Wy is 2 part 2

I think I mentioned that Wy sings his own version Happy Birthday: "Happy to you!" For as much as he runs around singing this little ditty - he had a full on melt down when we sang Happy Birthday to him after dinner last night. I don't know if we scared him or if he just didn't like all of us singing together - whatever it was, he wasn't having it.

He got a few new Thomas trains and was engrossed with them. (Jack was VERY hard pressed to keep his hands off of Wy's booty.) Each of the trains comes with a little name plate card that tells you about your new train and a little booklet that shows what other Thomas goodies your parents can buy for you. This booklet is always a HUGE hit and somehow they remain in tact for amazingly long periods of time. I am sure the little thing is gone and 5 minutes later someone is POURING over one of those little booklets.

Aunt Jeanette sent a package and scored big time with the wooden fire truck. Wy couldn't decide if he wanted to play with Rocky and his train cars or the fire engine. She also scored big with her little brother John by including a copy of The Mouse and the Motorcycle! (And another hit with sister-in-law Amy's lovely earrings, trinket box and tablecloth from Tajikistan and Russia- Beautiful!)

Bedtime was pretty much a nightmare. The boys were hopped up on sugar from the yummy cake John and I put together. Wy & Jack were so excited about going to meet Thomas in the morning that they were bouncing all over the bed, the walls, me...Poor John was trying to read one of the books Jeanette sent, but no one could hear him over the boys and their noise.

Look to the next post for Wy's birthday pix.
Love from Owenland Park!!!

Wy is 2!!!

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Check out my bad self!

OK friends and Fam - I'm not sure how I did it, nor if I can do it again - but in the very next blog is a slideshow of all the things I wanted to show you from this week. I can't figure out how to add text to it, so you will just have to settle for mutliple blogs this week - so sad for you...

Last week started off with the birth of Grace! Congratulations to my cousins Monica & Tommy and Welcome Baby Grace!!!

I have been on vacation since May 18. It has been lovely. I mean really lovely. The girls were still in school, so I only had the 3 little ones. The weather was lovely so we went on daily walks to the park or around the neighborhood. And Mom started her new job at Sprint - this time as a Business Analyst. Congratulations Mama!

The weekend started off rocky, but ended up as one of the most lovely weekends I have ever had. The boys had me up every time I turned around Friday night. I was rather cranky by the time I was forced awake by screaming children at 7:00 Saturday morning: a great start to my 36th birthday. After a long failed attempt at getting back to sleep, mom offered to take me shopping. Things started to get better. We spent the morning picking out sun dresses and then we had a lovely lunch at the Red Lobster followed by wandering through the Borders for books. AAAHHH - lovely. After a much needed nap, we rounded up the entire group (except Jess, who had stayed the night with a friend) and headed out to the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens out at 169th & 69? I wasn't so sure how the kids would handle a botanical garden - but they had a great time. John gathered them all around to look at a little lady bug that had landed on his arm. The kids were fascinated and wanted to take it home with us. Then it was off to BDs Mongolian BBQ for dinner. I don't think I want to wrangle all of us out for dinner again, but at least the kids behaved! (We even had Jess and her friend along for the dinner party.)

Sunday was spent at Beth's house for her grandaughter's first BBQ. It was a great way for everyone to meet Grace and celebrate Memorial day. We stopped at the grocery on our way out and the boys insisted on riding in this red car grocery cart. Most of the carts are made so the kids can crawl into them. This is one you have to lift the kids up into. Jack is getting a little big for that...But he had a meltdown until I hauled him up into the car. Then we had to get a jump start in order to get out of the parking lot. Fortunately there were a couple of friendly fellas parked next to us who helped us out. The whole thing didn't take very long - though Wy did fall asleep.

Jess went up to St. Joe Sunday evening to spend the week with her mama. We will pick her up on Saturday when we head up to Omaha to celebrate my Aunt Johanna's retirement. Jess turned 14 on Tuesday and had a party with her St. Joe friends and family. I don't know that we will throw a party for her, but she has been mooning over this frozen chocolate cake at the grocery for I don't know how long. I think we will suprise her with it one evening next week.

Monday was another day for a nap. It was WONDERFUL. After that, Mom, John and I took the kids out to the Deanna Rose Farmstead. The kids had so much fun feeding the goats. I nearly lost it when a little 10 year old boy told us "I have some hand sanitizer if anybody needs it." Jack wanted to make sure every single goat got a piece of food. He walked around handing the food out piece by piece "One for you. One for you - NO! Not you! You had one! One for you. One for you..." Wy thought it was hysterical how the goats pulled the food out of his hand with their lips. Then he was bored and hungry, so he started eating the animal food pellets. I had flashbacks to being a kid and eating the dry dog food out of the bag...The girls had a great time and were so excited they just kept shoving handfulls of food through the fence. The kids played in this jungle gym thing, messed with the "digger" (a sort of excavator seat thing in the sand). Just before the park closed, we reached the tractor track. The kids had a great time trying to race each other around this little paved path.

Tuesday began summer day care for Abby & Connie. And John is off contract for a few weeks - so we will actually enjoy time off together! Wy spent the day running around in any shoes he could get his feet into. The only requirement was that the shoe not belong to him...

Wednesday we had to pop into a store whose name I shall not mention for fear of inciting disgust among some of our readers. Well, every time we go there, Jack has to go say hi to his fish friends. We have to spend a good 10 minutes admiring and talking to all the fish. A few weeks ago Mom ordered this little table/fold away desk for her laptop. It arrived yesterday and she and I spent the evening putting it together. Wy did everything but shove us out of the way so he could "build it". We finally gave him his own screwdriver so he would leave our alone. Then he was so excited that he kept comparing his to mine and shouting "We match, mommy! We match!"

Just before bedtime, John called me downstairs to take a look at Jack. He has recently started to bury himself under the sofa pillows and cushions. He likes to tell us he is a caterpillar and will come out soon as a butterfly.

Today is Wy's 2nd birthday. Can you believe that? John and I had so much fun making Thomas cakes for Jack's birthday that I thought we would do it again for Wy-guy. I asked him what kind of train cake he wanted - his answer was "Thomas, Gordon, Henry, Sir tipematt CAKE!!!" We put together a Gordon and Henry cakes. With all the birthdays in the last week - Wy now runs around singing "Happy to you!" so that is what we put on his cake.

Jack keeps asking me how to count the days until we go see Thomas. I have tried any number of ways to explain - but what seems to work the best is to tell him we go on Friday. He knows his days of the week and seems to get the idea that Friday is the day after Wy's birthday, though he can't start counting days from say Tuesday. He has to count from Sunday - and he chastizes me if I tell him today is something other than Sunday - unless of course it is windy outside - then he tells me it is "Wednesday". This is a result of Winnie-the-pooh. Whenever it is windy, Owl says it is "Windsday".

OK - I know I didn't include any b-day photos - but thought I owuld get to that in the next installment - it has already been a big week & a big day. Love and blessings to you all. We will have a lot to talk about next time!
Owenland Park

2009-05-28

Ok - this slideshow failed when I uploaded a slideshow to a seperate post. Fortunately you can follow this link and view any or all Owenland Park slideshows

http://owenlandparkproductions.shutterfly.com/

What do you do?

What do you do when you are 1 adult with 5 kids on a beautiful sunny afternoon? Well, you take those kids for a walk around the block. What do you do when you realize, after you have closed the door of the house of course, that you have the wrong set of keys in your hand? And in the very next moment you realize you have also left your cell phone in the house? Well, you just count yourself lucky that you have a wagon and a tricycle and you head off for your walk anyway. Half way down the block you flag down the mailman, who lets you use his cell phone. You hope your mama gets your voice mail and that you don't have to spend the next 3 hours making up things to do...In an attempt to keep us all entertained we decided to see who could and could not cross their eyes. The next few days became an eye crossing fest. (Just so you know, we walked around the nieghborhood and headed back home. I thought I would just TRY to get into the house through a window. Fortunately and sadly, I was in the house with no damage done to myself or my abode in under 5 minutes... At least you get to see some funny pictures!

Everybody

Daddy

Mom

Jess

Abby

Connie

Jack & Devlyn

Wyatt

John & Wy

ME

Look for another post in a day or so,
love, from Owenland Park!

Pneumonia, Croup and Nightmares. That's what it's all about!

My in-laws sent us this lovely bouquet for Easter. As chaotic as things have been around here - it was truly lovely to come home to this beautiful arrangement of flowers. Thank you.

John e-mailed this to me and asked for it to be included - so here is a story from the hubs...One night at bedtime, I was reading a book to Jack, 'Otto goes to Camp'. One of the page lists the things Otto (a dog) takes with him when he goes camping - things from home to help him not miss being at home so much. He takes his blanket, his bone, something else and a cherry pie. When I flipped to the next page, Jack piped up with a question for me, "Daddy, what's a cherry pie?" So I tell him that its a pie filled with cherries. "Whats a pie?" So I say that its a sweet pastry that is filled with fruits, or puddings, or some other things like that. "What's a pastry?" "Well, its a sweet, thin, flour based bread, shaped to fit a pie pan" Then Jack asks, "what's a flour?" So I explain that flour is a milled wheat, that people use to bake or cook with. "What's a wheat?" So I let this go further by explaining that wheat is a grain crop that farmers grow and harvest so people have food. "Why do they grow food?" "So that you have food to eat". "Why do you need to eat?" "So that you can live." "Why do you need to live?" "So that you can - Jack, I don't know, so that you can enjoy your life in society." Why do you live in society?" " So that you - Jackson, I don't know pal; let's say our good-night prayers before we forget."

After John told me this story, I made a point to pick up a cherry pie and some vanilla ice cream to have for dessert one evening. I waited until dinner was over before I mentioned dessert. The kids were thrilled and Jack DEVOURED his cherry pie and ice cream.

Jack has a freakish ability: He knows exactly where every single train is. He could have 3 in the kitchen, 2 under the sofa, 4 in John's car, 10 in the toy box, 3 in his bed, 2 in Wy's bed, 3 under Wy's bed (and the list goes on) and yet he knows exactly what train is where.

Saturday morning I woke up because Wy was screaming. I went to his room to calm him down and he refused to calm down until we joined Jack in his bed. We must have managed to go back to sleep because the next think I know, Jack was downstairs shrieking at his grandma about not wanting to be in time out. It turns out that child woke up, went downstairs, opened the backdoor and went outside with the intent of getting some of his trains from his daddy's truck. Jack was not happy that Gammy decided to put him in time out over this. He and I had a talk about who was allowed to open doors. We also talked about not going outside without an adult. We'll see how long that lasts.

It isn't a surprise that Jack knows all the songs on his Thomas dvds. The child singers on the DVD are all British and believe it or not, Jack has started to sing the songs with a British accent. It is hysterical.

Melanie bought Jack and Wyatt tickets for A Day Out with Thomas for their birthday presents. Jack and I were having lunch one afternoon (Devlyn and Wy were down for a nap) and I told Jack that we have tickets to go meet Sir Topham Hatt and to ride on Thomas the day after Wy's birthday. Jack looked at me and said "When Wyatt wakes up - is it his birthday?" Now, whenever Jack sees a cake, he thinks it is Wy's birthday cake and asks if we are "going to ride Thomas after Wy eats his cake."

Wy gives "bubble kisses". I think this is a combination of a fish kiss and the sound that a fish makes. When we ask "What does a fish say?", the boys answer with "Blub, blub, blub." I asked Wy for a bubble kiss one day and he came at me mouthing "Blub, blub, blub" without any noise. This is now his favorite way to give kisses. One night this week he walked up to me to give me a bubble kiss and then he pointed at my eye and then bubble kissed it. Then he pointed at my other eye and bubble kissed it. Next came my cheek followed by my other cheek, my nose, my hair, both ears, my neck and the mole on my neck. Each feature was identified and then given a bubble kiss. It was wonderful!

Wy will do something that cracks himself up, then he will steal a huge grinning glance up at you and say "I'm funny!" and just laugh, laugh, laugh.

Devlyn spent Mother's Day fighting down a temp of 104. We had her doubled up on Tylenol and ibuprofen. We finally managed to get her temp down to 101. The little thing slept most of the day but was having bouts of trouble with her breathing - some shallow panting. Fortunately mom had all the paperwork in order that we could get her in to a doctor on Monday. That baby has pneumonia. The doctor's office sent her home with a nebulizer, which she has to use 4X every day. She is pretty upset about having to use the nebulizer because she doesn't feel sick like she did on Sunday. "I don't want to! I'm not sick!" I think we have to do the breathing treatments until her RX is finished...that is not going to be any fun.

Now Wy has croup. He woke us up about 1:00 Wednesday night with a cough that scared me half to death. We got some Tylenol in him and after an hour and a half he fell back asleep - then an hour later, Jack woke up SHRIEKING. He was in bed with one leg and his opposite arm in pj's and leg and arm out of pj's. He was sitting up in bed, holding out his hand, shaking and screaming about a spider on his hand. I couldn't find a spider anywhere. I finally managed to get him back to sleep and an hour later he woke up crying that he wanted to go downstairs. After a round of negotiations we finally managed to get back to sleep. I still say that sleepus interruptus is worse than no sleep at all.










Little Miss Jessica graduated this week. It was a busy few days for all of us. She had her 8th grade retreat on Monday, the class trip to Worlds of Fun on Tuesday, 8th grade mass and breakfast on Wednesday (her last day of school), graduation Thursday night and tonight was a series of parties and other things 8th grade...Here is our beautiful girl with her diploma - and little Wy was so excited about clapping, he could hardly stand it!

In addition to everything else going on this week, I took Jess to the KC Rep's gala Monday night. John and I were supposed to go together, but he wound up having to work late. Jess and I decided to have some appetizers before the house opened. A 60+ gentleman walked up to Jess and said "You have a beautiful ankle." Who says that to a 13 year old? OK - maybe she didn't look 13, but she sure didn't look like she was in her 20s either. I mean - it was a compliment, but it was creepy compliment from a senior citizen to a teenager and Jess nearly had a heart attack. Barbara Cook was the star of the evening. I was in tears when she sang "No one is alone" from Into the Woods... Holy WOW. Jessica refused to believe that we were at a 'concert' because the place wasn't hopping with teenagers. At the end of the concert she said "Well, it was better than I thought." The lady in front of her turned and said "I'm so glad you liked it!" Jess smiled and nodded, then looked at me with a "GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!" look on her face. I hope that someday she will actually at least think that the concert part of the evening was pretty cool.

Speaking of being outside, mom took the girls out for some play time the other day. The adults have been going a bit stir crazy with all these kids cooped up in the house. Now that the weather has turned nice, mom is making a concerted effort to get them out. One evening last week she went for a rather long walk - talking just one kid with her at a time. When she got back home with one kid, she sent them inside to get the next one. They all had a really great time getting some one on one attention.

OK, my pretties, that taps me for the week. Love and huggies to you all. And, as always, blessings, from Owenland Park!

Schadenfreude and Karma

scha·den·freu·de [shäd'n-froi'də] noun, pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

kar·ma [kär'mə] noun, 1. The total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny. 2. Fate; destiny. 3. Informal. A distinctive aura, atmosphere, or feeling: There's bad karma around the house today. (Answers.com)

Not too long ago, someone sent me a list of the many wonderful and amazing things you can do with a can of WD-40. I don't have the e-mail anymore, but you can follow this link to check it out: http://www.bloggingwv.com/45-uses-for-wd-40. You can also check out snopes.com for the low down on what WD-40's company actually recommends its product for: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/wd-40.asp. Now that I have that out of the way...

I found the list of uses very interesting and, quite frankly, a little crazy. I sent it on to a few select friends that I thought might be up for checking out a few of the uses, or at least enjoying a good laugh. (One of my friends is a massage therapist who jokingly said he was going to use it as his new massage oil.)

A few weeks after I sent that e-mail, another one of my friends told me that he had picked up some WD-40 to clean his shower. He was very impressed with the results and told me his shower had never been so clean. The next morning my friend hopped in the shower. After two near death experiences in the span of 5 seconds, he realized he needed to wipe down the shower after cleaning it with WD-40. This is where the schadenfreude part comes in, yo.

I was helping the girls clean their room the other weekend - OK, I was supervising as the girls cleaned their room when we came across a can of WD-40. I was very confused. What do 13, 8, 6 & 3 year old girls need with a can of WD-40? Well, I had one of them put it in the bathroom so I could put it away with other chemicals behind our childproof safey locked cabinets. Are you ready for the karma part?

A few minutes later I walked into the bathroom. One step over the threshold and my feet flew out from underneath me. I narrowly missed cracking my head on the counter. I carefully stood up and my feet flew out from underneath me again. This time I noticed a funny little smell in the bathroom. I managed to get to my knees on the floor without killing myself and saw greasy spittle and slip marks all over the bathroom floor. Looking up, I noticed the can of WD-40 lying on its side, half on and half off the counter. I called the girls in to figure out who sprayed the bathroom floor with WD-40. As usual, no one admitted anything. It wasn't too hard to identify the culprit, though. Devlyn (the 3 year old) had a head full of greasy hair. That child thought she was putting hair spray on her head just like Jessica and aunt Amy.

The moral of my story? Beware when you take pleasure in someone else's pain, it can come back to haunt you.

Look who's publilc

Wy doesn't feel the need to strip down for a bath. I had pulled the girls out of the tub Sunday morning and started getting them dressed. I called downstairs for the boys to come up for their bath. I didn't even see Wy slip past the girls' bedroom door. I was busily helping them get ready for church when suddenly I heard splashing and giggling. There was Wy - happy as a clam making HUGE splashes in the tub. He grinned and told me "Spwash! Spwash! Spwash! WADER!!!"

That boy is never without a train in his hands. If I didn't know better, I would think he was born with a cast iron train in his little fist. He is a very energetic kid and can easily become overly excited. Sadly, Wy is not someone you want in your personal space when he is overly excited. He's what I call a 'bonker'. He starts this little dance, raises his arm high and 'bonks' the nearest person on the head (or the kneecap) with whichever cast iron train happens to be in his grubby little fist at the time. It doesn't matter if you are an adult, a kid or a cat for that matter: once Wy starts his little dance, someone is going to get 'bonked'. To my utter astonishment, Libby-cat just sits there when she gets 'bonked' in the face. I am thoroughly confused as to why Libby lets Wy get away with 'bonking' her in the head with a metal train, yet when Devlyn moves in for a hug, that cat starts hissing and spitting and runs away after a few good swipes at that baby girl.

Wy is fond of driving his trains across my head and face. He will be sitting on my lap and cuddling me when suddenly he sits straight up and starts driving a train up my arm. "Chicka-choo!" he cries with a broad smile on his face. Even when I try to get away from the advancing train, he thinks it is fun and funny. "Chicka-choo, mommy! Chicka-choo!"

Dad spent the weekend in Lawrence for on of his Knights of Columbus things. Mom went down to join him Sunday and Monday. This left John and I home alone with the 6 kids. We had just sat down to eat dinner Sunday night when this little conversation came out of nowhere...
Connie: "Why don't you go to church, John?"
John: "Um...I don't know."
Me: "Well, Connie, John isn't Catholic."
Abby: "Yeah, he's public."

The folks got home Monday afternoon. I had just settled Jack, Wy & Devlyn down for a nap/quiet time. I had finally snuggled in bed for some reading when mom got in. I put down the reading and quickly put together the grocery list realizing I had a short window of time to get out of the house with only 1 child in tow at the grocery. I swung by the McDonald's and grabbed a happy meal for Jack. He sat in the back seat telling me just how he wanted his lunch. "I want ketchup on my chicken and my fries, but not on my soh-da, mommy. Not on my soh-da, ok?" Then he started rattling on about trains. "Who is your favorite train, Jack?" I asked. "Oh...Thomas and Annie and Clarabell. That's my trains I love. And Donald and Douglas and Percy and James and Henry and Gordon...and Diesel and Diesel 10..." There were other trains listed after that, but I lost track.

Beth has over sized Lego's at her house. Jack likes to build "towers" with these things. She says he always builds a single tower following the yellow, red, yellow, red pattern. He does not have a fit if Devlyn plays, but he rebuilds the tower if she gets the color pattern out of order. Here he is after having just fixed what she did 'wrong'. Connie has been very difficult the last two weeks. I think she has reached the end of her rope in regards to being separated from her mama. She has begun to work herself into hysterics at bedtime about missing her mom, talking to her mom, seeing her mom, going home...She has very recently started crying "I can't stand it!" How do you help that? Then the 8 year old starts crying and the 3 year old can't/won't settle down. It's no fun.

Jess graduates next week. She doesn't know it yet, but we have registered her for a summer math class. She is going to be soooo mad when we drop that bomb. I don't want to be there for that conversation. She is also registered for her freshman year at Mercy High in Omaha. (My aunt Johanna is retiring this year as the President of the school.) Jess is starting to get very nervous about going to high school so far away from home. She has recently started asking me if Mercy offered acting classes. She had so much fun doing Annie that she wants to do another show. How interesting is that?

Abby & Connie had their spring concert Wednesday night. I had intended to go, but the 3 little ones were crazy people that night and I knew it was just going to be much more trouble than it was worth - so we stayed home. Earlier in the week Abbie and Connie got a hold of a craft project and decided to paint some plaster magnets on the sofa downstairs. John found pink paint smears on the sofa. Both the girls denied being involved with the paint. As we continued through trying to identify the guilty party (or parties) I began noticing things like the fact that Connie had a small smear of green paint on her sock... Then I saw she had paint on her hands and arms. Then I remembered that 15 minutes before we discovered the offensive pink paint on the sofa, Abby bounded up stairs saying she was going to take a bath. I had thought that was odd becausee it was Saturday morning - then it made sense: she was destroying evidence... After a lot of bout of denials and accusations, both girls fessed up to having participated in the paint project on the sofa. Fortunately we managed to get the paint out of the sofa.

John has been working long days this week building and loading in A Flea in Her Ear at the Rep. Thursday night I decided the boys and I needed to have a Mommy and Me night out. I gathered them up and off we went to the park. We decided to take a walk around the lake before getting caught up in the fun of slides and swings. I put wy in the little umbrella stroller and off we went. Jack would run ahead and look around while he waited for Wy and I to catch up. Jack was very concerned that he wasn't seeing any ducks as we were walking. We rounded the first bend on the path and right in front of us were a gaggle of geese and their babies. Jack was so happy! He started hopping up and down and said "Mommy! Mommy, a baby ducks need a cheese sandwich!" "Well, buddy, I didn't bring a cheese sandwich with me." "Oh, is ok, mommy."

Then a man walked by with a black lab and a golden retriever. Jack said "OH! It's a Donald and Douglas dog and a Molly dog!" (Donald and Douglas are black trains. Molly is a yellow train.) We kept walking and Jack said "What's that, mommy?" "That is a bird." "I wike birds." "I like birds, too, buddy." "I will get one in my hand for you." "Good luck with that, buddy." We rounded the last bend on the path and the boys saw the slides and swings. They could barely contain themselves. They had so much fun climbing the slides and running around on the bridges.

Both of them were calling "Watch me, mommy! Watch me!" Jack wanted to swing, but Wy had a stroke when I put him in one - so there was no swinging to be had. I can't swing Jack and keep an eye on Wy while he is running around on the slides like a lightning bolt. On a side note, there has been a request that I not include so many poop stories - so I won't tell you why we suddenly packed up and left the park. Anyway - we were in the car getting ready to head off to yet another dinner consisting of "chicken and fries with soda and ketchup". I asked Jack if he knew what would make me happy. "Oh, yes. Sittin' on a Poppy couch wif Jack and watching cartoons." (On one of my recent days off, I managed to get Wy and Devlyn down for a nap but Jack wasn't having it. We curled up on Grandpa's sofa and turned on cartoons. I dozed a bit with Jack in my lap. When I finally felt utterly refreshed I realized that 2 hours had passed. I told Jack it had made me very happy to just sit there cuddling with him and watching cartoons. He said "Me too." and gave me a hug.)

The boys and I ate dinner at Backyard burger. They were adorable as you can see in my little video here. They were having so much fun making animal noises and making mommy laugh. It was a lot of fun. On our way home, we swung by the Big K-mart (Jack calls it the "K-G-I-B store" which is Big K spelled backwards) and picked up a replacement Thomas video and The Tale of Despereaux. We headed home, jumped into our jammies and curled up in "mommy's bed" to watch Thomas on the portable DVD player. It was a truly wonderful evening. (This is not the video I had hoped to upload but I was running into so much trouble that I settled for this one when the computer finally told me I had successfully uploaded something.

That wraps it up for me. Long winded this time, I know. Well, have a safe and blessed weekend everyone. Love, From Owenland Park.

Geographically challenged.

Here is a little tid bit from my mama. Hope you like the early week update:

Mornings, as I am sure you have gathered, are pretty hectic at our house. Once in a while, we get off schedule. Last Wednesday was one of those days. If Amy took the little ones out to Beth’s, she would be late. I offered to swap with her, she could take the girls to school and I would take the ride out to Beth’s. I had done it twice already with a lovely map drawn by John. No problem, even for someone as seriously geographically challenged as me. HA!

John helped me get the car seats transferred and kiddies buckled in; we strapped everyone into their respective rides, and I was ready to go. Wy was not happy when Daddy headed back toward the house. He was screaming bloody murder in the back seat to make his dissatisfaction as clear as possible. This was par for the course, and the last time we did this, I had bribed the kiddies with McDonald's hash browns at the start of the drive. I commented to John out the window that I might find myself compelled to do it again this trip..

Off we went. We came to the fist stop light and my lovely little map betrayed me by sliding off the passenger seat and onto the floor board. Ok, I remembered as far as I-70, and I knew to take I-435 N, so I didn't stop. By the time we got to the McDonald’s, Wy was calm, the kiddies were chatting, so we just kept on truckin.

Well, I got to the first exit and then second exit, but somehow I missed the exit to get off the interstate. I turned around somewhere close to Parkville, retrieved my map and reached for my phone – which was right by my computer where I would not forget to pick it up on my way out of the house. Ok, I could just read the map backwards and get where I need to go, right? HA!

I wandered all over the countryside, trying to get to Beth’s. The actual address was not on the map. My phone was not in the car. I didn't have a clue WHERE I was. After at least a half-hour of driving back and forth, up and down, in and out of these dirt roads, and me getting more and more frustrated, Jack asked, “Where is Beth’s house?” I replied I don’t know Jack, I’m lost.”

“No, Gammy, you are not lost. No, Gammy, you are not sad.” This was Jack’s mantra for the next five minutes. Finally, I saw a little cemetary with some groundskeepers working there. I pulled over and asked a nice young man where to find Hollingsworth. He told me how to get there (it was really fairly easy – go figure). I was finally feeling much better and as we turned the car around Jack said, “Gammy, where's my hash browns?”