Ice-T

By 10:00 this morning, I had spent 45 minutes playing two versions of My Little Pony, watched parts of Barbie Island Princess, put 5 puzzles together, dressed both children and myself, fed everyone, and straightened up my entire house.  So, with the possibility of a mind-numbingly boring day ahead, I decided to be proactive.  I am tired of chasing Malcolm all over the park,  I am avoiding the mall playground for fear of more vomit viruses, and I gave up shopping for Lent.  So that leaves very little to do.  I could go to the library, but inevitably, I end up chasing Malcolm around there, too, trying to keep him from pulling all the books off the shelves.  So I asked Ceci if she wanted to go to the museum.  She said, "And see dinosaur bones?"  Of course.  So we were off.

She really enjoyed "discovering the bones" at the museum.  We were there for  almost an hour when Meredith called and said she wanted to have a picnic at Westside Park.  I was not to keen on it until she said we would stay at the end with the big dirt mounds instead of the always busy and terrifyingly high playground.  It sounded good to me, so we stayed there another half hour, then we went home, I made PB&J's for the kids, stopped by Mi Apa for some empanadas, and headed over to the dirt piles.  We were there a whole half hour before Malcolm decided to wander, which is really some kind of record for him.  He actually really liked the dirt piles.  Meredith told me that when PJ (her hubs) was little, his mom used to order a dump truck to come and dump a pile of dirt in the yard for his birthday.  What a good idea!  Not only do you get the entertainment of the dump truck at the birthday party, but I imagine a mountain of dirt would keep the kids occupied indefinitely.  Anyway, eventually we got tired of chasing Malcolm and Ava, so we packed up and walked over to check out the pool.  On the way, Meredith said, "I could really go for a giant iced tea." 

"Yeah, like from Mc Alisters,"  I said.

"Ooohh, yeah."

"Let's do it," I said.  "It's not like we don't have time."  We still had 45 MINUTES until we had to pick the other kids up from school.  If you are like us and have some in school and some little ones, then you probably know that hour from 12:30 to 1:30 is BRUTAL.  "We'll just all ride in my car, and you can run in." I said.  Sold.  Fun for the kids (the ride in the car with friends is filled with giggles and screams and many verses of "Saddle Up Your Horses") AND we get a tasty tea AND we kill that last 45 minutes.

So, we loaded them up and drove over there.  Gainesville is a small town.  We were there, back, and at the respective schools still with time to spare.  And that Mc Alister's tea was so good.  On the way there, Ceci was like, "Where are we going?"  

I said, "Mommy and Ms. Meredith need to go someplace and get a drink."  

Meredith chuckled.  Then she turned to me and said, "I know that it won't always be like this, that going to get an iced tea is the highlight of our day."

"It's just this stage of life."  I said.

"Aren't you glad we have eachother?"  she said.  "I think we'd go insane if we didn't."

Isn't that the truth.