Moo, Thelma and Louise Head South, and Crack (I mean melatonin)

Today was one of those days that I just kind of look back over and wonder where all of the hours went. I'm quite sure that I did something because I'm definitely ready to fall into bed. However, the house is a wreck and the laundry is still piled up in the hallway so I'm pretty sure that I didn't overexert myself in either of those areas. Hmmm...

My morning started with being rudely awakened at about 7:30 by the sound of a garbage truck. My first thought was, "Crap! I forgot to put the garbage out last night!" Then, I realized that the sun was up and Annie wasn't. As most moms would do, my first thought was that something unspeakable had happened to her as she slept so I went rushing into her room. Of course, I didn't go barging in like a maniac on the slim chance that she was actually still asleep at this hour. Miracle of miracles, the girl was still sound asleep. Whew! I proceeded to run downstairs and out front to drag the garbage out. I apologize to any of the neighbors who witnessed my antics in my pjs!

By the time I'd gotten back inside, Annie was looking for me and quite frantic. Poor baby. We snuggled up and watched our morning dose of Dora with a cup of milk and then decided it would be fun to wake the big kids up! Annie gets quite a kick out of attacking Grant to wake him up! He's loosing sight of the humor of the situation, though. I don't know why he doesn't like to be awakened by Annie crawling onto his bed and jumping on him!

We finally go the big kids up and started getting ready for the annual Cow Appreciation Day. If you go into Chick-fil-A dressed as a cow, you get free food! It doesn't get any better than that! So, we all headed to "chick a way" to get an early lunch. As the kids ate, I begin to realize that it was barely 11:00 and I didn't have a clue as to what we'd do for the rest of the day! I knew that I didn't want to do another road trip today but I also knew that I didn't want to hang out at home, either!

We decided to head to the lake. Last time, the girls had a great time and it was pretty stress free for me so I figured that this would be even better with Grant in tow!

When we got home from CFA, Annie went to get her swimsuit and Grant disappeared to get ready. Dasha just stood there and looked at me. Oh geez! How could I forget? She had a "visitor." She discreetly asked me what to do. (Why does she want to be discreet with it's just the two of us but not in the middle of a crowded restaurant)? Anyway, we devised a plan that did NOT require me to teach her any new tricks (if you get my drift) and she ran off to get ready. Now, I had to get ready. I planned on staying at the lake for a few hours so I knew that I wanted to be comfy and water-ready, too. Normally, I just throw on an old one piece swimsuit and then put water shorts and a t shirt on top. I decided to get brave today. Since I've lost weight, I figured that some of my old suits might fit. They are all the kind that have the skirted bottoms that covered up everything that needs to be cinched up and covered and tops that also cover all of the required materials. I started by trying on one of the tops. Well, lets just say the top was older and the elastic had given up. I tried it anyway. It was actually a little big but that wasn't the most disturbing part. The biggest problem was that the suit allowed Thelma and Louise to head WAY south! Um, NEXT! The next top I tried on had an empire waist and the elastic was pretty solidly sewn in around the seams at the bosom. This top was a little big too but I started wiggling around to see if everyone stayed put like they needed to. It was at about this point that Grant knocked on the door to ask me something. When I twisted sideways, Thelma fell below the equator and somehow, Louise went above it. It wasn't pretty. Good grief! Out of the four tops I had, none of them fit properly! I'm glad I was able to find the humor in the whole situation, though! I eventually chose the top that kept the girls in their seat belts best and threw a tank top over the whole situation. I felt like I was throwing a tarp over some kind of top secret project! (Not like a Pamela Anderson kind of project. More like a Marge Simpson kind of creation)! Then, I grabbed for one of the skirted bottoms. I knew I had to hurry. There were three kids standing outside the door and I was sure that one of them would eventually start sticking their fingers under the door just to see if I'd take their bait and step on them! Well, if choosing the right top was a debacle, choosing the right bottoms was even worse! The elastic was rotten in every bottom that I had in the drawer. And, let me tell you! You do NOT want to wear a bathing suit bottom that doesn't have some sort of suction cup like power to keep it Gorilla glued to your bum! Seriously? I ended up throwing on a pair of water shorts. A little later, Grant asked me what was going on and I explained part of the situation to him. He suddenly asked, "Well, what are you wearing under your shorts?" Crap! No, I wasn't commando. Gross! But I hadn't taken into consideration that my undergarments weren't water rated. Ladies, there's a reason you don't go into the water in your normal undies! Oh well. The swim season is just about over so I'll resort to my old stand by and ditch the other suits. However, I just found the whole situation funny this morning. My prayer at dinner should have been something like, "Dear Lord, Thank you so much for giving someone the intelligence to invent elastic. Please give one of his great grandchildren the intelligence to invent the kind that's nearly indestructible!" As Grant said when I told him the story (minus the part about Thelma and Louise trying to escape), "I guess you just had to be there!" Guess so!

We finally made it to the beach. (Annie also had wardrobe malfunctions today)! We decided to go to a different area to mix it up a bit. We were living dangerously. The area we chose was really crowded! Strike one. It also had a big playground on the beach. Strike two. Annie would want to play on the equipment but the big kids would want to be in the sand and water. Strike three was whatever the sludge was in the bottom of that area of the lake. It felt like cereal that has set in milk too long squishing between your toes. It was NOT normal sand!

Annie discovered her shadow, though, and it made me laugh out loud. She got royally ticked off because she couldn't get rid of it. How do you explain a shadow to a two year old?

Grant wanted to head out to the furthest point and cling to the buoys. I think he thought that he was still at scout camp and there was a lifeguard on duty. I was doing my best to watch all three kids but Grant's dark shirt just made him blend right into the water and I had more than one panic attack when I looked out and couldn't see him.

The blowout finally occurred because of this beach ball, though! A stupid dollar store beach ball nearly caused me to have a fatal heart attack! Grant was out in the water clinging to the buoy closest to the the swamp monsters from the deep and Dasha and Annie were on the sand playing with the ball. The whole time, Annie had been begging and whining to go slide on the play equipment. This was no surprise. I'd just told her over and over that it wasn't our turn yet. (Hey, don't judge! It worked for a few times)! But, as the girls played, they got rougher and rougher. Eventually, Annie kicked the ball right out of Dasha's hands. Dasha ran to get the ball. While my eyes were on Dasha, Annie took off toward the play equipment. I turned around and ran a few yards to nab Annie (while trying to locate Grant in the water). When I turned around, I couldn't find Dasha. I wandered through the masses of people in the general direction the ball had drifted. Nope. Meanwhile, I was dragging Annie behind me as she was screaming and trying to catch a glimpse of Grant. Nope on that too! Finally, when I'd reached nearly the opposite end of the beach, I saw Dasha climbing over the buoys into the "out of bounds" area. It wasn't until that point that I saw that the ball had floated WAY out into the paths of the jet skis. She didn't have her glasses on so she couldn't really even see what she was contending with. I did manage to get her stopped and tell her to leave the $1 ball out to sea! She started crying like she'd just lost a million dollars! Ugh! I didn't have any patience for drama. I still needed to find Grant! I ended up having to wade half way out into the lake with both girls in tow and that weird slushy dirt oozing between my toes to find Grant as he twirled around one of the buoys without a care in the world. He did not understand my panic or my demands that he come in closer to the shore. He was rather insulted that I was putting boundaries on his independence. It was like the three of them had been shot from a cannon and all decided to scatter in different directions just to see me panic! Pooh!

After a few more minutes in the water and a couple more times of Annie trying to slide after I'd told her a gazillion times that the slide was hot (and her screaming that her bottom hurt every single time), we headed home! Whew! That trip didn't even begin to compare with the previous one!

I was sure glad to get everyone home and enforce nap times!

My mom came and got the big kids a little later to take them to a movie which was a nice break. Annie and I played doll house and then an old friend stopped by. It was so nice to just hang out and talk about random things. She'll probably never know what her company meant to me this afternoon!

Finally, everyone is tucked into bed for the night. I'm ready to head to bed myself. My brain is still engaged full throttle but I'm going to crawl into bed anyway. When I first found myself on this road, I read that there are several steps in the grieving process and that they are sometimes cyclical. I'm finding that to be very true. Just about the time I'm finished with one cycle like anger and moving on to something else, old emotions pop up and make me feel like I'm being pulled backwards. I know that's not the case and it's just more reason for me to dig my heels in and push forward but it still bugs me. This whole process of "moving on" is NOT a neat and orderly thing like I'd prefer. However, as the counselor said, "Recycling through the emotions gives you time to edit your story if you'd like." That didn't make much sense at the time because I still thought I had everything figured out and knew how the story would end. Now, it makes complete sense. Whew.

I will pop a few more melatonin tonight because they definitely seem to work for me. I do need to find out, though, what the long term effects are and if the stuff is like crack and addictive! :)