I Rove You Mama

Something is wrong. It’s a Sunday afternoon and all is quiet in the house. There is a mess all around me but yet I sit here writing my blog. If I close my eyes, does it all go away? I forgot to mention that last Sunday night I went to see “42nd Street” at the Orpheum. I have a series of tickets for Broadway shows with some other people. Brian and I don’t have tickets together because sometimes it’s hard to coordinate a babysitter and plus he doesn’t love these kinds of shows. I was worried that 42nd Street would be like “Oklahoma” because they are both older Broadway shows. Let’s face it. Sometimes the shows don’t stand the test of time. I really thought Oklahoma was torturous. And just when you think it’s over, it just goes on and on and on. Well, 42nd Street was a pleasant surprise. Lots of tap dancing too.

Friday I had lunch with Christine, Heather and her baby and Janine and her baby. Christine doesn’t have a baby and I felt bad that we talked about childbirth, breastfeeding and babies so much. Christine works for Brian so we did talk about work a little bit. After lunch I swung by Yvonne’s to check out her furniture from Costco Home because I want to finally decorate our living room. We bought one of those electric fireplaces for the living room to make it cozier. Now I want a nice overstuffed chair and ottoman. Now that I have two boys, I decided that mom needs a room all by herself that doesn’t have toys and crap everywhere. I picked up Ty after chatting with Yvonne for a few minutes and we headed to Walgreen’s to see if I could get a flu shot. I was going to get one at Costco for $18 but I called them on Thursday at 2:08 to see when they were doing their flu shots and they told me the last one ended 8 minutes ago. ARGH. So I did a search and discovered they were doing them at Walgreen’s on Friday close to my house. Cool. Then Friday morning I noticed the paper said on the front page in big letters “FLU SHOT SHORTAGE”. I envisioned a bus of old people from Sun Lakes heading to the Walgreen’s. Of course, I can’t compete with that. But what the hell—I’ll do a drive by to see how crazy it is. When I got there, there were three open parking spots so I parked and dragged Ty in with me. The line didn’t look too bad so I put Ty into a cart and we stood in line with a lot of interesting people. Like the guy who moved here from Italy 40 years ago and said he hasn’t been sick a day in his life since he’s been here. I asked his wife if that was true and she said yes. The secret? Garlic and vino. I think this is the same reason my dad almost never gets sick. I guess I need to eat more garlic. After standing in line for about 45 minutes, I got my shot, rushed home to feed Ty, and then drove to work to meet up with Brian.

Brian took Ty and I headed off to the chiropractor that I love but hadn’t seen in 6 years. He walked into the room dusting off the chart. I really like this chiropractor because he gives all areas a 15 minute rub down before doing the adjustment. I like the idea of warming up the area before doing all that cracking and popping. I have to say it FELT SO GOOD to have an adjustment after 6 years. My neck felt amazing. I left feeling quite giddy. By then Brian had picked up Ty and was driving aimlessly around. I didn’t ask him what he was doing at Elliot and Priest. What did we do before cell phones?? We agreed that we would meet at Valle Luna for dinner. Jack is 100% entertained with bean dip and salsa so we had a nice dinner. I managed to take a walk after the kids were in bed even though I desperately wanted to go to sleep.

I take my walks around the neighborhood and I feel really safe. We live in a gated community which I know isn’t that secure but it feels more so than a regular neighborhood. But now I’m realizing that if hoodlums live IN your neighborhood, a gate AROUND the community doesn’t work. There is one house that appears to be a magnet for teen-age boys who wear all black and have hair in their eyes. They are always hanging around outside. Oftentimes, their friend with a black car parks on the street and they congregate around the car. I’m not afraid of them but it’s just not what I like to picture for our neighborhood. “Hoodlum” seems like a dated word but it sure seems to fit these guys.

On Saturday I ran Jack down to the Mini Cuts place for kids’ haircuts. We were in and out in about 15 minutes. Then I met Sarah, my friend I’ve known since third grade, for lunch at Mimi’s. We had a good time talking and afterwards I dragged her to Costco Home to look for a cozy chair for my living room. I had Ty with me so it was good to have someone push the stroller while I sat on the different chairs. I was also looking for a rug to potentially put in the dining room. We don’t want to cover the floor but the chairs may scrape the floor… I’m not sure. After Costco Home, we went to IKEA to look at the rugs and had a $1 frozen yogurt. Sarah mentioned that I seemed really happy. I said I really am… mostly because I feel so blessed to have kids. Home and dinner and baths for everyone… watched one TV show, started another but I just fell asleep. Sunday I made a dinner for us this week, plus dinner for Tina, a mom in my mom’s group who had a baby about a week ago. Brian was out running errands and getting his hair cut while I was cooking and Jack has decided that he likes to help us cook, so he had his chair up at the stove. He drags his chair up to the middle island or the stove and “helps”. He’s really good about understanding what is hot and what shouldn’t be touched. Ty started screaming in the middle of everything so I put him in the Snuggli while I finished the baked ziti and started the brownies. That thing just about broke my back. How does anywhere wear those things? I got through making some brownies and knew that Jack would spend the next 30 minutes licking every single molecule of brownie batter off the bowl which would give me time to feed Ty. There are moments like this that make me wonder how women stay home every day and multitask to this level. Jack also helped me cut up a watermelon and put it into individual servings for his lunches. He is such a good helper. He wanted to eat the raw pasta so I let him and he ate a bunch.

Jack got to watch Baby Einstein twice today. The first time was for getting five rings (that five pees in the potty). Then he dragged me into the bathroom this evening to show me that he pooped in the potty which is an automatic 5 rings. This makes up for peeing in his underwear 7 other times today. No time for a walk… it’s already 9:45 and we haven’t watched Grey’s Anatomy yet. Might have to save it for tomorrow. Highlight of the weekend… Jack saying “I rove you, Mama”. He’s been saying “I love you.” But I the “mama” on the end is new and it makes me giddy inside.