Our Weekend In Bullet Points

• left house early for 8:00 am eyebrow waxing since Halloween is over and cannot justify that Herman Munster look any longer.
• went to walmart for diapers, sculpey clay, and commemorative issue of Sports Illustrated for the boys (the World's Series issue, not the bathing suit one)
• brought 5 yr old to gymnastics lessons which requires entertaining the 1 yr old in the waiting room for an hour
• drove through McDonald's drive through and bought french fries for the screaming starving 1 and 5 yr olds, who filled up after eating maybe two fries a piece and then scattered the rest all over the backseat of anal retentive obsessively compulsively clean Rob's car.
• went to toy store to buy eldest son a present for his birthday which is next week. left with 4 things for Christmas for a different child.
• drove home from store like a crazed woman when I realized we are late for a party we uncharacteristically said we would attend
• Talked to Rob on the cell phone when he called to see if I had hopefully broken down somewhere so that he could call the party throwers and tell them we wouldn't be able to make it
• Tell him no such luck and then wonder briefly what the heck is wrong with us that we dread going to parties
• Arrive home safely and see that Rob and kids have cleaned up the front porch and raked all the leaves from the front and side yard. Am duly impressed.
• Drive to party
• Pull into steep dirt driveway and before Rob can pull out and repark the van two more cars pull in behind us and block us in. Have a panic attack thinking that we are now trapped at the party for the duration unless we want to make a scene
• Realize this is strictly an outdoor party, and it is cold, windy, and the sun is already beginning to go down. So I spend a good portion of the party huddled near their bonfire eating my children's candy. And simultaneously wonder what would possess someone to give out HUGE freaking paper sacks of candy when most of us parents had finally rid our homes of the halloween candy. kept eating children's candy convinced I was doing it for their own good.
• Oh and there was no food served except candy and some gatorade to wash it down with, wanna talk sugar highs?
• Successfully avoided talking to most of the annoying mothers at the party and sidestepped a conversation with a woman who was telling me she thought all homeschooled children should have to be tested every year to make sure there parents are actually teaching them the right things.
• leave party and head to ski mountain for the annual used ski sale
• Find a great deal on ski pants ($30) and new skis($90) for 9 yr old, who complains bitterly that they are "not colorful" enough for him. He wants an $80 pair of red snowpants and "different" skis. he ends up with nothing.
• Did get a great pair of ski boots for 5 yr old for $15. And there was no complaining about the color.
• Leave ski swap with an empty handed now crying 9 yr old who thinks we are the meanest parents ever. We tell him that we will contribute the amount of money we were prepared to spend at the sale toward whatever he chooses at a ski shop. And because we are masochists we head out toward the ski shop.
• Only to arrive half an hour later and find it closed, which is obviously our fault as parents.
• Realize that Rob has changed the time back on the clock in the van and that we no longer need to subtract an hour and it is 8:30pm and we have no dinner plans
• order pizza for dinner and pick it up on the way home
• Get kids to carry upstairs all their clean laundry and put it away
• Finally get the kids to bed and collapse on the couch
• Sunday morning comes too quickly and Rob goes fishing in the early morning
• Bake a pan of apple crisp with the help of the the small children who fight over using the nifty apple corer/peeler
• Do several loads of laundry and put it all away, yea me!
• Rob arrives home from fishing and does some sheetrocking and electrical work on the family room
• I consider all the things I could be doing and then opt to be a slacker and go outside and enjoy an unseasonably warm sunny day
• Supervised the installation of shelving in our mudroom closet and then unpacked all the winter coats and hung them up
• Folded up the pool and put it away... finally
• Rob made a bonfire in our fire pit and we all hung out outside for the rest of the day until someone asked what was for dinner and I had no idea. This seems to be a pattern again lately.
• Fed the masses
• Bathed the masses
• Directed the masses to their beds
• Collapsed on the couch and realized that I was looking forward to Monday so I could relax.