I Read The News Today Oh Boy (For January 31, 2009)

I know. I said I was going to do this on Wednesdays. But it's a blogger's prerogative to change his mind. So here's

I Read The News Today Oh Boy
for January 31, 2009:

7:15 a.m.: Saturdays are new music day -- so they begin with my downloading all the new songs off Fingertips, Muruch, Music For Kids Who Can't Read Good, and I'm Waking Up To...

This week is a jackpot... I've found a site that includes folk covers of pop songs. Folk cover of "Baby Got Back," anyone? No? How about Dolly Parton doing "Stairway to Heaven?"







8:15 a.m. Mr F is pantless for the second time today. Pantless and jumping. It will be necessary for me to restore order before Sweetie gets home from the health club. [SPOILER ALERT! I didn't.]









8:40 a.m.: The Boy has made it from his room to the couch. That's where he will sit while I get the Babies! ready for our day of errands, and that's where he will sit while Mr F decides that he wants to throw toilet paper around the bathroom while I shower. That's where he will still be sitting when we leave at 9:50 a.m. I was tempted to check his pulse.






9:30 a.m. Mr F, Mr Bunches, and I are on a quest to get some new kitchen chairs and to pick up the stuff for our taxes, as well as snacks for tomorrow's Superbowl. First stop: Furniture stores on the bad side of town.

There never seem to be furniture stores on the good side of town, do there? At least not furniture stores I can afford to shop at. We stopped at one of those, to check for the clearance furniture. The clearance furniture cost more than most of the things in my house... combined.

9:45 a.m. Mr F has gotten one shoe off so far. This is outside the fancy furniture store, which had no affordable kitchen chairs. They did have, though, giant statues of giraffes, and I was sorely tempted. Sorely. What kept me from getting the giant statue was not imagining what Sweetie would say, but instead the fact that she'd sent me out with only two checks, and if I used one on a giraffe statue, I was coming home without either snacks or tax software.

Still, our house looks a little empty without a giant giraffe statue.


10:15 a.m.: Lots of cities have a financial district, or restaurant district, or arts district. Madison has a "prosthetic limbs and billiards district."










10:45 a.m.: Success! Two kitchen chairs, with cushions, to replace the boys' high chairs, which are falling apart and permanently encrusted with fossilized macaroni and cheese despite our best efforts. And, bonus, an old rolltop desk-thing for Sweetie. There is very little Sweetie loves more than organizing her papers. In order, her loves are:
1. Her kids.
2. Stormy Jet Risotto (her cat.)
3. Organizing her papers.
4. Me.
5. Stormy Jet Risotto (she ranks two spots on this list.)

11:00 a.m.: En route to McDonald's for a playing-and-french-fries break, we are passed by a truck full of cows, which I only notice because I take a break from singing along with Dolly Parton's version of "Shine," (really!) and turn to my left and see a cow staring at me from about two feet away. I couldn't get the camera out quickly enough.






11:10 a.m.: I had to wake Mr Bunches up to get him inside the McDonald's. But once inside, he ignores the food and tries to play with the older kids, who do not know they are playing with him. He runs after them, and then runs away when they run towards him, trying to get them to chase him. They persist in not actually playing with him despite his best efforts. It's actually heartbreaking.





11:11 a.m.: He's not eating. He's playing with the lid to the milk bottle.












11:15 a.m.: This is actually pretty brave for Mr F, who detests the tunnels. He wouldn't go farther than this, which meant that I couldn't climb inside and show Mr Bunches how to climb up the stairs to go down the slide, because you never know when the McDonald's playland is filled with kidnapping serial killers and I'm not taking any chances. Each and every parent in that room felt the cold stare of my suspicion.

Then I felt the cold stare of their suspicion when shortly after I took this picture, Mr F jumped down, ran over to another table, and stole two french fries from them. I have become the parent that other parents will talk about and secretly feel superior to.

11:21 a.m.: Mr Bunches walked over to this thing, which is a giant ball of light bulbs on top of a pole, and has panels below it that seem to require someone to touch them to light up the bulbs. Then he pulled me over to it to try to work it. I couldn't get it to work, either, and a mom sitting near it smirked at me...

... but I notice she didn't try to work it, either.





12:25 p.m.: We leave McDonald's at about 11:50, and go to Best Buy to get the tax software. I decide we will go home before going to get snacks for the Superbowl. Then I decide we will drive by the Sonic Restaurant that has, magnificently, opened up not two miles from our house, just to see how crowded it is. It's too crowded to get into. It's been open a week and it's always too crowded to get into. I hate people.




1:15 p.m.: The boys are in bed for their nap, and it's tax time. Come on, big money, big money. Lots of refunds.

Two hours later, the results are in.

We owe $512.

I hate the government. I thought Obama was going to make things better.





4:15 p.m.: Yeah, I know how you feel, Mr Bunches.













4:35 p.m.: Maybe I could have written off the new desk? Sweetie at least was cheered up by that.










5:05 p.m.: Time to run and get the snacks for the Superbowl party. It's back into the car, this time with Sweetie. First, we stop for gas.

Hey, look at that, an italian deli. I should go eat there sometime.








5:20 p.m.: Sweetie and Mr Bunches make their way into the grocery store. I'm lagging behind because I tried to grab Mr F's hand, and he slipped it out of his jacket sleeve and tried to get away.









5:25 p.m.: Mr Bunches won't ride in the cart, so I carry him through the store. First stop... hummus? Our list of snacks, as determined by the kids:

Pizza rolls, hummus, beef jerky, nacho chips, snak-ens, orange juice, sushi.

Because nothing says "Super Bowl" like hummus and sushi.




5:40 p.m.: Mr F's fee and mine. The nice thing about being 40? You no longer have to care what footwear you use to go to the store. Those are Croc slippers.

I still, though, refuse to go to the store in pajama pants. I saw a guy do that at the mall. That's carrying it too far... but it would be awfully comfortable.





6:10 p.m.: Dinner. time. It's Sweetie's barbecue, and some potato chips!












Or, if you are Sweetie, it's barbecue without the bread or the chips, and with a banana.












7:10 p.m.: Middle is home from work, and has unloaded her pocketful of Skittles. When I ask why she has a pocketful of Skittles, she says "So I can eat them."

She puts them on the counter. While I'm cleaning up, I ask what she wants done with them. "Throw them away," she says, which is the answer the kids have for everything. The Boy once was packing up casserole, and we didn't have a big enough dish for all the leftovers to fit in one. "Should I just throw it all away?" he asked. He seemed mystified when I suggested simply using two containers. He then seemed irked when I said that "throwing it away" wasn't the answer to everything. I put the Skittles in our jar, even though I'm not about to eat something that spent the day in Middle's pocket.



8:05 p.m.: Snack time! A hard night of Rrowr monster and Tackle Game and Indian-Chase and jumping has wound down to chocolate chip cookies and milk.










8:20 p.m.: Mr Bunches discovers my camera. I have about 50 more like this.












8:55 p.m.: The Babies! are in bed, and it's time for a thrilling Saturday night of... lying in bed with Stormy Jet Risotto while watching The Best Superbowl Commercials. The highlight, for me, is counting how many times Daisy Fuentes says she's in Tampa Bay. I wonder why nobody told her the name of the city she was broadcasting from?







9:10 p.m.: I think I'm ready to fall asleep -- but I made it through the commercials and through an episode of Monk and through a half of a repeat of Battlestar Galactica, staying up way later than Sweetie, who's out just after the end of the Commercials show, leaving me nobody to debate the question of whether "Talking Stain" deserved to finish higher than third.






See how I spent January 27 here.