Pretending it’s still summer

It’s only 91 out (which is more like Thanksgiving weather), but I’m gonna pretend it’s still summertime and cook brats++ on the grill and try to have them ready when my beautiful bride rolls into town. ‘Cept I forgot to buy buns, and there is no way I am taking the critters to any kind of store this afternoon. We’ll just have to improvise.

*warming up some tortillas*

++Brats = bratwurst, for anybody not up-to-date on Silly Bearisms. Don’t want anyone thinking I’m gonna cook the chillun’, although that isn’t such a bad idea… 😛

If there’s such a thing as “retail therapy”, then wal-mart is Electro-shock

Yes, the insanity continues!

I overslept this morning, and woke up halfway through the time we should have been at church. Oops.

The good thing is that the kids were behaving like little angels (hoping not to wake me so I would oversleep, apparently) and we still managed to have everyone fed and dressed in time for Church School. (that’s not the official name, of course, just what we call it. “Do we have school today?” “No, honey, we have church school today.”) I might have overslept because I was up past 2:00 AM trying to solve my son’s rubik’s cube, but I’m not sure about that.

After taking the boys and getting glares from all the adults who had NOT seen us at 8:30 mass (it’s a catholic thing, if you’re catholic you know how it is) my daughter and I in her rocking-new hairdo that I still don’t have a picture of went and got coffee and donuts. Because, well, I hit 251 pounds for the first time this decade, and what goes better with weight loss than a cream filled chocolate covered donut? Coffee is the answer, of course.

Then we went back to get the boys (there had been a power failure, so they are sitting in a dark building without air conditioning or windows that open, thanks be to god) and I made my smartest choice of the weekend so far:

A grocery run to Wal-Mart.

You read that right. I had not learned from yesterday’s trip to Wal-mart, which was in essense a strafing run to get a couple of things. This time we had the_list.jpg. And we got most everything on it, in record time, since my helpers were awesome, if not a little too eager. I mean there was little comic smoke coming out from under our shopping cart wheels, and you could see our hair blowing back (except the baby, since her hair doesn’t blow today)

Then we hit Checkout Aisle 6. There were two people in line. They didn’t have too much stuff. I had too much to consider self checkout (with all my helpers) so I waited.

And waited.

And, waited.

Just before our eggs started to hatch, we made it to the front of the line. It was forty-five minutes of sheer hell. Read that again: forty five minutes for two people to pay and for us to make it to the front of the line. With three children who only ate a couple of waffles (and, according to the discarded wrappers, ice cream sandwiches) for breakfast, and who had been on Church Behavior and/or loaded with donuts and coffee.

I thought about jumping lines, but all my crap was on the conveyor belt already, and all the other lines were long, and I kept hoping for a miracle (like the power outage that hit church) or something.

We did it. We came home, put everything away, and the boys started sweeping the floor and making art to show mom when she gets home while I made coffee. Maybe there’s a method to my madness.

The “Insane Daddy” weekend rolls on

Further evidence that I should not be left alone for anything resembling “time” with my children.

After the coffee this morning (ok, they didn’t drink the whole pot, but you shoulda seen them clean house. It was like watching Benny Hill. If Benny had ever cleaned house) we…

…had the baby’s hair done!

Yes, ninety minutes (I think, I must have blacked out a few times) at a hair salon with three kids who are “so cute” according to the stylist, cute enough to be handed candy at random intervals, apparently. Plus we were allowed to play with rubber bands. And read People magazine. And when the baby got a little impatient, sitting on her throne chair, her brother would whisper in her ear “Since you are being so good, we’re going to McDonalds!” I swear I don’t know where he gets that from.

Her hair is lovely, but the camera has gone into hiding again, so I can’t show it to you yet.

Anyway, on the way to McDonalds? We stopped at Wal-Mart. Because I kinda-sorta promised the kids a reward if they would clean house like Benny Hill this morning.

Yes, Wal-Fucking-Mart, on a Saturday. At least it’s not a home game this weekend, so it wasn’t TOO bad. Of course two of the three had to go to the restroom (kids are drawn to the stinky wal-mart restroom like moths to a flame, or rats to poison). Then we go to McDonalds, and apparently I have the only three children in town who were not invited to a birthday party at McDonalds at 1:00 today. But that’s OK, we had so much fun screaming on the playland we didn’t realize we weren’t allowed any cake and we were the only kids not wearing an official Ronald McDonald hat.

Then we come home, and thirty seconds after my butt finally hit the couch (after swapping laundry, etc.) my five year old looks at me and whines: “What can we DO today?”