Life in the King-dom: February 2007

Ok, it's been a while since I've read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, but I'm just about ready to publish a sequel. I guess it's not that bad, really, but can I have just a momentary pity party...please?

David left this morning for BJ for the Principals' Recruiting Conference. (sniff)

I noticed I was scratching my jaw line a bit yesterday, but I chalked it up to dry skin (the skin on the tips of my fingers is actually splitting open this year - argh), until I woke up this morning scratching the back of my hand. I made it to the bathroom mirror to investigate and discovered I have poison ivy of some sort on my left jaw and back of my right hand. The only place where I can think of contacting it is in our "natural area" in the corner of our yard where we take Tucker to do his things. But I thought it was dormant this time of year!! I haven't had this stuff in years and it's right where my hair rubs and....

on to the next Alexanderish moment,

I was getting the s' things loaded in the car this morning for Emma's monthly / Aubrey's quarterly JCP photo shoot pilgrimage and when I was stepping through the doorway I heard a funny noise. I glanced around trying to put my finger on what this peculiar sound was and then realized that Tucker's almost empty bag of food was moving. You read correctly. It was moving. Horror of horrors, I realized that there was a MOUSE in the bag. After I got the A&E loaded up I took the bag out to the drive way and dropped it. (to which my mother replied - "What? You didn't hit the bag with a shovel or something?!?!")

My pride at the ingenuity of ridding my residence from the mouse was short lived when the mouse scurried out of the bag and did a U-turn toward the opposite side of the car, back into the garage. All the while I'm stomping my feet up and down like a three-year old having temper tantrum trying to scare him back out; a few of my neighbors' blinds went down on their windows and children were pulled back inside by their worried mothers. Aubrey and Emma just looked up at me form their car seats and grinned. They love me, no matter what.

Our 10:20 appointment (which we were on time for, in spite of Mickey, thank you very much) was delayed by 15 minutes because some mother was determined that her fussy children would have their pictures taken today, no matter the pouting, fussing, screaming, crying, and general lack of smiles.

If my memory serves me correctly, baby food was on sale again this week at Bi-Lo. So, Aubrey is thrilled because that means if she asks correctly she can ride in the "green cart." (Don't ask me why she calls them green carts...they are shaped like race cars [we're in NASCAR country, ok?!], the kid gets to "steer" and the carts are blue, not green.) After we trundle into the store in our over-sized "green" cart we discover that the baby food is NOT on sale after all. I pick up a few other things that are in the ad and I that I have coupons for (at least they double them up to 99cents), and we are now headed back to the cart. As I lift Aubrey out I discover that it's been a bit too long since we've gone potty or changed the pull-up.

No one at Wal-Mart knows where the mousetraps are shelved. I asked a stock lady near the house supplies and she confidently replied "Hardware Department!" So, we trek across the vast expanse of Super-Wally to go up and down every aisle in the Hardware Department, to finally find a clerk who looks at me and says, "I don't know. They aren't over here. I think they are over in the grocery department." I smiled and said, "That's funny...I asked someone over there and she told me to come over here to the Hardware Department." Not to be outdone by her co-worker, Hardware Hilda now conjurs up her inventory memory map and confidently calls after me, "Check aisle 10, over in grocery." (yah, right, like I'm gonna traverse this football field again!)

We made it home. =)

After I get Aubrey up from the table she disappears while I'm on the phone. I hunt her down after she has successfully emptied the entire contents of her second dresser drawer onto the floor.

A&E are down for a naps. Ok, it's Tucker time. Our beloved puppy discovers that the neighbors have some right tasty black liner and pine straw under one of their bushes. After I get that pieced back together I decided that was enough fun and games for the time being so I put him back on his tether. (Don't feel too sorry for him, it's actually a beautiful day.) Well, he decided that he wasn't quite finished with the liner and pinestraw so he goes bolting back that direction and runs right out of his collar, breaking off one of the locking prongs on it. Guess where we get to go after the s wake up from their naps....yup, Super-Wally.

Maybe I'll check grocery aisle 10.