Don't mess with the Babies! (Saturday Adventures, 2)

This Saturday's Adventure:

Haircuts, Grocery Shopping, and A Pool Party At Oldest's New House!

I've always said that some adventures are more adventure-y than others. But everything's an adventure if you make it one, and everything is especially an adventure when it involves a terrifying trip to Supercuts.

We decided to get the Babies!' hair cut on Saturday morning, a process that requires that both Sweetie and I go: I take on boy in at a time and Sweetie waits in the car with the other terrified kid.

I'm not kidding about the terrified. Here's the Babies! just after we pulled up outside the hair place:



Mr F was fighting to not go inside. Mr Bunches had a more quiet resignation:


The Babies! hate getting their haircut. Mr F whined throughout the entire process -- much, I expect, to the dismay of the other guy who was in there getting his haircut. (He was a good sport about it, joking with us about how terrible it must be to be a little kid getting his haircut.) I held Mr F on my lap while he cried, nonstop, for the first ten minutes -- and then inhaled for the first time, that being the only brief respite in complaining during the entire 15-minute haircut.

"Just think," I told the other customer and the two girls who worked at Supercuts, "How peaceful the rest of your day will seem by contrast."

Mr Bunches, who's usually better, was worse this time, trying to escape my grip and complaining with only a few brief moments of relief when he was momentarily distracted by the wings of his Buzz Lightyear figure falling off; he'd stop to fix them and then go back to crying.

I pondered deliberately knocking the wings of again and again, which just goes to show you how desperate parents can get in situations like that. In the end, I opted for the less-mean and less-drastic tactic of saying, over and over, "Boy, he was better last time, wasn't he?"

I tipped the girls $11.10 on a $24 charge. They put up with a lot and did a good job:


After that, we dropped Sweetie off and headed off for grocery shopping, something I ordinarily don't do on Saturdays if I can help it... Saturday's my only full day off most weeks, and I don't like to use it for chores. But I knew I had a lot to do on Sunday at the office, and the day was already sort of shot because of Oldest's pending party later on in the day, so off we went.

First stop, at the entry way: Mr Bunches wanted to try to go hide in the bulk paper towels.


As soon as I got him back from that, Mr F tried to head out the front door (probably still mad about the haircut.) Not long after that, we loaded in 2 pounds of grapes into the cart. Mr F tried to grab some out, and I thought he might want to eat one.

Letting the Babies! eat a grape in the store raises moral implications, because you get charged by the pound. I don't mind if they snack on the stuff we're buying (they always insist on opening up the cookies right away) but I didn't want to be shoplifting-via-Babies! I ultimately caved by figuring "what's one grape, in terms of poundage?"

(Look, I didn't do all that well in my ethics class, okay?)

So I gave Mr F a grape, and he took it and threw it at Mr Bunches. Then he wanted another one, and grabbed it, and tried to throw it at someone else. I had to make my way through 3 aisles fending off his atttempts to grab more grapes, until I finally gave up and put the grapes into the nearest refrigerated display case, which happened to be the one with turkeys in it.

So, Woodman's employee who had to take those grapes and put them back, I'm sorry. But, again... desperate parents.

Absent grape-temptation (grapetation?)(Or, better, temp-grape-tion!)(Yes! I've still got it!) Mr F quieted down and sat in the cart, mostly; he tried to run off twice and eventually got belted in, leaving Mr Bunches to be my helper, a task he failed at miserably when we got to the pizza samples.

If you are with me in a grocery store, and you don't like pizza, you have one role and one role only: get your pizza sample and give it to me. Sweetie understands this. Mr Bunches does not. Mr Bunches doesn't like pizza, or following directions. So when we got to the pizza samples, I took one, and Mr Bunches was about 10 feet away. I tried to fake out the guy to take one for Mr Bunches, but he didn't just hand me one. So I said to Mr Bunches "Hey, you want one, too? Come on over."

Instead, he walked off to ice cream.

Then we got to Mr Bunches' favorite part of the store, the crayon aisle. He always gets some crayons, after which he likes to sit in the cart and take the crayons out one-by-one and look at them, before discarding them all (usually into my pocket) to focus on the red one.

With both Babies! in the cart, we began to make better time:


And, to replace the grapes, I got Mr F a "High-Bounce" Ball that he was playing with.

Those distractions gave me the chance to notice the latest of what should be another reason why I hate people:



"Honey Maid Squares?"

Pre-squared graham crackers that are (quote) "Perfect for Smores."

Attention, people: graham crackers are pre-made to break easily into squares. You can buy the rectangle ones and very easily break them into "Perfect for Smores" squares.

Our society has, I figure, 10 minutes of usefulness left.

We got home, ate lunch, and just hung out for about an hour, with Sweetie and I bemoaning the cruel fate that made Oldest, and Middle, decide to have a housewarming party yesterday. Oldest shares a house with two of her friends, and Middle recently moved in with them, too, and they all moved into a new house, and decided to have a housewarming yesterday.

Not liking houses or parties, neither Sweetie nor I were particularly enthused about heading over to spend part of an afternoon with 20-somethings who would probably start doing "Red Bull And Vodka" shots or whatever stupid thing it is 20-somethings do at parties now. But we felt obligated to go, and obligated even after Middle had to work and wouldn't be at her own housewarming party.

When we got there, I was at least relieved that the backyard was fenced, so we wouldn't have to worry too much about policing Mr F and Mr Bunches. Mr F started examining one of those yard games that people buy for parties like this and then store in their garage for 30 years until they sell it at a yard sale or give it to Goodwill:


And that held their attention until they found the wading pool that had been set up:


There were water balloons and one pool at first, and Mr F and Mr Bunches got to it before I could change them into their swim trunks. (Note: I didn't even try.)

While they played in that, Oldest showed first Sweetie, then me, around her house. This is Oldest:


On the landing to the upstairs floor at her house.

Meanwhile, the party was growing, and another group of kids had brought their own pool -- one they jealously guarded against our kids. The other two kids ("Aston" and "Honilee")(Really!) had played in the group pool while their dad was blowing up theirs. Then, as soon as they started filling their own pool, they began telling the other kids, including Mr F and Mr Bunches, that it was their pool and to stay out:



Then the Aston kid started taking the hose and spraying Mr Bunches and Mr F. Sweetie tried to intervene, but I said to let them sort it out. Aston took Mr Bunches' shirt and put the hose in it, which Mr Bunches didn't like - -and that caused Mr F to grab the hose and spray Aston, and then refuse to give it back. Aston tried and tried, but couldn't get it away from Mr F, who is superstrong.

That made Aston, who's going to have a long life if he doesn't learn to cope, retaliate by going into the garage and turning off the water -- which then got him in trouble by his dad for going into the garage. That'll show him not to mess with the Babies!

We left after that, heading home with a brief stop at Panera to get Sweetie a frozen Mango drink.

Adventure Completed!