Some Housekeeping

Halloween

The Halloween costumes arrived today. I ordered them online because I thought it would be a ton easier than dragging three kids into Party City and watching the chaos unfold. Also, the Ladies' school had some sort of promotional code to a random website that saved me 30%. 

I was also able to have each kid pick out exactly what they wanted and was able to make sure we got everything we needed. In a rare moment of clarity around the Lady's birthday, I picked up the Elsa wig at Target for the Little Lady. Not going to get burned trying to find one of those as the days of October dwindle. 

The Little Lady sometimes has buyers remorse. She originally wanted to be a character from Monster High. A show I have never seen and neither has she. I was fine getting her the costume if she really wanted it, but she eventually changed her mind to Elsa. I knew there might be a supply problem and there was no way I was buying the $120 dress she saw in the Chasing Fireflys catalog. The costume she got is great, but alas, covered in glitter.

The Lady wanted to be a character from Ever After High, some new set of characters based on the offspring of fairy tale characters. She wanted to be Raven Queen, the daughter of the Evil Stepmother in Snow White, who rebels against a fate decided for her. The costume is mostly black and purple, comes with what looks like fishnet stockings and I had to spring extra for the wig. The Lady thinks this costume couldn't be any cooler. I am just hoping to make it through the second book in the series. 

QT is Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Can I just say that when you type in "teenage mutant ninja turtles" into the search area of a costume website the kids costumes should outnumber the adults. Sexy Leonardo for women? Really? I am all for women going as Ninja Turtles but come on.

He also got a katana, which is Leo's sword. Only one, not two like he really has and we are already prepping him that weapons aren't allowed in school. He has not been deterred from swinging the thing all over the house though. He also wanted to know where his other costumes were (ghost and purple minion). One at a time QT, one at a time. 

Box Tops

I casually asked the Lady about the Box Top collection at school. They now have 344. I am feeling proud, but am hoping some of the other moms step it up. I can't suffer the same letdown as last fall. 

Guest Blogs

There are a few of you out there who have mentioned interest in guest blogging. Now is the time. Seriously, I can't be expected to keep this up, we are only on day 14! I do have one guest post ready for tomorrow. There is nothing sweeter than knowing that all I have to do is copy and paste. 

The One With QT at the Movies

I left a grey and raining beach mid-day on Sunday only to drive into 90 degrees and sunny as we made our way home.

We had made plans to see How to Train your Dragon 2 with my sister and her kids but the only showing was at 1:30 and there was no way that I was making it out of the beach house and back home by then, but there was a 5:00 showing of the new Planes Fire and Rescue movie in 3D and it seemed like it was something we could get to if people just learned how to drive on 95 and if QT didn't have to stop to go to the bathroom.

Well QT did have to go to the bathroom but by the time I pulled off the exit he had stopped screaming about it. I went to get him out of the car and he asked me why we were stopped. I said so that he could go to the bathroom, he said he already had. Great. Luckily, we were only 20 minutes from home.

After stripping the car seat and taking a quick shower we headed out to the movies. $88 later (and this didn't include paying for QT because he is 3 and under) we headed in.

I just want to say that I didn't really enjoy the first Planes movie and was trying to figure out if it would be possible for me to take a nap during this film, because I had zero interest in actually watching it. No worries though, I think I saw a full five minutes total.

After sitting down, putting on 3D glasses and eating way too much sugar, QT got out of his seat. He climbed over the row of seats in front of us and walked towards the aisle still wearing his glasses. He then made his way back to his empty seat after some not so hushed directions from his mother.

Then he had to pee.

I ushered him out of the theater and towards the bathroom. It was set up where you are supposed to enter on one side and exit on the other. I went towards the entrance, he went towards the exit. When I went back to get him, I realized he had run out of the bathroom. I found him sneaking into Theater 10 with what I can only describe as a devilish grin on his face.

I finally drag him back to the bathroom. Now, he is still not tall enough to pee standing up in a woman's bathroom. I think when he is tall enough, he probably won't have to be in the woman's bathroom with me but until then he has to sit. What he didn't have to do was use his 3D glasses to direct the flow. (Insert your own penis joke here.)

We wash hands, head back to the theater and sit down. This lasted for about three seconds before he was once again climbing over the seats and hanging out in the aisle. That was it for me. I left my sister with the Ladies and headed out with QT in my arms, 3D glasses on my head.

As we leave the theater I tell him he has to recycle the glasses. He feigns putting them into the bin two or three times, each time looking over at me like he is getting away with something, before he finally drops them into the cardboard box and then immediately drops to the floor crying "My glasses, my glasses." And I though the Little Lady was high drama.

We spent the next 10 minutes looking at the life size cardboard cut outs of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before I realized that we would not be able to wait out the ending of the movie by naming each Ninja Turtle over and over. So I did what any other mother would do and we headed towards the huge escalator. What I probably should have done was insisted that he hold my hand. It clearly says to do so, but QT wanted to do it himself, so that is when I found myself riding backwards down the escalator while my 3-year-old waited at the top. He then decided that instead of taking the escalator he would take the 45 stairs down to meet me all by himself. Ugh.

I did finally get him to hold my hand and we rode the escalator for a time or two before that wore out its usefulness. Now what? I had no idea how much more time we had to kill before Dusty Crophopper finally finished what I can only imagine was rescuing someone during a fire. We took one last ride to the top and exited the theater at the top of the parking garage.

I briefly considered taking him into the shoe store. He needs new sneakers, but then I had a vision of him just running and hiding behind all those stacks of shoes and me just losing my mind. Then I remembered the pet store. Now, you know things must have been dire for me to want to enter a pet store. Granted, there was the possibility that we would see a puppy or two wandering the aisles, but really what types of pets do they have there? None I want in my house.

We got into the elevator that reeked so horribly of piss that I had to cover my mouth with my shirt to breathe, while simultaneously trying to get QT to not touch one thing in there. "Why?" he kept asking. "For the love of God kid--can't you smell the rank, malodorous stank emanating from this metal box of germs?"

Finally the doors opened and we walked towards the pet store.

The pet store has its own type of gross smell. That kind of cage liner/pellet food combination that is immediately nauseating and turns one into a mouth breather.

But QT loved the fish and we watched them for a few minutes before heading over towards the ferrets, the birds (the birds!), the hamsters, gerbils, mice and rats, before making our way over towards the reptiles. I am always on edge in these stores, I can't believe that all the animals are caged. I am just waiting for some sort of lizard to crawl up my back or something. Breath Bean, breath (but only through your mouth), but I am conscious of the fact that my kids might actually not care and that they might be interested in the things they are seeing. I rattled off the names of the geckos and the lizards, we talked about what types of food the reptiles ate. We were happy to run into a dog in the aisle, an actual real pet, we contemplated the best type of cat house/scratching post and when the text came from my sister that Dusty was finally done we headed back up that urine-soaked elevator and met up with everyone else.

Three things I learned from this outing.

1. QT might be in that sweet spot of an age where you should never, ever take him to a theater. Perhaps when he is 4 he will have a better attention span.

2. Instead of trying to find a rest stop on the way home, just stop at the closest elevator. Clearly, the two are interchangable.

3. Sometimes it just isn't in the cards to see a subpar Disney film, sometimes you just have to talk about Geckos and pretend that 5 ferrets sleeping on top of each other is cute, but whatever it is that you are doing try to engage and interact with that incredibly active kid of yours but for the love of all things good and holy do not let him touch anything in that elevator.

The One With the Ninja Turtle in the Sewer

This weekend was glorious. Glorious!

Finally, two days where the kids could get out and run. I tried to take advantage of the nice weather and we had a great day on Saturday running at the park and hanging out with the cutest little cousin in the world.

Sunday was even nicer and after bribing the Lady with two donuts from Dunkies, I got her complain-free to CCD and took the other two on a quick Walgreen's run. QT was owed a few things for his exemplary potty work over the past few days. (More on the pants-less Friday night diner dinner later. I am still recovering.)

So the Little Lady, QT and I headed into the drugstore and purchased the remaining three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Water Squirters for the tub. Raphael made it to our house last week, but he was lonely in the tub for his buddies. The Little Lady decided that QT could have Leonardo, Michelangelo would belong to her and the Lady could have Donatello. We left there feeling pretty good.

After picking up the Lady and spending some time painting the bucket of rocks the Ladies collected at the park on Saturday, we all headed outside. QT wanted to bring the Ninja Turtles. Fine. Why not? I mean they are bath toys, why shouldn't we bring them outside to play?

Rock painting. QT had so much water on his brush that they basically dried devoid of paint!

So we spent the next hour or so riding bikes, drawing with chalk, finding all the things my husband and I had banished to the garage in an attempt to declutter the house, and tossing around Ninja Turtle heads.

QT has quite an arm and took great pleasure in chucking those things around. Of course it landed in the storm drain. Immediate tears from the Little Lady as she drove by on her bike, immediate panic by me when I realized that I might not be able to recover poor Michelangelo from the depths of the drain.

Now the irony is not lost on me that we lost a TMNT in a storm drain. Perhaps Mikey just wanted to go home? Maybe he was just being his typical jokster self? Regardless, we were a man down and I was going to do everything I could to recover that turtle from the sewer.

After I calmed down the Little Lady, I had a supermommy/McGuyver moment. I am going to get that turtle head out of the drain. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I am going to do it. 

Now the storm drain in the driveway is pretty typical with the grate and the open area QT clearly didn't miss.

We could see Michelangelo grinning up at us, nestled in a pile of wet leaves. So I headed to the garage to see what I could do. I found a long pole that I think someone might have used at one point for painting. It wasn't me, not sure where it came from but it seemed long enough to reach the bottom. My other thought was to attach a bucket to some rope and then try to scoop it up. While I was looking for some rope, I came across a roll of duct tape. We all know how versatile that is so I unrolled some, stuck it to the bottom of the pole and shoved it through the grate until it hit Mikey on the head. To my great relief, he stuck to it and I started the slow and careful climb to the top of the grate. The kids were gathered around and the Lady kept saying that we could buy a new one if we couldn't recover this one.

I wanted to give her a teachable moment in this toss away society that we live in. I wanted to show her that everything isn't just replaceable. I also didn't want to have to go back to the drug store with the three of them and attempt to navigate the Easter aisle.

So there was Mikey, his little green head affixed to some serious duct tape as I carefully tried to raise him from the underground. We were pretty close to the top before he fell off. Ugh.

Now what? I tried another piece of tape, but Michelangelo was now wet and the tape didn't stick to him. I thought about trying to lower down a towel to dry him off (I know that sounds really stupid, but I was now desperate!). So we headed back into the garage, where I came back to my original idea of scooping this thing up in some sort of bucket. All the beach buckets were too big to fit through the opening, but the blue Solo cup looked like it might do.

I duct taped that Solo cup to the end of that pole and stuck it in the opening of the grate. I then took a broom and stuck it through the grate and was able to push Mikey into the cup and once again start that slow and steady climb up. This time we were ready and I had the Lady reach her hand into the grate to grab the cup as it made its way to the top.

Success. Mother of the year. Heroes in a half shell! Turtle Power!

After the rescue.

Needless to say Mikey got a thorough bath before he joined anyone in the bath later last night. 

Shredder be warned, this mama isn't going to let anything get in the way of some TMNT tub time.