Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Spring Time Finally Means Fun

WE HAD SUCH A FUN WEEKEND!!!

It was interesting, because I thought Saturday’s event was going to be crazy-fun, and that Sunday’s was going to be so-so, and it ended up being the total opposite. Saturday’s event, if you have already forgotten because you have a life outside of my blog, was the Single Parents Meetup trip to the Museum of Science for the ‘Butterfly Bash’ bug event. I hadn’t been to that museum since I worked in daycare (like, 14 years ago) but had very fond memories of it being fun and exciting.
Since it was a Meetup event, only two people showed up. Late. Because that’s how Meetups work. And with this group, they like to stand around and talk and ponder life and stuff, because, well, they don’t have an 11-month old in a stroller freaking out because she wants to GO DO SOMETHING. They pretty much all have older kids, who can run around and punch and generally be rude to everyone and each other. So I ALWAYS end up ditching the nice man who organizes all these great things because I am so damn impatient, plus I really don’t like to walk around events at someone else’s pokey pace. So Jellybean and I take off on our own, and the first thing I realize is that there is an awful lot of walking at the mostly-outside museum. And that it’s a billion degrees. And I’m already sweating. I made the mistake of taking my delicate little flower into the swelteringly humid butterfly pavilion, where beautiful butterflies flew around and landed on everyone except us. The Bean was like, ‘Dude, what is wrong with you, this is boring as hell and did I mention I hate the heat?’ We did some more walking, saw some lame animals sleeping (I assume they weren’t literally lame, but they were all lying down, so they might’ve been). Then we did the train. Yay, train! Jelly was finally happy.
After an hour and a half of sweaty unhappiness we went and met Ta for lunch. Jelly was all crazy, I guess because she was so happy to see the Ta and be sitting in air conditioning eating pancakes. She kept hollering at waitresses (we really think she was saying, ‘Bring more food, beyotches!’), and the hostess was so enchanted with her that she gave her a little toy light-up rubber ducky. That kid knows how to work a crowd. I think one of the reasons Hispanic women fawn over her is because she’s got that dark curly hair and those immense jowls, and they just want to give her pinches and treats and chortle at her in Spanish. Hey, go right ahead.
The sad part of the story is that while Bean got some great naps on the hour-long drive back and forth to the craptastic museum, she had no desire to nap once we got home and it would’ve been possible for ME to nap. So I ended up going to bed at 7:30, which just pissed me off, because such a waste of a Saturday evening!

However, Sunday morning meant I had 11 hours sleep under my belt so I hit the ground running. Want to feel tired? Here’s what I did;
6:30 am – Shower and get dressed, put in load of laundry
7:00 am – Get baby up, give sippy, change, dress, fold and put away baby laundry
7:30 am – Drive to Farmer’s Market. Learn that Farmer’s Market does not open til 8 am
7:45 am – Go to grocery store. Without list. Panic and buy 4 kinds of cereal and not much else. Stand at meat case so Jelly can talk to the butchers.
8:15 am – Go to Farmer’s Market. Learn that vendors do not show up until later, despite being open at 8 am
8:30 am – Go to Bruegger’s to console self. Get Jenny a honey-wheat bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Get the best bagel sandwich of all for myself, the Herby Turkey. ON A SALT BAGEL. Am in heaven. Have iced Chai. Heaven is great. Jellybean talks to senior citizen church crowd. They are an adoring audience and willingly play peek-a-boo with her around the booths. She takes an hour to eat half a bagel. Learn that hotty cops hang out at Bruegger’s on Sunday mornings. Make reluctant Jellybean talk to hotty cops.
9:30 am – Back at home. Make a lasagna for The Nanny and her sister for this week. Empty dishwasher, load dishwasher, clean kitchen, change out laundry
10:30 am – Take nap with baby
11:45 am – Feed everyone lunch. Clean up.
12:30 pm – Work on banner for Jellybean’s party. Stop Jellybean from eating scissors, paper, photos, ribbon, scrapbook. Jellybean retaliates by unrolling entire roll of costly double-sided tape.
1:30 pm – Get self and baby dressed for event. Try to get baby to take nap
2:45 pm – Leave for event. Say bad words in front of baby when rain drops hit windshield
3:15 pm – Arrive at event, hoping for best
5:30 pm – Depart awesome event
6:30 pm – Jellybean goes down in a blaze of glory, finally crashing from her sugar and excitement high. Put grumpy, filthy baby in tub of lovely bubble bath, then into nice fresh jammies, then into cozy bed. Wish I was a baby.
7:30 – Clean kitchen one final time. Put away explosion of toys in living room, being careful not to trip any battery-powered toy land mines. Start dishwasher. Watch Criminal Intent.
9:30 – Put self to bed
The event was the local Triangle Mommies Fourth Annual Birthday Bash. There were way more people there that I knew than I thought I would, which was nice. And they had bouncy houses and slides, and people doing face-painting and making balloon animals, and a rockin’ DJ and a bubble machine, and local mascots. Oh, and did I mention the FOOD?! There was a professional cake person, who I had to go and talk to because she made the world’s best cupcakes (Neapolitan – Chocolate base, French Vanilla middle, Strawberry top, luscious frosting, and white-chocolate ornaments).
There were huge bowls of fresh fruit (blueberries, kiwi, strawberries, pineapple, grapes). There was a popcorn machine, and a sno cone machine, and McDonald’s was there giving away free iced coffees and McNuggets and apple slices with dipping sauce. There was BBQ, with crusty rolls and slaw. There were fruit roll-ups, the all-fruit fancy kind (that I’ve since learned are $5 for a box of 6 – I should have filled the diaper bag). There were 6 different kinds of cookies, and cheesecakes and brownies, and lemonade, and the cakes. Jellybean thought it was the best thing EVER. It was a FREE event. It was crazy. Babies ‘R Us had giveaways, and there was a sandbox, and the firemen were there with their truck, and Ronald McDonald was AWESOME (albeit slightly terrifying to Jelly), and did juggling and played with the kids. It sprinkled for like 10 seconds, then cleared up, but it wasn’t too hot because it was overcast, so the weather ended up being perfect. Yay! Her birthday is going to be such a letdown.
The Zyrtec worked great, but I learned the other reason why she has been out-of-sorts and feverish. Wait for it – yep, TWO more teeth popped out. So she’s up to eight now. That’s our gal!

2 comments:

Chris said...

Looks like you guys had a rockin' weekend. Great pics too! You're both very photogenic.

Brueggers is weird that way .. cops, senior citizens and college students. Not much in between.

Shannon @ Lifelong Impressions said...

Great post. I'm with you on the slow people and on free events!