Heidi Chronicles

In the last few days…

• I argued with the doctor again about why I need to continue to be on medication.
• Liam pooped on the patio while playing in the water in the backyard with Avery.  (I made him clean it up while Jenn and I laughed our asses off.)
• Elena looked at me, raised her hands as if she was confused, and said, “I dun know whew is Stinky Pinky, Mama.”
• I made the most boring dinner I’ve ever made.
• Liam said, “MURPHY…Don’t. You. DARE!”
• Elena said, “MOOPHY…Don. You. DAYOO!”
• I have been lazy to the point that if I had a corporate job I’d be fired.
• I ignored the children to work on the computer and upload pictures
• Aaron went to Chicago.
• The children watched the entire season of Yo Gabba Gabba
• I wasn’t sweaty when I got out of the shower.
• I wrote meal plans
• I sometimes used periods to indicate the ends of sentences.

And today…I took the kids to the fountain to play.  Liam had a great time with Avery (seated on the right side of the pic in the background), but Elena mostly yelled.  She looks pleasant here, but it’s all a facade.

Here’s how she really felt.

If she’s this unhappy WITH a chip in her mouth, you can only imagine how unhappy she was when we got on the bus without any chips and she was forced to sit in a seat because some idiot made us fold up the stroller. Believe me, no one else enjoyed it either.

However, we did get quite a lot of help from the people on the bus who realized what a difficult time I was having. Someone took the stroller and another woman helped Liam get out. Turns out they were together…and they were both American.

No wonder they were so nice.

Liam’s shoes were hurting his feet, so even though I had the single stroller, I plopped him in and sat Elena on his lap. She thought it was fun, and for the first time in more than two hours she didn’t cry, so I went with it.

I brought her home and put her directly to bed, got Liam in bed, and we all slept until 4.30.

And the rest of the day was a wash.

Today I made lists.

Today Liam decided that red matches red…no matter what.

Oh, and Lily went home this evening. She was extremely happy to see her human.  Macey and Elena will miss her terribly!

I cooked most of the day for our dinner with Jenn and Noah this evening.  We had a tasty meal of roasted garlic crostini with goat cheese and pine nuts, hummous and pita, chicken and beef kababs with grilled veg and chips, homemade salsa, tubuleh, and triple berry crisp thanks to Jenn.

It was all wonderful…and worth taking Liam with me to the grocery store where he gagged on a cracker and then offered the words I give you as the title of this post.

He always makes me laugh.

I love Monty Python.  My friend Lea and I used to sit with her older sister and her friends and watch it on the weekends.  “I faht in yowah general die-rection” became a phrase lovingly bestowed upon one another for many years – we even whipped it out occasionally in high school as co-editors of the yearbook.

Good times, good times.

A and I decided that we’d go see the stage version since we live in the land of theatre and upon hearing that we were going, his boss decided he and his wife wanted to go as well.  So off we went this evening after a lovely afternoon of Liam yelling from the stairs “I WANT TO WATCH YOU HAVE YOUR QUIET TIME!” while I did Wii Fit.

It was a much needed break from the children.

We met for dinner before hand at a fantastic place and enjoyed our meal – me without wine.  It’s a long story, but over the last few months I’ve noticed a huge difference in my attitude and physical well being the day (sometimes several days) after I’ve had alcohol, so I decided that this night out was going to be my first dry one.

I’d say that part of it went well as the sparkling water bubbles and makes me burp just like beer, so I felt right at home with the rest of them – or maybe it was just me burping.

Anyway, that’s kind of a big deal because I do enjoy a tasty (usually sweet) alcoholic beverage, but not really a big deal because I know how much better I’ll feel tomorrow.

So, there’s that.

And the fact that I laughed almost to tears at the show, we had a great time afterward, and planned a BBQ at our house in a few weeks makes the whole evening a roaring success.  Woo hoo!

We caught the last train home.

Yeah, we can still party.

Today was from hell.  We went to Parliament Hill, a park in a different part of town, and it was a complete disaster.

• First I messed around too long this morning deciding whether or not I wanted to go.  I didn’t have anything else to do, or a reason NOT to go, so I decided we’d go for it.  Then I took too long to get ready.  Made us half an hour late.
• Lost the keys when I was trying to get out of the house.  Took 30 minutes to find them.  Ahem, that’s an hour late.
• Had to take the tube with the double stroller and carry the damn thing with Elena in it because London is ridiculous and doesn’t have elevators in every station.
• Since it was a gorgeous day and the sun was shining, the pool water was hidden by the 80 bazillion people who arrived before us since they hadn’t lost their keys. Basically there was no way in hell that I was going to try to.take two kids into the mosh pit by myself.  I walked right on by as Liam pointed to the water asking excitedly, “are we going to go in there?”  His eyes were huge.
• Fortunately there was also a huge playground right next to the pool where the other parents who lost their keys and were late were playing. Unfortunately it was big enough that I lost Liam. Of course he was over on the big kid equipment and I did eventually find him. Then he and Elena played in the sand pit – and threw sand in my hair.  I hate sand.
• I stayed a little too late and the M&S sandwich I picked up for the kids wasn’t cutting it for lunch since they had already eaten everything I brought for lunch as a bribe to keep quiet on the tube.
• I was going to take the bus home for something different, but the screaming was drawing attention at the bus stop…we took the tube.
• The screaming went on until Elena fell asleep, which was good.  It was NOT good when I had to wake her to strip her down by the front door and throw her in the tub.  She slept 30 minutes.

On a lighter note, I got to talk to Mom and Heather, both of whom helped to diffuse the morning situation.  I was better by the time Aaron got home.  Lucky him.