—1—
Phillip's company does a family day at Six Flags every year. Last year was a blast, but the weather for the scheduled day this year was looking iffy. Since we try to be optimists, we bought tickets hoping the forecast would improve as time went on.
It did not.
The revised plan was to have Phillip take the older three kids in the morning, and after naps and the worst of the rain, I'd bring the little kids.
I tried, I really did. But that afternoon as I was packing a picnic lunch and everything else we'd need for Six Flags, I could feel myself fighting this big, black pit of anxiety in my stomach.
A three and a half hour round trip so we could get rained on for a few hours of standing in line? Really? I pictured driving home with a soggy, crying baby (possibly soggy and crying myself) and I just quit in the middle of the sandwich I was making and texted Phillip to say we weren't coming.
I may be an optimist, but I'm not stupid.
—2—
The good thing is that little kids are easy to please, and they were just as thrilled when I said I was taking them out for frozen yogurt 4 minutes away instead.
It was one of those places where you choose your flavor and then put on whatever toppings you want and pay by the pound.
This is what happens when you present a 3-year-old with that option:
Blue raspberry sorbet with M&Ms, Nerds, strawberries, peach rings, and gummy bears. |
When he offered me a taste I was equal parts flattered and horrified.
—3—
We were playing this card game called Slapzi, where you try to match random objects to the appropriate description. (If you've ever played Apples to Apples, you get the idea.)
When we got to the card that said "You can hide it under a sock," we all started frantically looking through our cards to see if we could find a picture of something that would fit that description.
Lightning-quick, Phillip slapped this one down on the table:
Waaaaait a minute... |
Naturally, we all gave him a hard time about that because that socks are clearly too long and skinny to hide a passport.
I expected him to either argue his point or give up, but what I didn't expect is for him to go get his passport, cover it with a sock in the other room, arrange a second sock on the floor beside it, and then make us all come in and guess which one was hiding the passport to prove his point.
We chose wrong, so it kind of worked. |
He won the game, by the way.
—4—
My 9-year-old offered to clean up the baby and get him out of his booster seat after lunch, and then he wiped down the table afterward.
"I really like clean houses," he told me. "I don't know why, I just like things to be clean."
Yes! I thought, All the lessons I've trying to teach about the importance of cleaning up after yourself are sinking in!
Then he added, "That's why I like other people's houses."
So someone got some extra chores that day. I'm not naming names. But someone did.
—5—
Ever since we had our piano tuned, I've been thinking about having someone fix some cosmetic issues on the outside so it looks as nice as it sounds. Over the years, the top has collected a few water spots thanks to people who obviously hadn't ever heard of coasters.
A friend of mine does furniture restoration for a living, and when I mentioned this to her she offered to fix it up in exchange for some tutoring in the fall. (She's going back to school for engineering, which is perfect since Phillip is an engineer and presumably knows some of that stuff.)
She spent a couple of days at our house working on the piano (with my kids creepily lining up on the couch to stare at her while eating their snacks) and it looks fantastic now.
I wish I had before and after pictures, but I'm always so excited to get the work done that I rarely remember to take a "before."
That's why I'd be the worst DIY blogger ever. Well, I'd be the worst for a lot of reasons, including the fact that I have a 75% fail rate when it comes to anything that could be described as "DIY." But the picture thing, too.
—6—
Speaking of which, I did (sort of) do a DIY project this week.
On vacation we played cornhole, a fun backyard game with an uncomfortable name that sounds like a word I don't want my kids to say. We've been thinking it would be fun to play at home, but sets online are a complete rip-off. We're talking over $100 for 2 sheets of plywood and some beanbags.
I am not paying that.
So I decided to do it myself. I haven't started on the boards yet, but I just made the beanbags out of scrap fabric from the basement and $6 of dried beans from Market Basket.
Barring an expensive medical catastrophe arising from the use of the jigsaw, I think we'll finish the set well under budget. Wish us luck.
—7—
A little more representative of my DIY success rate, I present to you this awe-inspiring baking soda volcano:
Yet another sign that crafts and projects are decidedly Not My Thing. |
After two failed attempts to get an actual lava flow going, the kids ultimately had the most fun just smashing apart the volcano in the yard (which never really dried like the online tutorial said it was supposed to.)
And to top it all off, when I told them to go out and clean it up, my son got stung by a wasp.
As if I needed an even clearer sign that this was not the right kind of activity for our household.
4 comments:
Many of our DIY projects seem to involve my husband buying a new power tool. I think this means we're probably not saving any money... But eventually we'll have ALL the tools and we'll be good, right? Right???
That sounds suspiciously like what goes on here... I've been hoping the same thing.
I never understand why the toppings at the ice cream place get harder. Why offer those kinds of toppings? Hard gummy bears are always a bad idea.
Your son's comment about the clean house is priceless! Sounds like something my kids would say.
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