Good weekend, bad Monday

We had a good and productive weekend, but our Monday was a little shakey.

On Saturday we edged and fertilized our lawn. We got a "friendly reminder" from our HOA that our lawn needed to be edged, so Rich decided to go buy an attachment for his weed trimmer. That promptly broke, so he decided to just used his trimmer. The only problem was that he had blades on it instead of string. The blades were broken from an earlier attempt at edging and he couldn't get the blades off to put the string on. He used a hacksaw and a blow torch and was finally able to get the blade thing off, but he couldn't get the string back on right. He ended up taking the broken edger attachment back and went really low tech. He bought this shovel kind of thing that is really an edger. Success at last. The kids were big helps with sweeping the sidewalk and Hunter got his big dump truck and would pick up all the grass and then go dump it in a pile. So, with a lot of sweat and a little elbow grease we got the lawn edged and it looks really good.

Lizzie's bike broke a couple of months ago and we (I should say Rich) finally got around to fixing it, sort of. He at least took it apart to find out what was wrong with it. The bearings needed to be replaced. So, off we went to the bike shop. Hunter had to bring several matchbox cars with him and because he is so safety conscious, he buckled them all into the extra seat in back. You might think this is funny until you have to wait 5 minutes while he's doing it and won't take your help. It ended up that the bearings for the bike are a weird size and the bike shop didn't have any of the right size. Rich still thinks he can fix it although I'm pretty sure it would just be easier and more cost effective to just buy her a new one. I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

Lizzie deemed me the "best mom in the whole world" yesterday for telling her that she could get an extra sticker on her chore chart (the kids get a penny for every sticker on the chart) for helping with the yard work. It made me feel good, but I knew the bliss wouldn't last long. I was right. She claimed I was the "worst mom in the whole world" when I washed her hair this morning. It just went down hill from there when I didn't buy her a toy at Target today. I was then the "meanest mom in the whole world". Who knows what kind of mom I'll be tomorrow. I guess that all depends on what kind of daughter Lizzie is.

Anna seems to be honing her sonar skills. Saturday, she walked around with her eyes closed emitting a really high pitched noise. She's getting pretty good. I don't think she ran into anything. She may have been peeking just a bit though. You can never trust a 2 year old. They're all a bunch of b.s.ers.

Hunter decided that he wants GeoTrax. He keeps asking if he can get it and we keep telling him that he can save his money and buy it. I told him we could go to Target today and find out how much it costs ($45, it will take him years to earn that much. maybe he'll just have to ask Santa) and then we could come home and count his money to see how much he had. From Olivia's (a little girl from school who we carpool with) house to Target (about a 15 min. ride) I made absolutely sure that all the kids understood that we were just looking at toys and we were under no circumstances buying any kind of toy today. So, we get there and I found a cute little witch's hat for Anna and it was the last one there. What luck! We went on to look at toys and of course Hunter and Lizzie both have to go to the bathroom. We head off to the bathroom and leave our cart just outside of the door with the lucky witch's and a toy I forgot Anna had. When we came out our cart was gone. No one saw anyone take it blah blah blah. I grabbed another cart and headed over to the Halloween sections to hunt for another hat. I noticed the woman that left the bathroom just before us looking at costumes so I asked if she had seen my cart when she left. "Oh, I took your cart". What!?!?!?!? So I asked here if she had the little hat. She'd put it away and gladly went and found it for me. What kind of person takes a cart with stuff in it and then puts all the stuff back? Now I have to tell you that Hunter walked into the stall that this woman was using and she seamed kind of embarrassed. So my question to you is this, do you think she took my cart on purpose or did she really not even think that the cart with merchandise (I know it was only 2 things) right outside the bathroom belonged to the woman in the bathroom holding a stall door closed and a whiny 2 yr old while waiting for her 4 yr olds to go to the bathroom?

Okay, I'm glad that I got the hat back, but I'm never, ever, ever, ever taking my kids to "look" at toys again. After the intense conversation about not buying toys and asking the kids over and over if they understood and then threatening them if they whined or threw fits and getting promises that they wouldn't, guess what they did? Yep, they whined and threw fits because I didn't buy them any toys. Here are a few things I heard from the back of the car.

"You don't love me because you didn't buy me a helicopter".

"You're the meanest mom in the whole world"

"You broke your promise"

and lots of other incoherent babbling and crying.

Do I even need to tell you that I have a splitting headache?

Hmm, I hear a ripping noise. Oh, it's just Anna sans clothes and taking off her diaper. Where's the Tylenol?

P.S. If you haven't guessed or noticed, this was posted by Holly not Rich. Rich says he wouldn't have been upset by the whole cart thing.