I keep telling myself that by next week things in my life will be starting to slow down a little, that I’ll have found some sort of rhythm to the chaos. But each week passes and instead of things dying down, I just seem to end up with more things on my never ending to do list. I live for weekends, foolishly believing that without the 8 hours a day I normally have to dedicate to work that I will somehow finally be able to find time to clean my bathrooms… no such luck.
Originally the plan was that Brooke and I would be going to the city for the entire weekend to attend my cousins wedding and fit in a visit with my BFF. But Friday came and I just did not have the energy to rush to pack during my lunch break and hit the road for a 2 hour drive right after work, so instead I opted to just ride with my parents the next morning instead. In order to appease Brooke, I offered to take her out to dinner at a ‘real’ restaurant. Deciding that it had been too long since I ate a nice meal, we headed to Kildare the new fine dinning restaurant in town. I sat across the table from Brooke thinking how grown up she was acting in such an adult setting… too grown up it turns out. When dinner came out Brooke was completely disgusted by the fact that the chef had prepared “baby food” for her. The chef’s effort to decorate her plate with a design made from pureed carrots was completely lost on a three year old. Food got sent back to the kitchen to be re-plated without the ‘baby food’ but it was too late, the mood was lost and my grown up girl reverted back to her three year old ways. I spent the next half hour threatening to call Santa to coax her out from underneath the next table and withholding desert until she ate “just three more” bites of her salmon. Lesson: Just because a fine dinning restaurant has a children’s menu available does not mean it is a good idea to take them there.
I spent Friday night attempting to iron my own clothes for the wedding (which anyone who knows me, knows is a big accomplishment for me) and then packing for the both of us for the wedding the next day. I managed to fit in some shows that were blocking up my PVR in between and during my ironing and packing, before heading to bed.
Saturday morning came about an hour too early for me (I hate being woken by an alarm clock!) but it was necessary in order to be able to get both Brooke and myself ready to be picked up at 9am as was the time set by my parents. Sure enough, at 9am, we were up, showered/bathed, dressed and ready to go… on time. Being woken up by an alarm clock has the unfortunately side effect of leaving me a little stupid for a few hours, and so this is the excuse I will use for the fact that even after 31 years of experience with my parents, I actually expected them to be ready at the time that they had set for us to leave. It was 10 o’clock when, fed up with waiting, I drove over to my parents house to find them ready but still aimlessly pitter-pattering around the house which I can only guess was to help them maintain their MO of being a minimum of an hour late for everything they ever do. Anyway, after about 5 failed attempts to get them out the door, and stop for gas, we are on our way.
Once in town, we drop Brooke off with my BFF to play with her son while we go to church . My dad tried desperately to convince me to take her to church with us, to which I told him he had to be crazy and that if we did that I would most likely end up having to take her outside within minutes of the ceremony starting, to which he responded that if necessary he would take her outside and I wouldn’t have to worry about it (which knowing my dad was clearly his intention to begin with, but I wasn’t biting). We then picked up my sister along the way. My dad was insanely jealous that her husband had successfully talked his way out of having to go by volunteering to clean their house instead. First thing my sister says to me when she sees me was that she could do my hair in between the church and the reception. I told her I had already done my hair all by myself (something I was actually quite impressed with myself for) to which she replied “Laurie…” as if I said the most ridicules thing she had ever heard. My sister is one of the top hair stylists in the city, and it has been painfully obvious to me from an early age that mother earth held back all of the potential style gene from me so that there could be extra for when my sister was to come into being - I literally can’t hold a brush and a hair dryer at the same time.
The wedding was beautiful and reasonably short which is always a hit with our family. I had lots of time to get my hair done, pick up Brooke and get her ready before it was time for the reception. The effects of being woken by the alarm clock that morning must have been particularly stubborn this particular day, because I actually believed that Brooke would be able to sit still and enjoy the dinner and toasts that accompanied it. Instead it was two hours of personal hell for me as I tried to keep her sitting at the table and getting her to eat. She was quite taken with the Bride though who she believed was an actual princess. I tried to explain to her that if Kelly was a princess that must mean that our cousin Adam was the prince… she didn’t care… she’s all about princesses right now which is fine for me as I’m sure I’ll have to deal with all the princes soon enough.
The next day we stayed in town for the afternoon to spend some time with my sister to celebrate her birthday with her. We visited the botanical gardens and fed the ducks, which was great. We made a stop at Costco before heading home. All was well until Brooke took it in her head that she wanted to buy some junk food in bulk. All hell broke loose when I refused and I spent the rest of our time there walking around calmly holding the hand of a tantruming 3 year old while half the people looked at me understandingly, while the other half stared at me like I was with out a doubt the worst mother on the planet (these would be the people who do not yet have children). My sister (who fits into the latter category) had the nerve to tell me that I should just buy the box of 10,000 candy. My glare was apparently enough that rather than try to convince me she instead volunteered to take Brooke outside while we got checked in.
By the time I got home at 8pm, it was time to get Brooke ready for bed, unpack and then I was done. I watched Big Brother, chatted online for a bit then went to bed. As I turned out the light in my bathroom on my way to bed I made a mental note to bump finding a housekeeper up to the top of my to do list in the morning.
