster!
Brenia yelled, “That’s an exit stupid-head!” so I should probably be more careful about how I react. It reminded me of the time I ran into another driving pet peeve when Stacia was 3. I was behind some idiot at a light. We end up going to the same store and my dear, sweet daughter yells across the parking lot, “Green means go, moron!”
Luckily, in both situations, the other party didn’t actually hear my children’s road rage.
I’ll be clearing a space for that Mother of the Year trophy now. My days have been hectic and crazy since school began. Today, it all finally caught up with me. My day began with Stacia missing the bus. This is no big deal since we live right down the street, but presents a bit of a problem now that Brenia is in kindergarten across town. Montessori starts 10 minutes before public school so I have that amount of time to drop Brenia off and make it back to the other school. Success!
Then I came home with Lorelai. We are only home 1 morning each week so she usually takes a short nap on Wednesdays—playing catch up from the rest of the week. I laid her down at 10am, thinking she’d sleep about an hour which is the most I ever get from her. Kindergarten ends at 11:30 so I’d have plenty of time to change her and get to Montessori after she awoke.
Except she didn’t, until Brenia’s school called wondering where we were! The last time I looked at the clock, it was 10:30. The time didn’t even register when I realized it was the school on the phone. When she said, “We were just calling because Brenia is still here.” I looked up at the clock and freaked out! I grabbed Lorelai, rushed out the door and cried all the way to school.
Worst. Mother. Ever.
Luckily, they have an afternoon program too so she was well cared for. I felt horrible, even though everyone kept reassuring me that she was fine and I wasn’t the first mother to pick her child up 30 minutes late! I guess the good thing is they were very concerned about us. They see me as typically reliable and Brenia’s teacher was convinced I was in some sort of accident on my way to get her.
Brenia didn’t seem to notice how bad I was feeling and was only told that “Mommy was running late.” Now, I have to go get my other daughter before she gets forgotten too!
We hit Six Flags Great America over Labor Day weekend. It was not my first choice, and it will be my last choice from here on out. I suggested Holiday World since it is more in line with my budget, but it was the weekend of the wedding that wasn’t so we all deferred to my sister’s wishes. She wanted to get far away, and Chicago was apparently far enough. And, since my dad announced he was paying, my budget no longer mattered. Though, we did manage to come out over $100 poorer.
We had dinner at Medieval Times on Saturday night. This was my first time (even though my entire family insisted it wasn’t) and I thought it was a lot of fun. Next time, though, I’m bringing silverware. Stupid forkless medieval era. Our knight was not only the hottest one there, but he was the champion and hero of the story. Of course, as soon as I realized he was way hotter than any of the others, I knew that would be the case!
The next day, we visited Six Flags from open to close. I was not impressed. I had intended to write about it when I got home, but life got in the way and it didn’t seem that important. Today, with temperatures in the 50’s, I decided to don my new Six Flags hoodie (thanks, Mom!) and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The darn security tag hangs prominently from the hood! So now, in my renewed anger, I share with you The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of our trip.
We are home again. The girls slept most of the trip, even through last night’s thunderstorm. I’m pretty sure no one even noticed that I set off the traction control 4 times.
Now I have a van to unload, a week’s two week’s worth of laundry to clean and a ton of mail to work through. At least the house is clean—hubby always manages to whip it into shape while we are away.
While packing for my trip this week, I asked someone to grab a train and a baby doll for Lorelai so she would have some of her favorites to keep her entertained. We’re going to be here all week and she is used to having two cabinets full of toys at her disposal.
The hubby said he took care of it so I crossed it off my list. We got to camp, and I opened my bag to pull out a talking dog—and nothing else.
Apparently, baby + train = dog
Who knew?
