...or so I thought.
I finally started feeling better today, thank you antibiotics and Advil, and I knew the kids needed to get out of the house (and yard). Seeing as it was yet another grossly disgusting humid day, and because I'm not back in full force, I thought I would get ice cream for the kids at the McDonald's drive-thru and then let them eat them at the small airport in town. Simple, right?? Get the kids in the car, purchase three ice creams, get the kids out of the car, give them their ice cream, then let them eat the ice cream while watching planes take off and land. Sounded perfect to me!
First of all I made the mistake of saying the word "ice cream" in front of Kelly before we even left the driveway, so I had the pleasure of listening to her say "ice cream", and cry about ice cream the whole way to McDonald's. We finally got to McDonald's where Kelly watched me pull a tray with three cups of ice cream into the car and place it on the front seat. I was then fortunate enough to listen to Kelly say "ice cream" and cry about ice cream with much greater intensity all the way to the airport. It's only a 3-5 minute drive, but it felt like 45 days.
When we arrived at the airport I parked, unbuckled the kids, and told them to wait by the minivan while I got out the ice cream tray and shut the two sliding minivan doors. The best part about our minivan is that we have automatic sliding doors i.e., I just hit a button on my key chain and they slide shut. The worst part about our minivan, is that we have automatic sliding doors. I see you're confused. Don't be, I'll explain. The sliding doors only work when they want to, and today the passenger side sliding door, didn't want to. When an automatic sliding door decides it doesn't want to close completely there's no reasoning with it, and there's certainly no wrestling with it. So after 5 or 6 TOTALLY FRUSTRATING attempts at trying to close the stupid (I would rather use a stronger word here) door, with two preschoolers and a toddler waiting for their quickly melting ice cream, I aborted trying to close the door and left the minivan wide open for the world to steal or rummage through.
We finally got up to the top of the hill and I gave the kids their ice cream. The kids took them and proceeded to spill a good portion of each of them all over the bench...and I hadn't brought any wipes. I tried to wipe the bench off as best as I could with napkins and then I sat down. Aaaah, time to relax. However, as soon as I sat I realized that I'd left my purse in the open van. I could see the van, and felt fairly certain that nobody was going to steal my purse, but I couldn't relax (for obvious reasons). About 5 minutes into the ice cream eating Kate starts crying and saying she wants to go home (I think she was afraid of the helicopter noise). I said, "absolutely not" and she stopped for about 30 seconds. Then she said she had to go to the bathroom (honestly, I don't think she had to go...but she knew that would get her home). I told her to hold until they all finished their ice cream. When ice creams were eaten, and my children were covered head to toe in them, I took them down to the little Greek restaurant adjacent to the airport, so Kate could use the bathroom.
When I entered the restaurant I observed one elderly couple eating and one hostess at the food counter. Before I could even ask if I could use the bathroom she said, "take out or eating in?" I said, "Can we use the bathroom?", and she looked at me without smiling and said, "are you going to be buying anything?" I quickly said, "oh yes, of course" and she pointed to the bathroom. So, the four of us marched to the bathroom where we all went (except for Kelly) and I was able to wash them all down. However, bathrooms are apparently quite exciting and Brian and Kate decided it would be a great place to start running around in circles. I got them out of the bathroom, sat Brian and Kate at a table (Kelly refused to sit) and began looking at the food behind the glass because I HAD to purchase something. Well I have to say, the food looked amazing. All homemade desserts, salads, wraps etc. They had these massive cheesecake cupcakes with baklava on the top so I selected one of those (so as you can see, my diet is going fabulously). While making my selection Brian had gotten up from his seat and was running around the table, and Kelly was pulling olives off this little olive tree they had!!! Are you kidding me?? I'll bet the lady was wishing I had just used the bathroom and left at that point. So I went to pay, but had no cash and asked if I could use my debit card. Again, she looked at me without smiling and said, "it's a $10 minimum." I asked, "how much is the cupcake?", "$5.25"...HOLY CRAP! So I said, "well I guess I'll have two to go." While I was paying Kelly noticed the bowl of dum dum lollipops on the counter and now began perseverating on asking for a pop. Here you go kid, have some more sugar! I took my bag and what little nerves and patience I had left and went outside.
We all marched back up the hill because we hadn't seen an airplane yet, and because I told Brian he could run around for a while (and clearly, he needed to). Kate continued crying and clinging to me because of the helicopter noise, and Kelly had her lollipop. Kate, Kelly and I sat on a rock, in the heat, and Brian ran around, and we waited for an airplane. Huge sigh at this point, things were starting to settle down and it was becoming the relaxing time I had imagined us having. Oh, oh...not so fast!! You see, when Kelly eats lollipops she enjoys rolling them (the pop end) in her hands, which makes her hands - sticky. Kelly didn't like her sticky hands so she began trying to wipe them off in the dead grass (there's no green grass around here, because we've had no rain). Kelly NOW didn't like her sticky - dead grass hands so she began trying to wipe them off in her HAIR. Kelly didn't like her sticky - dead grass hands and hair, so she began wiping herself on me - her mother - who still had no wipes. Good times, good times. It was at that time I finally made the decision to leave (I think Norwood airport had seen enough of us), and off we went, back down the hill, to our broken van.
After getting the kids all buckled in their seats, Kelly just stuck to hers, I attempted again, and again, and again and again to close the f@$#ing door (strong language is appropriate at this point), AND STILL no success! I decided to back the van up anyway, move it to a new location and try again. However, if you try and move a minivan with a door open the van makes a very loud and continuous "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!" noise, that I'm quite certain everyone within a quarter mile radius could hear. I just wanted to yell, "NO, I'm not a total moron!!! I know that the door is open, and YES I can hear that BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!! too!!!" Miraculously it worked though, and once I moved the van, the door shut....THANK YOU GOD!
We made it home in one piece, Kelly got her second bath of the day, and I put on a movie for the kids - like I should have done in the first place!!!
Hope you had a chuckle, or a laugh on our behalf..........here's to our next adventure being just as "FUN" :-) ("fun" being said as sarcastically as possible).
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