Easter Weekend (Photo glut ahead!)

My parents have a pretty much incurable case of grandparent-itis (which is a good thing).  My mother is a better cook than I am.  And visitation with Bro was on Saturday (he was wanting to take any- and everyone to Chuck E. Cheese's near Mom & Dad's).

So, we thought it was a good idea to use what little Easter break that Large Fry had from school and take a mini-vacation to Mom & Dad's.

Choo-choo!

 

On Friday, we drove out to the Lancaster area to ride the historic Strasberg rail line.

We stopped for lunch on the way, and were only able to get tickets for the 3 o'clock ride.  That gave us about an hour and a half to mosey around the platform and the shops.

We went into a model train shop first.

Where, of course, model trains were running.

Boppa, Small & Medium

One even had "smoke" coming out of its smokestack!

The twins were enthralled.  And Medium, good little helper that she is, tried to wave and blow away the "smoke."

We continued to mosey along.  The rest of the gang (now rejoined by Gramma and Large Fry, who had taken an expedition to the nearest potty) went on to the next big souvenir shop, while I sat down on a nearby bench to rest my cranky ankle.  And I had a conversation about the importance of a stuffed toy with the most adorable little 3.5-year-old girl, while her dad watched, half-amused and half-embarrassed.  When the rest of their family came out of the model train shop, I went down to the souvenir shop and joined the rest of my gang, and used the fifty-one cents in my pocket to get a souvenir penny for the collection that Hubby and I have.

Then it was time for our train ride!

Boppa, Gramma, Large and Medium

Off we go!

Easter Bunny & Fries

Turns out that this was an "event" weekend for the Strasburg rail, since it was the Easter Bunny train ride.  The Easter Bunny even came through our car, and posed for a picture with the girls.  (Naturally, you had the option of shelling out a ridiculous amount of money to buy the rail's souvenir photo.)

The conductor followed the Easter Bunny, her escort (another lady dressed in period clothes), and the assistants who scribbled down your car location and time so you could optionally buy your overpriced souvenir picture.

Ticket, please!

Gramma was very insistent on getting a picture of the conductor taking at least one Fry's ticket.  And, actually, one Fry wasn't enough.  You can see her snapping a picture of this moment with Small Fry, when she'd already cajoled the conductor into a re-do of taking Large Fry's ticket.

Despite the overcast weather, the kids really enjoyed the ride, watching the scenery, the cows, the Amish people we saw along the way, and just spending time with Gramma and Boppa.

Hmmmm.

It was just chilly enough that the two pot-bellied stoves in our car were pumping out warmth for our ride.  The temperature in our car was just right, I thought.

Boppa, Large, Hubby & Small

The ride only lasted an hour, and it was just starting to spit as we headed for home.

It was a good way to spend the day.

On Saturday, Bro had visitation, bringing along his fiancee and her two kids.  Mom had all the kids color eggs before going to Chuck E. Cheese's.  And since you can take the teacher out of the classroom but can't take the classroom out of the teacher, she used old methods of dyeing: boiled blueberries, beet juice, and cumin/curry powder.

Small, her egg, & beet juice.

Medium, her egg, & spices.

 Each kid got to color two eggs.  Then the whole group--Mom, Dad, Bro, Fiancee, and all five kids--left for Chuck E. Cheese's.

I stayed home.

Why?

I love my brother, but he's caused a lot of hurt and heartache in the last three years.  And just when I've previously gotten to the point where I'm willing to be around him again, he's pulled something else and any progress made has been completely eliminated.  It's gotten to the point where his word is pretty much worthless, and I won't believe what he says unless and until actions back it up.

As such...I'm not ready to socialize with him.  I can deal with situations where I don't have a choice.  But when I do, I'm not going to socialize.  Not yet.

Innyhoo.

It's important to know here that, any time either Hubby or I leave the house, there's this little ritual.  We hug whoever needs hugs, we say where we're going, and...we promise to be back later.

As I stood at my parents' front door and wondered if maybe I'd made the wrong choice, watching everyone else go, I heard Small Fry ask Hubby if I was coming.  He told her no.

Next thing I know, she's running pell-mell back into the house and throwing her arms around me.

Naturally, right after I'd looked at my dad and ruefully observed, "Chopped liver."  (He just chuckled.)

"I love yew!" Small said exuberantly, and looked up at me.  She squeezed my legs again.  "Don' wowrry, Auntie.  I'll come back.  I pwomise!"

It was too cute.

Easter Fries!

On Easter Sunday, Hubby and Medium Fry ended up staying home from church while the rest of us went.  Medium had a pretty nasty hacking cough, a nasty temp, and just plain felt awful.

However, she did feel up to putting on her new Easter dress when we got home, so that we could take pictures.

Small Fry

Hubby had a great idea with having them pose by Gramma's tulips, but the sun was awful bright where the kids were sitting, and it brought out the sillies.

So we tried something else.  Stop and smell Gramma's tulips....

Large Fry

Which worked great, for everyone but Medium Fry, who could not get the hang of sniffing close enough to the flower, or sniff without looking like she was thoroughly disgusted.

Medium Fry

So we tried Gramma and Boppa's porch.

Kisses for everyone!

Smooches!

Puh-pwize!

The twins are playing hide-and-seek.

I think.

They still haven't quite mastered the gist of the game.

They help each other decide where to hide...then one hides, and the other counts, to somewhere between 8 and 18, often skipping a few -teen numbers.

Then the counter goes to find the hider, pretending she doesn't know where the hider is.

The hider will jump up and shout, "Puh-pwize!" if she feels the counter is taking too long.

It's hilarious.

Small Fry gets ready to count.  Medium tells her she can't, because she hasn't figured out where she's going to hide yet.

"You hide while she counts," I say.

"No," Medium disagrees.  She thinks for a minute.  "I'm hiding inna baffroom!"  Off she goes, and Small Fry starts counting.  They run into each other in the kitchen once Small Fry finishes her counting.

Medium Fry is counting this time.

Small Fry says, "I'm gonna hide inna hawway!"  She scampers off.

Medium starts to count.  "One...two...fwree...fouwr...five...six...seven...eight...nine...ten...'leven...
twelb...firteen...eighteen...wready owr not, hewre I come!"

Small Fry giggles from the hallway.

They meet up and come tearing back in here.

Now it's Small's turn to count again.  She and Medium have decided that Medium will hide between the opened-to-a-90-degree-angle kitchen playset and the coat closet.  Medium wiggles inside and hunkers down.

Small Fry returns to the living room to count.  "Wahn...two...fwee...fouwr...five...six...sebben...eight!  Weady owr not, hewre I come!"

Small observes for a moment before Medium prairie-dogs up from her hiding place.  "You hafta count to F!" she says indignantly.

"No!" Small says.

"You hafta count to F!"  Medium is even more indignant (yes, it's possible).

"No, I don't," Small retorts happily.

"Den I'm nawt gonna pway hide-an'-seek wif you anymowre."  Medium pouts.

The conversation repeats almost verbatim.

Realizing she won't get any angst out of her twin, Medium goes back to playing with the buckets all three kids got for Easter from Bro's fiancee, and making "candy."

They're both having a marvelous time.

But it's cyoot!

Hubby decided, on our Easter mini-vacation trip to my folks, that enough was enough.

Medium Fry's hair had grown out of its previous shorter and thinned cut, and was becoming a bear to try to get brushed out.  Small Fry's was also getting long, and causing more crises at hairbrush time.

Time for haircuts.

He asked me this morning if I had any objection to him getting that done today.

Nope, still mired in work.  Carry on.

I went back to sorting through the final details of payroll...which seemed to be taking after rabbits today.  Every time I thought I was done, something else would crop up.

Then I turned to untangling the two current billing issues.

I was finally done when I heard the van pull into our gravel drive.  Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, followed by two sets of little feet coming down the hall.

"We bwought you lunch!" Small Fry said cheerily.

"Thank you," I said, eying her haircut.  "It's so short!"  This, I said to myself, is what happens when Hubby takes little girls in for haircuts.

I ran my fingers through her hair, trying to see if it would still PT (ponytail, since you didn't have the luxury of growing up in my house and hearing that term).  It wouldn't!  It would kind of half-PT, which was cute, but it would have to grow out.

On the plus side, her curls are all bouncy again.

And if I really hate it, well, it's hair.  It'll grow.

But no more braids or fun hairdos for awhile.

But, as Small has told us, "it's cyoot!"

Once again...

Wit and witticisms have been taken hostage.

This time, the culprits are payroll (again) and last night's migraine that I'm desperately trying to not allow to rebound.  At least, not until after I get payroll done.

Have a cute story from this weekend, and even cuter pictures of the kids in their Easter dresses, and a story behind them, but it'll have to wait until I can string together more than half a dozen sentences.

"Hey, I'm pretty smart! I'm just sometimes not too bright."

Today I found myself in desperate need of a nap, right along with the twins.  Hubby was on his way back with the necessary new timer for the washer.  And while he planned to stop and look for shoes at Kohl's, he would be home in time to get Large Fry off the bus.

Bliss.  I could nap.

If people would stop texting me!  (Sorry, Dad.  I was tired.)

Until my phone rang at 4p.  "I need you down here!" Hubby sounded almost panicked.

My first thought was that he was still at Kohl's, and I needed to come downstairs to get Large Fry off the bus.

I stuffed my feet in my slippers, twisted my hair back up in my little hairzing combs, and came downstairs...to find Large Fry contentedly playing with a few toys, and Hubby in the bath/laundry room, toe-deep in water.

"It wouldn't stop filling."  He looked at me meaningfully.  "It wasn't just the timer."

Crap.  Double crap.  Triple crap.  Crap crap crap!

All of the laundry, which had been sorted into semi-neat piles, was now wet.  And would have to be washed.

Now, I live in a nice enough neighborhood.  I feel safe here.  People watch out for each other.

But the laundromat a block and a half down the street scares me.  I really didn't want to have to go there.  Looks like I'll be making its acquaintance.

Hubby forces the washer to drain.  Then he asked, "Does this buzz when it's done?" He pointed to the load selector dials.

"Nooo...."

"Because there's a little air hose here, and it doesn't seem to serve any purpose, so...."

You almost see the lightbulb go on over his head.  Edison would've been proud.

"I gotta check that...."  Hubby continues to mumble to himself about it seeming to be a pointless little piece of plastic tubing, and if it doesn't buzz, it doesn't appear to have a purpose.

I took Large Fry upstairs for the necessary potty business and a nap.

By the time I got back downstairs, he'd found an online user manual for our washer.

Sure enough, that little piece of "pointless" plastic tubing attached to the load sensor mechanism...which controls the water level in the machine.

As soon as he got that hooked back up, it worked.

He even set the load selector back to Small to see if it would stop the water.

It did.

And the new timer has done the trick, since the machine advanced through the whole wash cycle.  It works!

As Hubby continued to clean up the water on the floor, he observed, "Hey, I'm pretty smart!  I'm just sometimes not too bright."

Timing is Everything

So it seems that the problem with the washer is the timer.  Makes sense.  As Hubby just told the repair guy he's talking to, "it'll stay in wash mode for four hours" without advancing.  Repair guy concurred.

This is a fairly simple fix.  We got the part off and have the serial number and everything.  Getting the new part in is equally simple, now that we know how it goes back in (I had a surge of dumb luck in figuring out how to get it off the washer face plate last night).

However....

It seems that nobody wants to sell us the part without (a) waiting a day for it to be shipped from the distributor, or (b) insisting on doing the repair themselves.

Easter weekend is coming.

My half bath/laundry room is overflowing with dirty clothes.

I really don't want to go to a laundromat to make sure the kids have clean pants for the next two days.

Here's hoping that the lady who just told Hubby that they have two in stock was right!  (She walked back just to be sure they were there.)

A Crisis of Epic Proportions

As I sit here, I can hear the gentle wum wum wum of the washer agitating.

Problem:  that's all it does.

All.

It filled up, no problem.  One load of delicates, nice and clean, coming right up.

And that was the last thing that went right.

The delicate cycle on my washer--a four-year-old machine--agitates for about a minute, and then sits for three or so.  Repeat.

I realized, shortly before we left for dinner at Denny's, that the washer had been agitating...without stopping.  Hmm.

I opted to stop the washer while we were gone.

Good thing I did.  Otherwise, it would likely have still been running when we got home.

It's not progressing any further into the wash cycle.  It's just sorta stuck on where it is.

Hubby thinks it's a switch issue.  He managed to get the washer to start a rinse cycle.  It's still where he left it.

I see the piles and piles and piles of laundry that I need to do...and I'm about thisclose to outright panicking.  We have a laundromat about a block down the street...but I do NOT want to have to go make use of it.

And the kids are running out of pants.

Either way, I've got to get the thing (more accurately, have Hubby do it) to a spin cycle, so that I can pop the current load in the dryer.

I do not relish having to call a washer repairman.  I need my washer back sooner than my friend Lah got her washer fixed.  (Hers was a comedy of errors and took several days too long.)

I hate the idea of having to buy a new machine if ours can't be fixed, but the Lowe's card is available if I need it.  Figures.  I just paid the balance off.

Bartering

"Uncle, now can we watch the chickens?"

"No," Hubby says to Medium Fry.  "Because then Small Fry will watch the chickens--" on Sesame Street "--and not eat her sandwich."

Medium pauses, nods, and bounces off into the toy room.

Less than thirty seconds later, she's in the doorway to the living room.  "Uncle, can you please read this book?"

"Not right now."

"Uncle...can you please read this book?  I'll give you a kiiiss," Medium wheedles.

"Well, all right...since you'll give me a kiss, I'll read it."

Medium giggles and brings over the book.  "On your nose!"

"No!  Not on my nose!"

Word of God, Speak

This morning, the twin Fries were ostensibly "snuggling" in bed with us before Hubby got up to get Large Fry going for school.

Hubby sent Large Fry to her room to get dressed, and then firmly told Medium Fry that she needed to stop bumbling around on the bed.  She needed to be quiet, and to be still.

She didn't really want to be still.  And she had nowhere to lay, she whined, especially when I griped about her putting all of her (considerable, when compared to her twin) weight on my bad ankle.  Three times, in fact.

"Why don't you come lay up here?"  Hubby asked her.

"I'm snuggling wif Uncle," Small Fry said.

Medium shook her head at Hubby.  "Can you come snuggle next to Auntie?"

"Noooo.  She's not my best buddy!"

"Who's your best buddy?"

"You awre."  Full pout.

"You can either lay next to Auntie, or you can go back to your own bed."

Medium Fry pout-slunk all the way back to her bed.

I dozed for a little while longer, until Small Fry got in my face after Hubby had gotten out of bed (which I apparently dozed through).

"I wanna watch TV!" she said in a stage whisper.

If it would keep her from driving me crazy...I felt for the clicker, turned the TV on, and punched the numbers for the Disney channel.

"Mickey Mouwse Club Houwse!" Small Fry cheered almost quietly.

It wasn't all that loud, but I knew that the noise from the TV would bring Medium back to my bedroom.

Shortly, I heard her say my name at the doorway.  "God told me to come hewre and watch Mickey Mouse Club House."

Okay then!

Duckie? Where are you?

It is, at the same time, both endearing and almost pathetically heart-rending.

Medium came downstairs about half an hour ago, because she was "scratchy."  Hubby applied lotion to her back, where it was the most itchy, and then she said she had to go potty.  She wandered to the half bath down here, her footie jammies trailing behind her.

Duckie, of course, had come downstairs with her.

And he got left behind on the loveseat next to Hubby when she concluded her potty business.

From the monitor, we hear this:

"Duckie?  Where are you?  Duckie?"

I glanced around quickly and spotted Duckie at the end of the loveseat, before Medium's plaintive cries became shrieks of despair.  (She's done this before, calling desperately for him, so I know she'll escalate.)

"Medium, he's down here," Hubby called up.

Medium wanders sleepily back downstairs, and her tired face lights up when she sees Duckie in Hubby's outstretched hand.  Her thumb popped into her mouth and Duckie was tucked securely under her chin.

"Go back up to bed.  Pull your blankets over yourself," Hubby said gently.  "And go to sleep."

Which is pretty much exactly what she did.

They really make me wonder sometimes.

Soooo...if Medium Fry is the "dinosaur" that Large Fry is so "scared" of....

....then WHY is Large Fry allowing Medium Fry to show her the best place to hide from the "dinosaur"?

There are some things...

...that nothing prepares you for when you're raising kids.

This past weekend, we went out to my folks' and spent the whole weekend there.  Our reasoning was two-fold: one, the Fries had visitation with their biological father, and my parents' home is as good a place as any for these supervised visits.  Two, Gramma and Boppa had just returned from two and a half weeks visiting their grandsons over in Europe, and they were suffering both jetlag and severe granddaughter withdrawal.

Friday night and Saturday developed in an unexpected way, with Large Fry adding a 24-hour stomach bug to her case of strep and sending us to Urgent Care just to be safe.  And then Small Fry developed a drippy nose that constantly needed to be wiped.  But by Sunday, both Large and Small were well enough that we all went to church, and then went to Old Country Buffet for dinner, before Mom and Dad had to leave for a Gaither concert in Lancaster.

We're getting ready to leave when Small Fry is making giggling circles around our table and happily crashes into me.  As she looks up at me, I see that we have a booger situation.

Since Small has not yet really mastered the whole blowing-into-a-tissue thing, I take point on this one.  As I am performing a booger-ectomy, I see something else that looks odd inside her nose.

And it's moving as she inhales and exhales.

And I can't quite reach it.

But I do know it looks pink.

Hubby sighs and says, "Can't we do that outside?  People are eating here."

The location of our unknown-nasal-thing-ectomy moves to the van.  I sit Small Fry on the front passenger seat, tip her head back, and peer up her right nostril.  Yep, it's still there.  It's still pink.  And I can't reach it, because she's inhaling!

I reposition the paper napkin in my right hand.  "Blow out your nose, like this," I tell her, and demonstrate.

Surprisingly, she does.

And it pushes the unknown-nasal-thing into reach.

Success!  I'm able to grab onto it!

I tug gently, because, after all, it looks pink and I'm honestly a little scared that this might somehow be a fleshy and attached UNT.

And I keep tugging.

And now I'm able to easily pull.

And it's not pink.

It's orange.

ORANGE.

And rubber.  Did I mention that?  Rubber.

And distinctly...well...shaped.

Silly-band shaped.

I have no idea what it was.  I do know it's been in her sinus cavity long enough that the silly band has degraded a bit.  Hubby and I look at it in mute shock.  Hubby recovers first.

"Small Fry!" he says.  "Did you stuff a silly band up your nose?"

"Uh-huh."  She nods.

I'm amazed she admitted that, and amazed that she managed to inhale one of these suckers in the first place.

"Don't put silly bands up your nose again!" Hubby chides sternly.

We buckle the kids into their car seats and drive back to Mom and Dad's to pack up our stuff and head for home.  Hubby and I look at each other, barely contained amusement evident in both our expressions.  I send a text to my parents...and wait for the reaction.

You thought the story was over, didn't you?

We pull into the driveway to see Dad behind the wheel waiting for Mom; they'd decided to stop at the house before heading to the concert.  When Mom comes out, I ask if she got my text.  She shakes her head.

Well.  That explains the lack of response.

I quickly explain what happened, and she tries to hold her chuckles.  "Which nostril?" she asked.

"The right."

"Is that the one that was drippy?"

"Yup."

"Well, now we know why her nose was dripping!"

Indeed.

I can't make this stuff up!

I'm tucking the twin Fries in for naps.  Medium Fry has come up without her duckie, mad because we said it was naptime.  "But Duckie doesn't wanna nap!  He wants to weawr a dwess!"

"Fine," I told her.  "Duckie can stay down here and wear a dress.  But you are going to take a nap."

Of course, her not wanting Duckie changed by the time I got them both upstairs.

I tucked them in, performed the ritual asking of which blanket they wanted to be covered with first (the one Gramma made, or the one I made), turned on the classical music, and hugged both Fries.

Small Fry insisted on having the "doowr a little closed," which means I close it until I can't close it anymore, because her big stuffed basset hound, Toby, is in the way.  (Toby used to belong to my oldest nephew.)  Toby, however, was nowhere to be found.

"He's in youwr wroom!" Small Fry said indignantly, as if I should have magically known.  I'd been in there before, looking for her little piggy, and hadn't seen him.

I went back and looked again.  Sure enough, there was Toby.  The reason I couldn't see him is because our fluffy kitty Minou--real weight 17 pounds, but looks about 25--had snuggled up with him to snooze.  (Too bad I left my phone downstairs.  It would've been a cute picture.)

I brought Toby back to the Fries' room and explained he'd been napping with Minou.  Then I shut the door up to Toby, and promised I would look for Duckie and bring him back up.

"He's inna cyoobe," Medium informed me.  "A gween cyoobe."  (We have brightly colored canvas cubes in the toy room for storage.)  "He's saying, 'Medium, help me!'"

I headed downstairs to find the errant Duckie.  Small Fry called out urgently, "You didn't get da monstwers out!"

"I'll do that when I bring Duckie up," I reassured her.

Sure enough, I found Duckie exactly where Medium said he was, in one of the green canvas cubes.  (Shocking.  Usually, when she "stashes" him someplace, she doesn't remember where.)  And he wasn't wearing a dress.  At least I don't have to worry about Duckie having an identity crisis.

Back upstairs, I peek in the door, and then shake Duckie a little so he rattles, which gets Medium's attention and earns a huge grin.  I "fly" him into the room and tuck him under her arm while she giggles.

And then I cross my pinkies and prepare to perform the monster exorcism.

"All unfriendly monsters, unfriendly giants, unfriendly wombats, unfriendly everything," I intone solemnly, "it's time to get out!  Woo-ah!" And, as per ritual, I kick with my right foot.

Medium looks up at me.  "Da wombats licked you!" she crowed.

"Eeeeeeeew," I said, making a face.  I smiled and moved to the door.

"Tell da wombats to leave you alone."

"Leave me alone, wombats!"

Small Fry wasn't about to be left out of this.  She gave me an impish grin.  "Da wombats awre in youwr tuchus and in youwr giwrl pawrts!"

I decided I wasn't touching that one.  "Go to sleep!"

Hubby's startled expression when I told him where Small said the wombats were pretty much mirrored my own thoughts.  ;)

Blog Posting has been hijacked...

...by two days of payroll and billing insanity (newsletter insanity to commence tomorrow), preceded by a week of repetitively sick children, and capped off with a total lack of motivation, inspiration, and general oomph required to do anything other than stare blearily at the laptop screen.

Witty repartee will commence again ... er ... soon.

As soon as I don't think I'm running a fever.

Awwww Factor

Something crept through the nebulousness of sleep, just before 6:30 this morning.  I shifted in bed, blinked, and registered a stainless steel bowl in the vicinity of my hip.  Moving my gaze up, I saw Small Fry.  She blinked at me, I smiled, and I went back to sleep.

But as it often is when one of the kids joins us in bed early in the morning, my sleep was fitful.  I woke again about 15 minutes later...only to find that Small Fry had snuggled up, spoon-like, to Hubby's back and was sound asleep.

Awwwww.

It's nice to know she feels confident that just being with us makes her feel better.

Hat Trick!

Once again, my kid has confounded the "normal appearance" of strep throat.

Despite not having a strep-looking throat, that is exactly what Small Fry has.

And we do not have enough couch space for all three kids, especially since Small Fry needs to lay down with the company of a lovely stainless steel bowl.

Thank goodness Large Fry goes back to school tomorrow.

And so...

I journey to the doc's yet again today.

Small Fry is the only one of my kids who tends to puke when she gets strep.

And given that she's camped out on the couch and not wanted to do anything else, she took a short nap this morning, my stainless-steel Dutch oven has been pressed into service, and she only wants me, I decided it was wise to call the doc today.

My poor baby.

White Lips

Not what I needed to see today.  And certainly not what Small Fry wants to be feeling.

The Fries have been sick-ish.  I thought it was just a cold, but after a week of Large Fry's nasty hacking  cough, and Medium having had it for three to four days, I took them both to the doc yesterday.  (Small Fry, not yet coughing or having any other complaints, stayed home.)

Surprise, surprise.  Medium Fry is glowingly positive for strep.  Large Fry, only faintly so; the pediatrician suspected that she might be carrying the virus without actually having it, since all of their other symptoms suggested a cold.

I did not believe my thermometer this morning when it gave me Small Fry's temp.

And her lips are now as pale as her face.

That's just not a good sign.

I think I'll check her temp again, and then decide if I'm calling the doc.  Again.

Two Squares

We seem to have acquired a toilet-paper elf, who sneaks in at odd hours and makes off with large quantities of toilet paper.

Or it's the kids, using waaaaaaaaaaaaay more than they need to.  Or that they're allowed.

I'm betting more on the kids than the elf, especially after we battened down the hatches and still went through a double roll in less than 24 hours.

It was the kids.

They are limited now to two squares of toilet paper when they pee, four if they have to wipe their bottoms.

This morning, Hubby was getting Large Fry ready for school.  The twins had clambered in bed with me about 8, wanting to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  Not long after that, Medium asked if she could go potty.

Oh, by all means.  Please.  Go potty.

Hubby was trying to hustle Large Fry through breakfast and getting ready to get on the bus, and writing a note to Large's teacher and the lunch room lady (they had screwed up and allowed Large Fry to charge a breakfast, and they're not supposed to do that), when Medium starts shouting.

"Uncle!"

"Uncle!"

"Uncle!!"

"Uncle!!!"

"UNCLE!!!!!"

"WHAT?!" Hubby shouted, having no idea what could possibly be so important that she had to tell  him when I'm upstairs and a lot closer.

"I got two squares," Medium happily informed him.


*facepalm*