Possumblog

Mother's Day!

I got up early and got dressed, then got the kids up, then got the Mom up, then called my mom down on the coast. It was early, but she gets up early, so I knew I wouldn't disturb her. And I didn't--she seemed glad to hear from me, although I did have to remind her who I was. Not because she's lost her mind, it's just been so long since we'd talked. They were having fun, best as I could tell, so that's hard to beat for a Mother's Day present.

Got everyone loaded in the van, made the mad dash to the church building, pulled up with a minute to spare, Oldest yanked on the door handle, flounced herself out, and promptly dropped her Christmas-present-from-Grandma CD player to replace the other CD player she'd torn up, onto the pavement. Breaking it. She was very frustrated that there was no one she could blame for this mishap except herself. No one had touched her, pushed her, spoken to her, distracted her, or anything else. So she threw it back in the seat and stormed off into the building.

The other kids got out, I went and parked, walked in with Reba, then saw Jonathan and Rebecca's class having to go to the high school classroom. I know Rebecca would be overjoyed by that. Ashley makes a point of saying ridiculous, inflammatory, bizarre, and downright idiotic statements in class, and it embarrasses Rebecca to no end to have to be in there with her. Still haven't figured out if Oldest's various cries for attention are simply that, or if she actually believes even a fraction of the stuff she says, and just says it for the shock value. Not sure at all, but given how loosely she defines reality, I have to say she probably believes a majority of it.

::sigh:: At least the Democrats can feel good knowing they'll have at least one new voter.

Sat down in class, sneaked a few of Reba's jellybeans that the kids had given her (Catherine's biography on Friday noted that jellybeans were Mommy's favorite food), and tried to stay awake.

Worship service was good, with a good lesson about the value of mothers in the church, and then time for lunch.

Got in the van, and after becoming incensed that Jonathan would DARE get in on her side of the van, and steadfastly refusing to move to let him in, Oldest then immediately began a new rant about something that had been said in class over which she took great offense, even though no one was even talking to her. It took a great deal of concentration to ignore her. She craves getting to argue about stupid crap, and it can go on forever, mainly because she refuses to think even with the most remote sense of logic. The sky is blue? Therefore eveyone hates her, and she can PROVE it, because moo flip noogle shilno fbeeber. You could have a video of whatever transpired, and she'd still swear it wasn't like that. So, it's best to starve that fresh hell flame of oxygen.

By the time we got to Ruby Tuesday, the van was relatively quiet.

Went inside, had a nice lunch with remarkably few snide and hateful remarks from Oldest, then on back to home.

WHERE IT WAS TIME FOR Boy to finish his paper he was writing for today, and for Rebecca to work on her craft item she was doing as a class assignment. She has to make something, and then describe the process of how it's made. She'd decided to make a little fabric apron of sorts to attach to the walkers the residents use at the nursing home where Reba works. The idea is to have pockets with pictures of the items that go in the pockets, such as eyeglasses or playing cards or such, so that the resident always can tell where stuff is supposed to go.

Reba had gotten the fabric, and that had been the extent of what had been done. When we got home, no move was made to do anything and so I asked if maybe someone shouldn't start working on this, since it was due Thursday, and Boy has a band concert on Monday night, and there's some other kind of school thing on Tuesday night, and Wednesday night is church.

This was not a popular suggestion.

"Well, did YOU ever get the dimensions of a walker off the Internet!?"

You know, I had been told that this might be required sometime last week, but I (mistakenly) thought that since there is an abundance of walkers at the nursing home, and a yardstick, and a yardstick user, and pens and paper with which to write down the salient dimensions, that it would be rather useless for me to waste time looking it up on the computer.

I am such a silly stupid moron.

I put down my newspaper that I was trying to read, took a look at the leaderboard to see who was in front on the Darlington race I had been trying to watch, and went upstairs and found the dimensions of a typical folding metal walker.

For your benefit, they are these:

Width Inside Hand Grip = 17"

Width Inside Back Legs = 20"

Overall Width = 23"

Depth Opened at Base = 16.5"

And no, I don't have any idea what that would be in those silly French Celsius measurements.

Printed out the page from the catalog and brought that back downstairs and gave it to the production crew, who looked at it for about three seconds before deciding they didn't need it. They messed around with it some more before deciding they needed something else, so they took off and went to Michael's.

I read more of the paper, then dropped off into a stupor until they got back.

Newspapers--despite what you might think of them, they still make dandy sleeping aids.

Got ready for the evening excursion to church, which was an hour earlier than usual because we had a meeting about Vacation Bible School before the evening service. We were also having a meal afterwards. Both of these things caused Oldest no small amount of hardship, because let's face it--being forced to be around all those insufferably stupid people was JUST. SO. UN. FAIR.

Keeping that supply of fresh hells at maximum output, aren't we.

Off to the building, had our meeting, had our evening service, had our meal together, went home, decided it was a bad idea for Catherine to have dessert since it gave her renewed energy to pester Ashley, who responded in the predictable fashion of a two-year-old.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Finally got home, they all piled out of the van, and found that the door to the kitchen had been locked on the way out. Not really a big deal, for sane people.

I gave Rebecca my set of keys, and she tried to get to the door to unlock it, and everyone was wedged between the Focus and the kitchen door, and Rebecca couldn't get to the door, but Oldest, who was the only one who COULD move wouldn't, because Catherine and Jonathan were trying to GET her to move, even though if she WOULD have moved everyone could have gotten in the door and the conflict would be over, so finally I had to request--ever so gently and mildly (really) for her to just take one step back so the door could be unlocked.

Well, my mindless disrespectful effrontery caused her to fly into a snitful rage, so she whirled around, grabbed the car door handle, and very nearly threw herself into the car seat before slamming the door behind her.

I know I've said she's like a two-year-old, but in fairness, she's more like a two-year-old with a driver's license.

Anyway, since she was out of the way, the door could be opened, and it was, and everyone went inside, excepting, of course, the One Who Must Not Ever Be Chastised, who remained locked in the car.

Kids upstairs to get their pajamas on, and myself back out to the garage with my car keys, because since I am evil and hateful and worthless, I had to get Oldest out of the car so I could go put gas in it since she was nearly out.

Yes, I'm almost certain she was grateful that I did that small thing for her!

Went and got gas, came back, helped Boy e-mail his teacher his assignment, asked (silly me) if Rebecca was going to work any more on her thing, since it needed to be worked on, was told by Miss Reba that I had said not to worry about it and for us just to go home and go to bed and work on it Monday or Tuesday (which never came out of MY mouth), got them both to go downstairs and work on that while I fulfilled another one of Oldest's requests, namely the scanning of some of her photos onto a CD for school.

Yes, I'm sure she was grateful for that, as well.

In the middle of that, had to stop and go get the bobbin thread to come up through the sole plate of the sewing machine, because my wife had become frustrated by her inability to capture the elusive thread. I tried not to seem overly gloatful when I got the thread up and swished it to the side with the scissors.

Back upstairs, finished the scanning and cropping and reformatting and copying, complimented Miss Reba on the progress she'd made in sewing the apron together, handing in my assigned work to Oldest, and got in the bed.

It was a very long weekend. And I'm very glad it's done.

Now then, this evening, I only have to rush home and make sure Boy gets dressed and gets to his concert on time. I figure I'll make it on time, as long as nothing out of the ordinary happens.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 14, 2007 01:47 PM