Single Parents....I Salute You.
The entire family almost killed one another last night. I started things off when I got home to find that both children mysteriously still had homework to do that they hadn't told us about....not just homework actually but projects they had NOT been working on. I got really pissed and grandly declared new plans in which we were much more involved in every god damn thing they were expected to do in school (which we should be already, I know, I know). We were then supposed to happily go buy our Christmas trees. Some people didn't like the turn things had taken and muttered 'go buy the tree yourself.' Since it was not a child I couldn't yell at said person. Things moved along this merry trail until we finally all got in the car.....somewhat quietly but with various sniffs to express hurt feelings (o.k....I was one of them). As we got out of the car one child was rude to another so I loudly took exception to this and then we all stomped into Prairie Gardens. Sigh. We started looked at the $19.97 balsalms and good GOD they looked wretched. I even drifted over to the Frasier Firs and started convincing myself that we could afford a $70 tree. I couldn't do it though. We went back to the cheap trees. Leo was to pick the living room tree, Owen the dining room tree. Then Owen started this long, vague explanation of god knows what. I tried to figure out what the fuck he was talking about, which included a lot of, "well, I want to tell you but I don't think you'll like it," and finally sent him to talk to his father. Leo and I stood there with a tree, rolling our eyes as we watched Owen and Ernie walking in circles talking.
Eventually it came out that he wanted Ernie and me to choose the dining room tree and he had an elaborate plan of exchanging video games to come up with $20 to buy one of the little table top trees. I caved..because damn he looked cute standing with his chosen tree.....
Then we went in to choose our new mantel tree for the year. Pictures to follow. I was too frazzled at that point to photodocument. Ernie decided it was too damn much trouble to tie the trees to the roof of the Honda so he took us home, dumped us off (gladly I believe) and went back to get the trees. I then attempted to help Leo with a template in Word, get dinner ready and supervise Owen working on his science workbook. He spent most of his time whining because it was going to take so long to do. I tried pointing out that if he'd just DO the damn work it wouldn't take all night....to no avail. By the time Ernie got back home after picking up the trees and getting them into buckets of water on the patio....all I'd managed to do was turn the oven on and wash about 3 leaves of Swiss chard (the last from the garden).
Single parents....I salute you.
Oh, and Van asked why Leo was holding beer cups in the pictures I posted the other day. Just shows where his mind is....those are actually plastic cups that could hold ANY liquid Van! Anyway, as I told him, the boys LOVED playing with those cups. Here is one of my favorite of videos of them from a few years back.