About Last Thursday (or It Could Always Be Worse)

In the intervening week-and-a-little-bit since my last post I have been meaning to fill in with a post about the rest of my day. Thanks to a google search and some tinkering I was able to re-attach the vacuum belt and clean up the cracker mess.

After my adventures in vacuum repairing, I piled the kids in the car to run some errands and then took the car into the shop to get it checked. (It had been making a groaning, screeching sort of sound when I braked and sometimes a bit of a thunk-thunk-thunk throbbing noise. Probably not good signs....) Sure enough, our tires needed to be replaced (which I already knew-- what I didn't know is that they were almost worn down to the core) and our brakes needed new rotors. Dave was out of town in California which seriously limited my alternate transportation options. The good news was that they said they could for sure do all of the work that day by the time they closed. The bad news is that I would be stuck with three kids without a car for three hours.

I decided this would make picking up Jared and his friend who was going to come over to play after scout camp a bit difficult. So I got on my phone and canceled the play date and got someone else to get Jared after camp. Now I was only left with three kids and two or three hours to burn. I loaded the younger kids in the stroller and headed for the park which-- thankfully-- was within walking distance of the shop. I found myself grateful for the dismal cloudy day that was not too warm and didn't require sunblock.

We had a lovely time playing until Jackson needed to go potty and I realized there were no bathroom facilities at this park. After quickly scouting my lack of options, I found a way to resolve the issue which may or may not have involved having Jackson pee on a tree. We went back to our lovely afternoon of playing in the park. Jackson and Addy rode in the swings and threw tanbark at each other while Camryn happily played with them. All was well... until Jackson had to go to the potty again. Except this time he had to go poop. I loaded the double stroller with the urgency of a captain loading lifeboats and we charged off at hyper-speed to the nearest store with a restroom. We made it into the Target parking lot when Jackson suddenly jumped out of his stroller seat and announced, "Mom! I need new pants!" So close and yet so far.... Did I mention Addy had a poopy diaper too?

We headed to the family bathroom at Target where I surveyed the damage. Luckily I had a pull-up, diaper and wipes in the basket of the stroller (I had accidentally left the diaper bag in the car). I'll spare  you the details of that delightful 15 minutes spent in the removal of poop from Jackson's posterior (and legs, and shoes-- getting off soiled underwear isn't a tidy proposition). I admit I just threw the underwear in the garbage and didn't even feel guilty. After I got Addy's diaper changed and I had my fill of poop to last me for the next century, we grabbed some snacks and a couple of slurpees and headed off in the stroller again. (I had actually been to Target enough in the past few days that I didn't have anything left to buy. Now THAT is scary.)

We headed off on a walk to the local toy store to burn some more time. I didn't realize we had so many things within walking distance of the car shop. I also realized that while I had driven that street hundreds of times in the past 5 years, I had never once walked down it. We spent a good hour at the toy store and survived with only one destroyed item in the process (maybe it was just Addy's way of getting me to buy her a book). We finished with yet another round of snacks and were heading back to the park when I had another "I need to use the potty"-- this time from Camryn. So we headed back to the toy store, used the potty and began to head out again when I finally got the call that the work on the car was done.

Being car-less wasn't as awful as I had feared. If you took out the pooping-in-the-underwear incident, it was almost downright enjoyable. Nevertheless, it was nice to have my stylin' ride back.

So if you are wondering why I haven't been blogging much this summer, this is my long and circuitous answer.