TW blogged about her nice workday with RJ and I’m glad the normally bouncy, talkative, busy RJ was quiet and sweet but I spent most of the day wondering why it was I had insisted it be RJ who went and the other two who should be left behind.
It started innocently enough, the Starbucks and the Krispy Kreme but I should have known it wouldn’t last when the two staying with me started to cheer because RJ was going to have to do WORK at the office and they were going to have a wonderful, relaxing and FUN day at home with Denise. I hate that sort of thing so decided on the spot that we’d clean the garage – or at least play at cleaning the garage. That stopped the cheering and jeering at RJ’s expense but left me with a 15 minute drive home that I did not enjoy.
E quickly warmed to the idea of cleaning the garage and talked nonstop about just what we would throw away (RJ’s stuff and Chris’s stuff) and what we were definitely keeping (her stuff). J did what J does best and tried to muddle the process by distracting me with some talk about video games that I did not understand. (J and I both need to listen to more Patrick Scoble podcasts because J would definitely be considered a lame 12 year old. We’re trying to make him into a real boy but it’s hard, he has some really weird parents…)
By the time we got home, I was feeling about the way I did when I blogged my symptoms a few days ago and I was regretting the first wonderful Caramel Macchiato I’ve had in days. So, I did what all moms in my position would do – I turned on the TV.
The quiet lasted for about an hour and then the typical, “Get out of my seat!” “Quit touching me!” “I am not stupid!” “I was watching that!” started. Then there was mayhem because J has lost his gameboy charger. It was plugged into the wall in the living room for the entire month he was in Vancouver. I saw it on Monday when J arrived and immediately picked up the gameboy. Where it went after that is anybody’s guess. I helped search the living room for a bit and offered ideas about how to go about cleaning the bedroom that he insists he just cleaned in order to find it but we had no luck.
From there it just went downhill. E decided she needed to talk to me, nonstop, preferably while holding onto my mousing arm at the elbow. When I tired of this, she brought her pillow and neopets plushies down and crawled under my desk with the old, tired, smelly dog and talked to me from down there. J sat in Michelle’s computer chair, the one formerly known as mommy’s, and made his groaning noises for about an hour.
Lunch was only a success because I served Krispy Kremes alongside what turned out not to be E’s favorite soup oh and somewhere along the way, the evil black dog drank J’s hot chocolate from Starbucks and J refused to clean up the cup paper that was all over the living room. Apparently the dog assumed responsibility for cleaning up the cup since he had it last? The Schwan’s guy showed up unexpectedly, (unexpectedly only because I forgot he told me last time he was switching to Thursdays), and saved me briefly with banana popsicles that E has been asking for all week. (The kid is weird, she hates bananas but loves these popsicles and the yellow smiely lollipops skeeter sent us from Hawaii ages ago.)
We never did make it to the garage. We did, however, survive the day with only one 5 minute bout of crying from E when J put his feet in her hair and pulled for a really longgggggg time (according to E). We also never found the charger for the gameboy so his highness thinks that tomorrow we should just go buy another one. Ha! It wasn’t as crazy as Life Aboard the Ark but the next time a kid goes to work, it’s not going to be RJ!