Snapshot of Life - May 3, 2007

7:38 - After a second snooze alarm, I finally get out of bed. I couldn't fall asleep last night and ended up listening to a book that I had previously discarded as too boring to listen to, and it generally knocks me right out. But it still took me until after 1 a.m. to fall asleep. So I'm dragging a little this morning, would much rather stay in bed, but I like to see Boy #1 off to school. I'm so lucky that #1 gets himself ready every morning, it makes the mornings so much less of a burden!

7:42 - I wander downstairs and notice that only Boy #2 is watching tv. Hmm, that's strange...

7:45 - I go down to #1's room and HE'S STILL ASLEEP!!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!! WE'VE GOT 5 MINUTES UNTIL SCHOOL!!!!

7:50 - That kid is amazing, I'm sure a girl won't be this easy. In five minutes he is dressed, has done his hair (he likes to flip up the bangs with gel) and is getting his shoes and backpack on, while I cook him a pile of frozen waffles to eat (sans syrup) in the car on the way. That's the way to jump start your morning!

7:50-8:30 - I read the paper and get Boy #2 some breakfast. I wake up DH and Boy #3 wakes up at the same time. They go down for some breakfast while I shower.

9:00 - Time to get Boy #2 to school. I send him to get his shoes and backpack, but apparently there's a problem The backpack is readily available, but the shoes are nowhere to be seen. Ironically, I had spent a couple of hours this week cleaning out the hall closet from top to bottom, and even put in some "cubbies" for shoes to go. Are the shoes in the cubbies? No, of course not. #2 get quite indignant as I start quizzing him as to where he has looked - when I suggest he look under the couch he said, "I didn't put them under the couch!!"

9:03 - Doesn't look like the shoes are anywhere to be found. I say, "Boy, I hope you didn't leave them outside!" And sure enough, when I look out there, the shoes are lying forlornly under the swings. The bad news - it's been raining all night. Plus, I think the sprinklers ran too. The shoes are absolutely drenched.

9:05 - I retrieve the shoes (it's still raining) and try to convince #2 to wear either his sandals or his church shoes to school today. Battle ensues.

9:07 - A very soggy Boy #2 finally gets his backpack on and squishes out to the car in his wet shoes. I honestly questioned just sending him in socks today, kind of like sending Boy #1 to school with no coat in the snow, but can't justify that one. I did make an attempt to dry the shoes with a towel, but I doubt it helped.

9:10 - We get in the car and we are running pretty late, which means that of course Boy #3 must buckle his car seat by himself, a 2+ minute process that takes me about 6 seconds.

9:18 - Kids are dropped off, and I swing back home to grab DH to take him to work.

9:30-12 - With the taxi parked back in the garage, Boy #3 and I go in the house and settle in for a nice, quiet morning. I finish reading the Malaysia tour guide I ordered online - it seems as though the best things to do in Kuala Lumpur are eat and shop. I think I can handle that. #3 decides to play the piano and sing the ABC song and Itsy Bitsy Spider while he accompanies himself. It is cute, although not too melodious. Eventually he goes outside to play, then comes back in, then goes back out, and in, and out, the rest of the morning, while I sit on the couch so I can watch him outside. I do some internet surfing (DH calls it "making the rounds" of all our favorite sites) and actually get productive by working on some digital scrapbook pages.

12:08 - I leave to pick up the boys from kindergarten. I'm a few minutes late and they are the last kids to be picked up. How sad. They forgive me, though, when I suggest we go to Arctic Circle for lunch.

12:30-1:40 - Boy #2 and his carpool friend eat all of their food, but #3 just has his fries. The noise is deafening in the play area so I put my earbuds in but don't turn on anything - it's more to block out the sound of the friend chewing. The other moms there probably think I'm a jerk for sitting and listening to my ipod instead of engaging in stimulating conversation with two 6 year olds. Little do they know that I'm actually judging them based on their neglect to stop their bully kids from kicking, hitting, or pushing anyone who gets in their way. Thank goodness it's not my kids doing the bullying. #3 has been known to kick kids in front of him who aren't going down the slide fast enough for him. Just not today.

Unique name of the day: Cumorah. Good thing I think Mormons are nice people in general, because as a population we stink at naming kids. Present company excluded, obviously.

This play place is made for little kids. If they are older than, say, 4, the biggest attraction is scaling the outside walls of the equipment. Again, today it's not my kids. Oh, pardon me, my self-righteousness is showing!

1:45-2:45 - Come home and see that DH had tried to contact me. We have this customer who we think is attempting to use stolen credit cards to buy our products - he has many, many failed orders under different names, addresses, and cc numbers. Fortunately, most of the people must have already cancelled their cards, but twice he's had orders go through, and there doesn't seem like there's much to do about it. We clued in on the second order, and when it finally went through I called the credit card company (AMEX, as it happens) but they wouldn't give me any information, which isn't surprising, but they also wouldn't contact the customer to make sure that they had their card in their possession, or that they had authorized the purchase, or anything. It was for several hundred dollars, you'd think AMEX would care, but apparently not...

Anyhow, the customer is back today trying to place another large order, with the previously working card, which now must have gotten cancelled because it failed. We decided that we don't want to deal with the potential liability, so I'm assigned the task of figuring out how to ban someone from the store. It takes me quite some time, but eventually I find out how to block an IP address, and I do that. I figure we're taking a chance here that this is a legitimate customer who wants to spend hundreds of dollars in our store but I am banning, but how likely is that? Worst case scenario, the guy actually contacts us and we have to grovel. I'd be pretty surprised.

2:45 - I've banned a new word in our house as well today. Now, in addition to "Please?" said in a whiny, pleading, begging voice over and over, we can no longer say "Fine!" "Fine!" is usually shouted with as much venom as is possible for a 6 or 2 year old to produce. The 2 year old only does it because he hears the 6 year old, naturally, but they both make me crazy with it.

3:10 -Boy #2 is on his way to a friend's house, #1 is gone too, and #3 comes in to watch Curious George. I work on this entry while watching People's Court.

4:00 - #1 calls and asks if he can go to scouts with his friend. I tell him no, they have to plan for the right number of kids, you can't just show up, but he tells me that they said it's okay and the last time he went it was fine. The last time he went??? He must not have asked me, I tell him, because I would have said no last time too. He tries to insist that it's okay for him to go, but I say, I don't care what anyone else says, I'm your mother and I say it's not okay. He accepts this and comes home, and has the grace not to mope.

4:30 - DH calls and says that he's tired and doesn't want to work anymore. Isn't it great that he has so much control over his schedule like that, that he can just leave at 4:30 if he wants to? No, the point is that I drove him today and that he needs me to pick him up. Well, that's fine too. I don't mean "Fine!" just regular fine. But he decides it's just as easy to walk home, since it's stopped raining and two kids would need to be tracked down. I tell him if he walks, then it would give me time to straighten up the house like he requested when I dropped him off 7 hours ago, which I have yet to do. He compliments my honesty.

5:15 - #1 calls from the friend's house again, this time to ask if he can go to the friend's soccer game. I say yes, but he has to come home for dinner first. He's gone to watch these games several times, and I'm not sure what he gets out of them - he doesn't actually like soccer all that much. My guess is that they give him treats along with the rest of the team. That would be enough to get him to sit outside in the rain for an hour.

5:45 - I make tacos for dinner, a nice, safe, tantrum- and opinion-free meal. #1 eats most of one but he is supposed to leave at 6 for the game, so he throws away the rest, claiming he is "full." Full of it, I think. He has a tendency to prioritize in ways that I disagree with, but I suppose are natural - speeding through or skipping food, homework, nature's call, etc in order to do something fun. I dreamed last night that we were going to the pool but he lied about having already finished his homework so I yelled at him really bad, but I couldn't make him do the homework right then because he would have rushed through it and gotten it all wrong. That's a dream that could easily be a reality, except that the pool isn't open during the school year.

6:00 - The phone rings and when I see that it is the Stake President calling, I immediately recoil from the phone as if it is a poisonous snake. It is, after all, three days before Stake Conference, and why would the Stake President be calling? Fortunately, he was calling to ask DH to say the opening prayer. I was so happy that it had nothing to do with me I actually jumped up and down. That's a mistake, obviously, but I was very happy not to be asked to do anything, even though normally I'd be happy to do whatever. I'm certainly trying to avoid taking on any new responsibilities, regardless of how easy or insignificant they might be.

6:15 - Boy #2 comes home and has a taco, purely out of obligation because he wants a popsicle and I won't let him have one until he eats dinner. But he eats without complaint and then takes two popsicles outside to share with his friend.

7:00 - It is RS Ladies' Night Out, which is a bring-your-own-craft night type of thing. I bring my laptop and work on some digital scrapbook pages. I'm to the point where I'm familiar with the program enough that I can create the pages fairly easily now, but my hang-up now is just the creative part, which is just as much a stumbling block as it was when I was paper scrapbooking. I think I'm realizing that my excuse of "My pages would be cuter except I'm too cheap to buy all of the embellishments" like ribbons, brads, beads, etc. is no good, because now I have all of that stuff and my pages are still as boring as ever.

7:30 - I am still gone, but DH later tells me that when #2 got home he ASKED FOR ANOTHER TACO!! Yes, everyone, mark this day on your calendars, where one of my kids asks for regular healthy food when they are hungry after dinner, instead of the normal "Can I have some marshmallows?" that I usually get. This is more than just asking for seconds, which is rare enough, this is well past dinner time and asking for leftovers. I really wished I had been home to hear that.

9:30 - I get home after a nice, relaxing evening and DH and I settle in to watch tonight's episode of The Office. By the time it's over and we sit and shoot the breeze for a while, it's 10:30 and I don't feel like doing the dishes, even though it's my turn. They'll still be there tomorrow, I figure.