So the past couple of days have been crazy busy. Cuhrazy. I added a syllable to that word to properly convey to you the amount of crazy the days have been. But yesterday...yesterday was packed. Packed with jam. Well, not literally jam, but how good would that taste? (Upon first typing I wrote "niterally" instead of not literally. I am now adopting that word. Niterally.)
Tuesday morning was typical...up and around and out the door by 8. I mean 8:15. Okay, okay, actually I mean 8:21. This is not enough time to get Jace to school punctually at 8:30, ever, and yet I continue leaving late each day. It's Evany's fault. Even though she's practically six months old, she still refuses to attend to the simplest tasks on her own, like dressing. Or eating. She holds us all up.
So we left late (4 kids buckled btw), which meant Jace was late, but he did manage to make it before they locked the door, so...it all worked out. Then I dropped off Ava, who was super excited about celebrating her summer birthday in class. As she hopped out of the van, I said "I love you, Ava! I'll see you at 2:40 for your birthday celebration!" She looked back over her shoulder and yelled "Don't forget the jello!" I felt loved.
After that the babies and I headed home to shower (me), eat (Vivi), and go on a rampage with a sword around the house (Seth). I think I cleaned some. Then it was suddenly time to pick up the boys (two kids to buckle), and I started the circuit all over again. We collected Jace and then Fisher (buckling 2 more), and for some silly reason I decided to forego naps and take the boys to the park. We had it to ourselves and Seth slid down the slide roughly eighty times. For reals. Then I realized that I'd forgotten to pick up treats for Ava's party, so I loaded up all three dirty, sweaty boys and Vivi and headed to the grocery store. (Bringing that days carseat buckling tally to 12)
And let me tell you, for whatever reason, people react much differently two the three boys and the baby than they do to Ava, Jace, Seth, and the baby. We got several comments just walking down the aisle. Of course, that may be because we didn't bother with a cart. I should have. I should have grabbed a cart and packed those boys in like sardines, but instead I let them walk all over the entire store. Very slowly. An employee followed us warily the entire time we were there, offering the boys cheese and cookies. We had to stop and weigh ourselves three times before they were satisfied. (For the record, Jace is 45 lbs, Seth is 32 lbs, and Fisher is 29 lbs. If you were wondering, I weigh 117 lbs. I know you were).
Overall, though, they were pretty good, and we picked out the birthday treats and headed over to Ava's school (bringing our tally to 20), where we were lucky enough to catch a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo with waterguns. Or something. Some battle. Everyone was soaked. The boys thought it was amazing, and Jace said "Do they do that every day? I cannot wait to come here!"
As Ava and her fellow Kindergarteners enjoyed their snack and her birthday crown, two of the administrators from our school showed up to collect Jace for his big interview. Every family has to interview before being accepted to our school, and the kids also interview on their own. We got to skip the family interview as we completed it two years ago when Ava started, but Jace had to complete his interview. I was a basket of nerves (If you knew Jace you would know why...you never know what that kid is going to say), and I openly told him he could get a penguin Webkin if he was good.
Oops, I think there's a rule against bribing. Oh well. While I was waiting for him to get done, I paced back and forth and peeked in the window, trying to imagine what they were talking about, which could be anything. At all. Jace is kind of an open book, and not always in a great way. While I was pacing and stressing, I left Fisher in charge of Vivi. She didn't seem to mind.
Jace finally got done, and his interviewers came out laughing. "He is funny!" they said, and that's one thing I believed without question. If they had walked out telling me how well behaved or how self controlled he was, I would have wondered whose kid they were mixing him up with. But funny? Yes, that's definitely Jace. He's a laugh riot. He may drive you crazy, but you'll be laughing on the way there.
Regardless, I think he's in. What a huge weight off my shoulders. I have been worrying about this interview for months. But our day still wasn't over...Ava had dance practice for the end of the year Variety Show. I was dragging by this point...badly. But I repacked up all the kids and drove them to dance practice (tally: 24 buckles) and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Then, wonder of wonders, one of my friends walked in and handed me a fountain Coke. With lots of ice. It was amazing. It made life worth living. You can get far in my book by bringing me a coke.
And that's when I remembered I had a Baby Shower to go to. I'd double booked myself, like the smart person I am, by making plans with a friend to soundly beat him at Wii Bowling. So as soon as dance was over we jumped back in the van (Grand total: 28 buckles buckled, and double that, 56 if we're counting unbuckling, too) again and headed home to meet my mom, who was kind enough to baby sit.
I had all of ten minutes to change my clothes and head out to this weeks baby shower, for my friend Monique. She is absolutely amazing and they are adopting a baby really soon. It was a beautiful shower, and they had the most gorgeous salad I've ever seen. Yes, it's weird to call a salad gorgeous, but it was, all the same. And the hostess served this trifle that was amazingly good, until she told me it was fat free and sugar free, at which point I decided I liked it less on principle.
It was lots of fun, and I ducked out just before the games so that everyone else would have a chance to win. In retrospect, I am so glad I did...they played a game where grown women had to run a relay race in which they head to eat baby food, drink a bottle, and wear depends. I have to draw the line somewhere, and for me, that's it. No depends. No depends!
As I was running out the door, Mara called me back, yelling "It's not fair for you to leave now! You're really good at this game!" And I'm a sucker, so I waited to leave until I'd tried to help unscramble scrambled baby item words. I tell you, flattery will get you everywhere with me.
When I finally left to make it to my second set of plans for the evening, I noticed I had a text asking if I wanted wine. Which, of course I did...you would too if you'd had the day I did. So I offered to stop and get wine.
I'm easily distracted. And there was a lot of wine. Lots of little pictures depicting the taste and fruitiness of the wine, or something. It looked interesting. So I basically spent twenty minutes starting at an entire aisle of grocery store wine like an idiot until someone took pity on me and offered to help me pick something out. He said he was in the wine business, and after lots of chatting, he told me what to get. I was sold, and I bought it. But now I think he might have just been hitting on me, because the wine was not that good. The other possibility would be that I don't know good wine when I drink it and I might should just drink a box of wine for all the difference it makes to me.
But finally I left the store, getting excited about the Wii Sports tournament that was about to commence. I found a place to park, climbed three flights of stairs, and stood at the door, bent over and trying to catch my breath. If I ever needed proof that I'm out of shape, there you go. Maybe it was a sign I should play a sport in real life instead of just on the Wii. But I rallied and handed over the wine, as we talked a whole lot of trash about our Wii prowess. I explained how the only thing keeping me awake was excitement over winning. He told me to be prepared to cry like a girl. He grabbed the Sports disc and plut it in, and we both grabbed our wiimotes and prepared ourselves for the competition.
Instead, an error screen popped up. I almost died immediately, and I grabbed the disc out of the player only to see a huge scratch on the back.
"Are you kidding me?" I screeched, super attractively, "You sabotaged your disc just so you wouldn't have to deal with getting beaten by a girl? You could have just told me you couldn't handle it!"
Luckily, Neil Patrick Harris was on Glee. That's an example of God putting people in the right place at the right time if I've ever seen one. NPH makes me very happy. But this is how tired I was...by the time I made it home, I was too tired to even watch LOST.
And that was my day. You've all probably lost brain cells reading all of that.
Do you ever have any completely crazy days?
