T.G.I.B. (Thank Goodness I Blog)

If it weren't for my blog I would probably curl up into a ball in my closet and beat my head against the wall most days. My blog keeps me sane. When I am in the midst of an unfavorable situation I think to myself, "This will make a great blog entry". And that's what keeps me going. I know I must get through it for nothing else, than to blog about it later. I'm so glad my pain can bring my readers pleasure.

Each morning after we drop Reese off at preschool, I drag the other two on a seemingly endless slew of errands. I decided not to do that today. Instead, I planned an enjoyable morning at the animal farm, which is just down the road from the school. I loaded up the wagon & some bottled waters and off we went. I felt good about doing something fun for Drue and Tate which didn't involve perusing any grocery store aisles.

Gorgeous day, no crowds, 2 angelic faces smiling up at me from the wagon. I felt so invigorated I even let them both out to run around, thinking, "It's just the two of them, it will be fine." (Now don't get ahead of yourselves...I'm sure you are already busy concocting different scenarios in your heads.)

Let's just pause and take a look at some of the happier moments of our morning:

 

 

 

And that about takes care of all the happy moments. Not long after these shots, Drue discovered a kitty cat that roams free about the farm. Other mothers were letting their little girls pet it, so I figured my paranoia about fleas and ticks was unsubstantiated. I granted her permission to gently pet the cat. Tate ran over and started grabbing fistfuls of its' hair, so I quickly redirected him.

I redirected him so well, in fact, that he ran out of the little garden area and straight for the goats. No problem, I could easily still see both of my little darlings. But then Tate ran around a fence out of my sight. I ran to locate him but when I turned around, Drue was now out of my sight.

Well, this wasn't going to work one bit. I didn't want to leave Drue alone with a strange cat, and I couldn't just let Tate roam free among the e-coli infested goat feces, which unfortunately resemble little chocolate balls.

I sweetly called Drue's name and told her we had to chase after Tate. I couldn't quite make out her response, I was hoping it was "Yes ma'am. I'm coming." But after she didn't appear for a few seconds, I figured that hadn't been it. By this point I could barely make out the top of Tate's hat over the fence, so I called Drue's name a little more demandingly.

"Drue! Come on! Tate's on the run!".

She was not going to budge from her spot. That was becoming clear to me. And Tate was not going to pause and realize the error of his ways and come running safely back into my arms.

"Well, OK....I am going to get your brother!!!!".

And off I dashed. I collected him and headed back to Drue. I could hear her wails floating above the prairie grass. The cat had scratched her eye out, I was sure of it. I braced myself to scoop up her eye that was bound to be laying on the ground next to her, but when I rounded the corner, both watery eyes were safely still tucked away in her head and she had nary a scratch on her.

She was crying because she had to leave her new feline friend, and because I had left her to go get her brother. It wasn't like I had gone to the edge of the world and back...I was only about 20 yeards away.

I plopped her crying disobedient tushie in the wagon. I plopped Tate's squriming runaway tushie in the wagon. They were both howling and Tate kept sliding himself down so I could barely get the buckle fastened. Of course this little show was complete with a small audience of fellow mothers. I wheeled the wagon out of the park so fast we blew some of the peacocks' feathers off as we zoomed by.

Our leisurely fun morning at the farm had lasted a whopping 30 minutes! And that included the loading and unloading of the van.

We always try and make sure our kids know why they have lost a privilege. So I asked Drue why we had to leave the farm so quickly.

"Because I wanted to pet the kitty," she hiccupped. (And that's why we make sure they always know the real reason...)

"No sweetheart. It was fine for you to pet the kitty. But when Tate ran off and I asked you to come with me, you said NO and disobeyed."

Wait, there's one more sad tale to come.

Driving around that morning I had seen a few signs for neighborhood garage sales. I really like garage saling, especially for kids' toys, clothes, etc. But it's too exhausting to unbuckle everyone, get them out, walk up to a sale, and discover it's a dud. I convinced myself I could salvage my morning by going to a neighborhood sale. We already had the wagon, I would just park somewhere and pull the youngsters behind me through the rows of sales I was imagining.

We parked, got unloaded, and went to two sales side by side. Nothing for us. I looked down the road and didn't see any more sales. But I remembered one up the next street. So we headed up to that one...absolutley nothing for us! Oh well, I tried.

As we headed back to the van, I saw the house we parked in front of (who wasn't having a sale) had turned their lawn sprinklers on. We're talking nice, built in, soak the whole yard lawn sprinklers. I KNOW they did it out of spite. I just KNOW it! Why else would they have done something so inconsiderate? I wasn't even blocking any of their driveway or anything like that. I cheerily told the kids we would get to run through the sprinklers, because they were soaking the whole sidewalk also.

Satan himself must have installed these water wonders because they shot powerful jets of water right at toddler face level and higher. Tate and Drue were soaked, the wagon was soaked, and the entire right side of their mother was soaked! I parked the wagon in the driveway and told Drue to make a run for the van. Of course, she and Tate were both crying again. Drue froze and wouldn't run through the water. So I ushered them over to the other side of the van, right smack dab in the middle of the garage sale traffic. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a little red wagon roll right into the street. I gasped and grabbed before it could be crushed. As I walked around the other side to buckle them in, I loudly exclaimed, "I don't know why they turned on their sprinklers honey. THAT WASN'T VERY NICE AT ALL!!".

I'm not really sure why I put any expectations whatsoever on our outings. That's the only area in my life where I try and be optimistic, thinking to myself, "This is going to be a GREAT time for all!" only to be sorely disappointed. I guess in these cases, my pessimistic attitude will serve me well. If I head into an outing already convinced it's going to be a disaster...it can only get better....can't it?