Technical Difficulties

Oy, what a day!

At 6am, David called to tell me he was starting his day in North Carolina. At 6:15, Micah came into my room asking if he could watch TV. This time I was already awake enough to not just dismiss him. I said no, but he should come cuddle with me. Uh uh. He wanted no part of that - so he went BACK TO SLEEP!

At 7:30 Sam went downstairs to watch TV (he doesn't bother to ask, and he sleeps later anyway). At 8:15 I took Miss Sofia downstairs, and was happily surprised to see that Micah was still a-bed.

At 8:30, the kid next dodor came over to spend the day with us. My boys adore him, he's 11 years old, an only child, and very sweet and fun. He was still groggy from his antihistamine, and my guys were still groggy, so I plopped them in front of a movie while I showered.

They watched about 30 minutes of "Pete's Dragon" before grabbing the "swords" and "daggers" (all plastic, of course) and having a mele. Then they went back next door to grab A's Yuh-gi-oh cards, which he nicely handed out to Sam and Micah.

Sofia's Speech Therapist was here 10:00 - 11:00. That was fun to watch, and K had a chance to see the boys in action too. Then I used borrowed paint pens to decorate Micah's cubby box for school, and touched up their TV trays. At 11:45, we decided to go do something. The plan was to eat pizza out and then head up to Westford (more on that below), so I ordered the pizza and got the kids ready to go...

...only to discover that I'd left the keys in the ignition of the mini-van last night, and the battery was dead! Ok. I've got jumper cables. I used to have to jump my "starter" cars when I was a college student. I know what to do, right? So I call my neighbor, another strong, able, capable lady (and she's almost exactly the same age as me, just a few days apart). And we try...

...but we can't seem to locate the "engine block" where we should clip the 4th clip! Argh. We try to call David - no answer. We try her hubby (same industry as David) - no answer. I try another friend - no answer. B suggests calling her father just as I start calling my dad. Dad tries to tell me where to clip it, but can't picture the inside of my minivan.

So I call AAA. And I call the pizza place and ask them to deliver it instead. And I spent some time putting Sofia's car seat back together, since I had washed the cover last night.

And AAA and the pizza guy AND the mail lady all show up at the top of my driveway at exactly the same time, much to the delight of the 3 boys and Sofia! The AAA guy showed me where the 4th clip could go (much of my car is plastic, so it was sort of tough to find a good place!). The pizza guy waited patiently. And the mail lady handed me my box of 500 photos I just printed at Winkflash!

The kids and I ate a quick lunch of pizza and bread sticks, and then finally we hit the road. We went up to Kimballs, which has excellent ice cream, along with a large mini-golf center AND bumper boats. It was mobbed, but we had fun. The boys all went into one boat together, with A driving, because my guys were so nervous (I stayed on the sidelines with Sofia to watch them). Mini-golf was long, and since I had the stroller with us, we had to get out half-way anyways.

Sam had to go to the bathroom pretty badly, so he was a nervous wreck while we ate our ice cream (he'll pee in public restrooms, but he refuses to poop!). We sat near the chicken coop, and somehow one of the chickens ended up on our side of the fence, which really freaked Sam out!

We got home at 5:30, finding A's mom and my babysitter E waiting for us. E and I put together a quick dinner for the kids (I was still full from the ice cream, most of which is now in my freezer). E said she'd thought I had a meeting, so I went searching my email. I have no idea why I thought I had a meeting tonight - I could not find anything. I did, however, realize that I have 3 meetings on Wednesday night. Oops.

So we got the kids ready for bed, and I left E to read to them while I went out. I wanted to get Sofia a TV tray, too, since she also likes to watch TV while she eats breakfast on these lazy days. I found the perfect pink tray in the first store I went to! Then I walked around Shoppers World a bit, buying more scrapbooking paper and some pens.

I stopped at Whole Foods on the way home to get some sushi and some ketchup (the boys did not like my homemade ketchup). Had a nice quick dinner at 9:30pm, and then painted Sofia's tray. It's lovely, with her name and a princess crown and some magic wands and stars.

At 10:10, I started locking up to come upstairs...

...and discovered that the door knob was broken! The inner bolt would not open, so the door would not stay closed. I grabbed the extra knobs from the garage, but there was no full set.

I called my neighbor to come sit in my kitchen while I tried to find a new knob. The grocery store and the 24 hour drugstore do not carry door knobs. But at least I figured out what to do in the mean time, using the spare items we did have.

That took another 45 minutes to get something working. But through it all, I've been really happy. It's all just so funny, and all fixable. And I'm having such a good time doing all this creative stuff (both the art and the fix-it stuff).

But now it's midnight and I'm tired! G'night.

Later: Crap. I just took a quick peek at the T21 board, and found out another little one has died. So very sad. She was very very sick. I thought about her this morning; the news last night had not been good, and somehow I just knew this morning that this was happening, but oh, it was so so sad to see it in print. And this is the 2nd kid on the board in just the past few months. The people involved on the board are just amazing, and, for better or for worse, we've sort of developed a "kit" for when one of the kids passes away. Tulips, food, scrapbook pages and other crafts. There are a lot of very wonderful people on the board, who all immediately jump on to help organize, or just to donate.

But my heart aches for the family.

In memory of baby G, Aleha HaShalom - May peace be upon her.