Any Reasonable Offer Considered
I really considered selling my sons this weekend. Truly.
Shoe shopping. Sigh. It took several years off my life yesterday. I swear part of it might be the bad music they pipe in at Kohl's but the rest is all because of my beloved sons. Owen desperately wanted Tony Hawk shoes which cost too much but the last pair did last a lot longer than the Target version we'd bought in the past so off we went. Of course we couldn't find the pair he wanted (it all had to do with the shoelace color and no, it didn't help to offer to buy him other shoelaces) so he tried on pair after pair. And as I got hotter and more harried I tried to be patient when he assured me that the size 7 felt too tight but the size 6 felt fine. Then Leo moped and moped because he couldn't find anything without shoe laces and he refuses to wear shoes that need to be tied. He says he'll forget how to do it. When I point out that his mind is like a steel trap he disagrees and says sometimes he goes upstairs to his room to look for a piece of Lego and when he gets there he forgets what he's looking for. I pointed out that the amount of Lego in his room could empty anybody's mind...to no avail. Then as we forced him to try pair after pair on he kept insisting that they were too small even when they were clearly big enough. It reminded me of the time when he was two years old and we went for his check up at the doctor and they did a hearing test. Imagine that fat little stubborn face sitting there REFUSING to lift his hand to show that he'd heard a sound in his ear. It got louder and louder till it was echoing through the whole room but he never did give in even though he never tried to pretend he didn't hear everything ELSE in the room. They'd ask "did you hear that?" and he'd just frown and shake his head no. Good Lord.
Eventually I said, "O.K.! We're buying these---let's go." Leo insisted the shoes were too heavy to carry so Owen cheerfully took both boxes and headed off in the lead....
This morning Leo insisted on taking the laces out of his shoes and doing something funky with the tongue. Owen looked at him and sighed, "Leo, you look awesome" so evidently it was very cool. I just have no idea at this point in time.
But for most of the weekend I just wanted to sell them. They just would not leave each other alone. Peck, peck, peck....like little chickens. And Owen has ALWAYS known just how to get under Leo's skin and Owen's skin is so senstive that Leo can hurt him just by sighing. GRRRRR. Thankfully the big news of the weekend was that they were going to get to swim at Vicky's pool (we have the best neighbors). Owen went over to ask and came back with a plan to rally the troops (alert all other neighborhood kids) about 1:30....the ETA of swimming was 2:30. So a little after two there was this group of kids milling about in front of Vicky and Greg's house wearing swimming trunks and quivering with excitement. Poor Vicky and Greg! Anyway, at least it wore them out a little.
I spent much of my weekend obsessing over how to fix up our downstairs bathroom. The problem is that anything you do leads to more and more and more. It needs a new ceiling, I'd like to move the washer and dryer into the oversized closet and I'd like to rearrange the tub and sink and toilet. Of course that means new flooring and new tiling in the shower is needed no matter what we do. Of course we could just do that but.....then you start thinking....well, if I'm going to do THAT then I should do THIS....and so on....
So it was just one of those weekends. Part of the problem is that we spent far too much time on North Prospect (the mega commercial strip) so this is what I saw for much of the weekend:
We did score three pairs of jeans, two pairs of shorts and nine shirts all for $20 at Goodwill. Then we went to Target to finish off summer clothes for the boys (as they have nothing that fits them) and spent ten times that. Oof. But at least for the first time in awhile they will have clothes that actually fit them....and we bought BIG so hopefully they'll last a bit!
So that's my weekend. Somewhat unsatisfying, I agree. And to top it off last night when I was heading inside there was a BIG snake right in front of the front steps. Even Ernie said it was big....and it bit him as he tried to grab it.
shudder.
What does the week hold?
Well, the City of Urbana says my parents' recently trimmed hedge is a public nuisance and is in the way of the sidewalk so there's that to be dealt with. I need to make some appointments regarding setting up the trust for the boys. Got to remember to call the monument company and have them put my mother's dates on the stone in the cemetery. I KEEP forgetting. I need to stop putting off dealing with my mother's house. Damn....I better try to come up with SOMEthing fun. Any suggestions?
Oh....yeah, at least I did get a nice picture of my hostas after the rain: