Pajama Party

Another day, another list. But this particular list was Max's idea for our pajama party. Inspired by an episode of Max and Ruby, Max decided we should all put on our pajamas and begin the festivities. Otto pointed out that he only wears pajamas, so every day is a pajama party for him. And then, as we watched the episode of Max and Ruby again for ideas of what to do during our pajama party, we realized that our life is like one big pajama party, and we had to think a bit about how to make our evening even more fun than the last few evenings we have had (which included popcorn and movies in bed every night).

Here's the list Max and Otto came up with:



First we blew up balloons and decorated them.



While we were blowing them up, we got the idea to make balloon hats, which seemed lots more festive than just having balloons rolling around on the floor. (Thank you to Gillian, who introduced us to the idea that we can actually make balloon hats ourselves). As we were making them, Max marveled, "YOU can make balloon hats? I thought only really special people could make balloon hats?!" To which I replied, "But I AM really special!"





Otto liked Max's hat so much he requested that I make him one just like it.



We made brownies. And then we ate almost all of them.







That's my hat with the propeller top. It was originally a flower, but apparently a couple of the petals depleted. Max and Otto thought it was funnier as a propeller hat anyway. I definitely need some more practice to make the beautiful creations that Gillian makes, but I was pretty thrilled to be able to do this, on what I thought was extremely short notice.



There was a brief interlude of playing with Calico Critters while I compiled the dance mix CD (which involved purchasing the "I Like to Move It, Move It" song from Madagascar (by request from Max, who said that was the song he most wanted to dance to). He was so thrilled to learn I could download it from iTunes and have it for immediate access. I have to admit, that is pretty darn cool.



This pictures looks like the morning sun is shining in our windows, but really it is about 9 pm, and my flash is lighting up only the right side of the room. I was experimenting with my new flash for the first time and got mixed results. But it's definitely an improvement over the big shadows I was getting before that.





And then we danced.





During a Proclaimers song, the boys thought they'd like to play along on their ukuleles.



After almost a full hour of dancing, we were all exhausted (and sweaty). We popped some corn and headed to bed with our snack to watch another movie. But first, just to make sure we did everything on our list, we read a book. The book Max picked was "Frog and Toad Together," in which Toad makes a list of all the things he will do that day and becomes stymied when his list blows away. Luckily, we never lost our list. And we actually managed to cross off every item.

When Papa is Away...

Martin has been out of the country for the last week, so the boys and I have been solo. We've been amazingly productive—I've managed to go through most of the paper and other assorted items that have cluttered up the office, and I got rid of several things via Craigs List or Freecycle or the old fashioned "pass it on to a friend." It feels great to rid ourselves of some of our clutter, and I'm really getting excited to begin our really big de-cluttering project, which will be to empty our attic in preparation for our build out...yipppeee!

Here's Max, working on his construction skills, so he can be of some assistance in the project.



Otto found a good resting spot for the goggles when Max was finished with them.



We saw crawfish at the fish counter, and Max was very intrigued, so we had our own crawfish boil (only after consulting my brother and his Louisiana born wife for instructions).










Max made lists of things he wanted to do in a day, and I was amazed to see that we actually were able to cross every item off the list. He could teach me a thing or two about making to do lists, I think.




Max made snowman pancakes.



Max and Otto made a secret concoction and refused any sort of oversight on my part. They were happy, however, to let me join in the clean up.









Balancing act.



We've had a really relaxed schedule, but surprisingly, we've gotten to bed earlier than we often do when Martin is here. We've been taking my laptop to bed and watching movies (we just got the boxed set of Madagascar movies, complete with some bonus Penguin episodes), so we watched those, and we watched Kung Fu Panda again for the first time since we saw it in the theatre. We've had lots of fun, but of course they miss their Papa.

Shopping for Fixtures

Fence Decor

New Verb: To Sharpie

As in, "Mom, I sharpied my pajamas."


Other examples, exactly as presented:
"I need some paper because I want to sharpie. So I need lots."
"I am going to sharpie my two face because some paint got off his hair."
"I sharpied a money sign on this bag, so it's a money bag."

Artist at Work

Surrounded by inspiration: markers, paper, Batman sticker book, Batman Legos, past Batman drawings, a Ranger Rick magazine (since you never know when that might come in handy), a funnel, and a 3-pound weight, for obvious reasons.

Sledding

The recent week brought such a warm-up that we spent one day at the park, with no jackets at all. The sun was shining, the temperature rose to the mid 60s, and we were thinking about all the wonderful things that spring will bring. And yet, I may be the only one crazy enough to think, "Well, this is great, but I sure hope we're not completely done with winter, because we didn't get enough sledding in—and we didn't even build a single snowman yet."

As if to emphasize what a ridiculous thought that was, the weather turned almost immediately colder, and this morning, we awoke to more snow. It's a modest amount. It certainly can't compare to the recent pile-up we had in January. Or what they had in Ohio, where we visited Allardale Farm, for a trip down the giant hill which I tobogganed down in my youth. If you're ever near Medina Ohio, looking for the sled ride of your dreams, this is it.

Max and Ruben Bust a Move

Wanted

I guess these guys are on the lam. Any information you have on any of them would be appreciated.

(Possibly Too Much) Sharing

Max was just chewing some gum and was looking for a place to spit it out. Otto indicated he would like it (he opened his mouth and pointed to it, saying "Uhhh! Uhhhh!"). Max gave it to him, and a moment later Otto was chewing, then swallowed it and smiled a big broad smile.

Getting Some Perspective, or Funnier in Retrospect

There are so many things I need to blog about in our last two weeks. We spent the last week in Sandusky Ohio at the Kahlahari Resort, home of the country's largest indoor/outdoor waterpark. The place is GIGANTIC, noisy, chaotic. It took us about 10 minutes to walk from our room to the main lobby. There was an arcade, a mini golf cousre, a paint your own pottery shop. There was a candy shop, a toy store, a few different restaurants and snack shops. We had a great room with a full kitchen and were able to make most of our meals there, as well as spend some more quiet time just relaxing in the room by ourselves or with friends.

Martin was with us for the first two days, but then he flew back to Chicago. We stayed there Sunday to Friday.

I will post more about that vacation in the next couple of days, but first I want to share this story. On the road trip home, we stopped for food at a rest stop, choosing one of the less glamorous Ohio rest stops, one that hadn't yet been made over like the rest of them. Feeling like we would want more than hot dogs to sustain us, I rejected it, and we decided to hold out another 70 miles for the next stop. But first, a quick trip to the restroom.

I feel like there was something sort of karmic about what happened next...

I flushed my keys down the toilet.

Yes, the whole set of keys, the only set we had with us. I was zipping my pants, where keys were dangling precariously from my pocket, and they just slipped out and made a loud clank on the toilet before they jumped in the water. The timing is sort of amazing, and I don't think I could repeat it if I tried. I mean, I was multi-tasking, zipping up while the flush was still in progress, doing my best to get us the heck out of this dive as fast as possible, and like some gigantic bite in my butt from the cosmos, we suddenly realized we were not going anywhere fast. We were approximately 223.7 miles from home.

First, I said, "Fuck!" And then in disbelief, I desperately looked around the base of the toilet. And then I said, "Fuck!" again. Max and Otto looked at me in alarm and asked, "What, Mom? What's the matter?!" I was in complete denial. It just could NOT be happening.

We ran out to get an employee to assist us, but when I told her what happened, she just got this big smile on her face, clearly having a hard time keeping her composure. At her reaction, I just started to cry. I don't know what I had expected of them. Actually, I do know. I truly thought they were going to help me retrieve the keys. I half expected them to pull the toilet right out of the wall to get to those pipes. I envisioned the rescue team, rushing in wearing hazmat suits and masks, wielding axes and hammers and special equipment designed for just this purpose, a long suction that could tunnel into the pipes and somehow retrieve only the keys (I certainly wasn't thinking about anything else that might have been in the toilet, I mean, the toilet *I* flushed had only pee...and keys...in it).

In retrospect, I am completely embarrassed by my behavior. I must have seemed so deluded, so privileged or something, to expect them to drop everything and tear up their restroom to find my keys.

She said that there was just no way that they could retrieve my keys, "They're gone forever," she said. At this, Max started to cry, in a desperate sort of way, throwing himself on me and saying, "Oh no! Will we have to stay here forever?!" And the funny thing is that I think part of me was actually right where Max was, unable to see the big picture in any way, feeling completely overwhelmed, unable to figure out how we could possibly recover from the situation.

At this point, the manager of the rest stop came out, and he was at least pretending to be very sympathetic, which is probably what I needed more than anything. Even though I suspect he knew there was nothing to be done, he got on the phone and called maintenance, and he said they would come out and look at the situation.

The somewhat amazing thing is that all I had on my person was my cell phone and a single credit card in my pocket. And it turns out, that was all we really needed to handle the situation.

I called Martin, still crying, and when he picked up the phone, he thought something was desperately wrong. He received the information, was pretty quiet (thinking, I suppose) and was clearly relieved it was not something far worse (oh, right, that's called perspective), and then he helped me get to work on figuring out what to do. He found the closest Volkswagen dealer, gave me their number and also gave me the number for roadside assistance, in case it came to that.

I called the dealer, and at this point, I could see the humor in the situation. I told them what happened, and the guy on the other end of the phone agreed this was a good story. It was only his third day on the job, though, and he had no idea what to do. He would have to look into it. He put me on hold and came back all cheery. "Sure! We can help you with this! We'll tow you here, then we'll make you another key. It will only take two business days and will be ready by Tuesday."

What?! Are you kidding? That's not going to help me! I went from feeling good and laughing about the situation to again feeling helpless and desperate. It was at that moment that the manager informed me that the maintenance man had looked it over and said there was no way to retrieve the keys. But he was apologetic, and he gave the boys hot dogs to try to make everyone feel better. I realized this was really what had been missing from my conversation with the other employee, some sort of empathy or at least sympathy for the situation. Someone agreeing that this situation sucked (even if it was sort of funny).

The new plan was to have Martin FedEx the keys, we would find a hotel and have the car towed there. As we were on the phone trying to figure this out, I just suddenly said to Martin that it would just be great if he could rent a car and drive his set of keys to us right now. I don't think I had even considered this before that moment, and I don't even know where the thought came from, it just sort of blurted out of me. But as soon as I said it, it was obvious that this was what needed to happen. At first Martin said, "Well, I have a lot of work to do still, so I couldn't leave right away." But then, with my new realization that this was what needed to happen, I blurted out more things: "I'm sure if you explained the situation to your co-workers, they would be understanding." And of course, they were. They were all laughing, apparently, but they knew that of course he should come to our rescue.

And so he did. In the meantime, we took advantage of our credit card. It turned out they had Webkinz in the back for sale. So they each picked out a Webkinz, as well as some other entertainment (a Spongebob activity book, markers, ice cream, candy, drinks, chips). After a couple of hours, one of the other employees told me that there was a trucker's lounge in the back and we could use it if we wanted. There was a TV back there, but it only played CNN. But more importantly, there was a couch, and we used it as a puppet stage. We took turns acting out stories for each other with the Webkinz. Somehow, the time actually passed pretty swiftly, and approximately 6 hours from the moment we walked into the truck stop, we actually walked out of it again.

We gave Martin a brief tour of our new favorite rest stop, he met a couple of the employees and thanked them for their help, and we were off. And in four short hours after that, we were finally home again.

Martin called me from work this morning (Monday) to tell me that he had just gotten a message I had left him Friday, the one that I had left only moments BEFORE flushing the keys. I had bemoaned our bad luck, choosing this dive of a truck stop as our rest stop, complaining that we hadn't eaten breakfast and were all starving and cranky and this place was not meeting our standards. I said that I was hoping to get back on the road right away and that our day would improve from this point (prior to our stop, I had also gotten lost for 45 minutes). I was clearly feeling like our day was going badly and I said something like, "I just hope we can get home with nothing REALLY bad happening." And as it turns out, we did.