| 4/1/2006 | |
| April Fool | |
| The running theme for today was "one on one time for Hannah and her sister". This morning Hannah and Rachel decided to go to the grocery store. Chuck was at a promotional thing so, you guessed it, I agreed to stay, alone, in charge of Juliet (1), Ethan (4), and Paige (6). The fool. Of course Paige and Ethan kept trying to get me to play things like hide & seek with them and they weren't too happy when I couldn't because I had to keep a close eye on Foofoo. Everyone was playing happily for a while when Paige noticed that the TV had something on it that she didn't want to watch. She asked for a change of venue. I agreed. She picked Spiderman (Ethan's favorite mind you): The X-Men Adventure. Then the petty arguments started. Paige wanted to pick it from the DVR list; Ethan wanted to fast formard the commercials. That is, until he found out that Paige wanted to pick it from the list then that is what he wanted to do. When I told him that Paige had asked first he decided that he didn't want to watch Spiderman after all, and that he wanted to watch Star Wars. Again, after informing him that Paige had asked first he was not happy that shw was going to pick, and pick it from the list. Of course, in the end, I got to pick it from the list because neither of them can read well enough to do it themselves (a slight problem neither of them had considered). Anyway, we got the show on and running. I assured Ethan that he would get next pick and that Star Wars would come. Meanwhile it was time for Juliet to take her nap. I ran her upstairs; Paige ran with me; Ethan put in Star Wars. Boy was he pissed off when I came back and turned it off. I told him, for the 55th time, that it wasn't his turn and turned Spiderman back on. He stomped and screamed "NO! NO! NO!". I retorted "Look, you can scream 'NO! NO! NO!'" all you want but that won't change the facts". He sat quietly and watched Spiderman. After Spiderman (which Ethan really enjoyed despite not wanting to watch it ) we put in Star Wars and all was right with the universe, until it ended (it was 3/4 over already). Then the debate raged over whose turn it was to pick next. Obviously they each thought that it was their turn. I got some quick peace when I declared that it was my turn. They kinda looked at each other and couldn't really argue with my logic. So instead they each bombarded me with a multitude of suggestions. Sadly though, everything that I picked was missing, most likely in one or the other of the cars that were not at home at the time. Finally I decided on Garfield's Holiday Specials (it was the closest I could come to a concensus). Then the debate raged over which holiday. Ethan was scared of Halloween. Whether he was or not I didn't want to take the chance on trying to manage a trauma situation and the other two chitlins solo. Paige apparently has something against Thanksgiving so Christmas it was. We all curled up on the couch together and watched. About at the end of that Hannah and Rachel returned. It was almost noon at which time we had to run out to go to this Easter egg hunt. Chaos ensued as we all tried to get Finster up, get Paige and Ethan dressed, and get the groceries put away. Paige had to have her Saturday panties. Not Sunday, not Thursday, not Disney Princess, not Holly Hobby, not Haines, nor Fruit of the Loom; Saturday (dammit). Ethan was playing his video game and wanted nothing to do with the Easter Egg Hunt. Jen showed up to follow us over. I got myself together. Hannah and I got Finster together. I got the camera bag together. Paige got herself together. Rachel got Ethan together. We left. I forgot the camera bag. We arrived at the fire hall where the event was to take place just in the knick of time. We shuffled into the ambulance garage/holding area. The kids all ran around doing whatever. I had brought and issued grocery bags to everyone. The running around continued. Rachel's camera's battery died; we were down to a single digital camera. Ethan came back. He had no bag. I issued him another. More running around. The woman in charge climbed onto a washing machine and started to issue instructions. Paige and Ethan returned. They had no bags. I issued more. The woman stated that there were two arenas in which the competition would take place; er, uh, I mean the kids would look for stuff: one for big kids (4+) and one for little kids (4-). she also said that the stuff consisted of more than just candy, there were toys, books, etc. as well. We started to split up. The big kids went into the fire truck garage (large room) and the little kids into the rec room (little room). We debated which we should go to considering that we had no camera and it would be nice if everyone were together. We opted to go with the little kids room. Now this was one tiny room. Between the kids and their parents there was about two cubic feet of unoccupied space and that was between the ceiling and our heads. We waited and waited to file into the room which was already being ransacked by the parents, I mean kids, that were at the front of the line. By this time Kyle had had enough and was rolling around on the floor screaming his head off. I kinda lost contact with them from being swept, nay, crunched into this room. We scooped up a few things and tried to make our way back out. I was trapped behind this table because the flow of "traffic" would not allow me to exit until I threw a well-placed hip check on someone. We didn't dare put Finster on the floor. She would have been killed. Suddely not having the cameras did not seem so bad. We exited the room and hooked back up with the rest of the gang. Ethan was thoughtful enough to grab a Barbie doll for Juju. It was very cute. The big kids' room actually did have toys and stuff. The little kids room was all about the food. Imagine that. All things considered it was still a good time. We headed back to the homestead while Jen took Kyle to nappy land. One of the big events of the day was supposed to be Hannah and Rachel going out for munch (in keeping with the "one on one time" theme mentioned above). By the time we got back from the Easter egg hunt it was about 2:00. They hemmed and hawed as to whether they were actually going to go. Finally they decided to go out for appetizers and a drink leaving Chuck and me in charge of the under-agers. At least this time I had a partner. Anway nothing much happened while they were gone. Paige and Ethan played video games most of the time. I tried to put Juliet down for a nap since her morning nap was rather abbreviated. She slept for maybe 45 minutes and lost all interest in that. I got her up and she toddled around causing trouble. Hannah and Rachel came back after an hour or two, after going to the grocery store to pick up the things forgotted the first time around. Frank & Jen were supposed to come down that evening for dinner and visitation. Hannah wanted Juliet to be all awake and such so she insisted on putting her down for another nap (which she was totally no ready for). A while later Hannah freaked on me because Juliet was not going to sleep and wanted to get up (as if I forced the baby to not want to take a nap). I gave her the old "you haven't been here all day; you have no right to be pissed; shut up" speech. She did. She ended up getting Finster out of bed and we all got on with our lives. Jen arrived about 5:00ish. The kids all played and we hung out. Frank came after work, 6:30ish. We ate and hung out and made a short video for Hannah's Aunt Marie's 80th birthday, that was about it. |
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