A friend of ours from Alabama is deathly ill, and another friend is undergoing chemo after a dual radical mastectomy. Arlene had been planning a visit for a while, but friend #1’s health was deteriorating quickly, so we decided she should go sooner rather than later. With David’s birthday coming up on Tuesday, “sooner” meant “0530 Saturday morning”. She packed Friday night, got up early and drove to the airport Saturday morning, and was in Huntsville by 0945. In the meantime, I was here with three small, noisy, active boys. Here’s what we did.
0715: Matt got up, so I brought him back to my bed for some cuddle time.
0745: Tom got up; the first words out of his mouth were “Where’s Mom?” followed closely by “Can you scramble some eggs for breakfast?”
0810: woke up David.
0820: Dad called to invite us to McDonald’s for breakfast. Too late; the eggs were already in the skillet. We plan to meet at 0900 to go see some model trains at a local hardware store.
0840: Cycle all three boys and myself through the two showers. This happens in a surprisingly orderly manner. Everyone ends up bathed and dressed in about 25 minutes.
0910: Pick up Dad and Tim and drive to the train place.
0940: Observe expressions of stupefaction and wonder on faces of all three boys. This lasts until one of the hardware store guys comes over and actually turns on one of the trains, at which point Matt starts to cry.
0942-1015: Try to convince Matt that he likes trains, at which I fail miserably. Dad compensates by giving him some circus peanuts.
1020: I buy some spacers for the kitchen and we set off for the barbershop.
OK, so this minute-by-minute format is tedious. We drove around the countryside for a while, then ended up at the haircutting place. Matt was enchanted by the suckers but wanted no part of an actual haircut. He only cried a bit, but he made it clear that no way was some strange lady with funny hair going to touch him, thankyouverymuch, especially with scissors. We went home and had grilled cheese sandwiches, followed by a trip to the grocery store for ice cream ingredients and some tilapia to grill. Since we’d bought the fish for grilling, we then went to Target and bought a grill. I had a good time explaining to the boys who George Foreman is and why he’s pimping grills.
We came home amd ordered some pizza. The boys cleaned[sic] the kitchen while I made a big bowl of fruit salad, then the missionaries came over for dinner. Everyone ate well, and the boys were all in bed by 9pm. I watched a month-old episode of
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