Gracie May, What can I say?

Once upon a time, on a Monday long, long, ago (or just last Monday), I decided to mow the lawn. We had a Root Beer tasting party (totally fun group fhe idea) to go to that evening, so I started about 3 to give me plenty of time to shower and get the kids ready after I was done. About one round into it, Hunter comes running over to me, Grace close behind, with a worried look on his face. I stop and ask if everything is OK, and he says "No, Grace locked us out of the house". Grace immediately says "sorry I do that Mama". I think, OK the back door is unlocked, and the garage door is probably unlocked as well. I go check them out, and surprise, surprise, she, in fact, locked all of them. On to the windows I go. All are locked except (look for the irony) Grace's. I pop out her screen, slide open her window, and shove Hunter through to be our hero and unlock the doors. I start to head around front, when I hear his panicked "Mommy!!" I run back over to the window and he proceeds to tell me that Grace's door is locked from the hallway (we have latches to keep them out or in depending on the crime). At this point, I give up hope of making the party, and start wondering how I can hitch a ride with my 2 kids (without car seats) (or money) into town to pick up Chris' keys. I ask to borrow our neighbor's phone, and make the call to Chris. He asks one of his co workers who gets off at 4:30 if she would mind bringing me the key. She said that would be fine, so I decided to finish mowing the lawn while I waited. The only problem was, I was upset and used less caution than normal and ran over part of a stump, which bent my blade. I have no clue about lawn mowers, so I thought I had broken the whole thing. So now I'm close to tears, sweaty, with a 4 yr old asking how come I broke the lawn mower and a 3 yr old saying she's sorry she locked us out. Enter neighbor: He asks if there's anything he can do, and I'm about to ask for either a shot of whisky or a shot in the head, but his son chimes in and says how he's locked his parents out lots of times, and his dad is an expert on taking off hinges. So in goes Justin (my neighbor) into Grace's (messy) room. He takes off the hinges, and Hunter squeezes through the crack (because the door can't come completely off due to the hook on the outside), and unlocks the front door for us. Justin also informs me that you can buy replacement blades for the lawn mower, and that I'm more than welcome to use theirs to finish the job. And we also made the party. The end.

Something Tony Alluded To....

So after reading one of Tony's blogs, I realized something I miss about the climates of places I used to live. I miss being able to take good weather for granted. If I wanted to waste a beautiful day inside, or had to work, or catch up on housework, it didn't matter. Tomorrow was just as likely to be nice. But here, if it's sunny, I feel like I have to drop everything and go outside. If I'm at work, it's worse, because I can't go outside, I just have to stare at the sunshine out the window and wish... Last Monday was my day off, my "day off" actually means my "laundry day". But, it was nice, so I had to go outside or die from lack of sunshine. Did the laundry get done? Well, what's your definition of done? Clean? yes. Folded and put away? no.

Preschool

We registered Hunter for preschool the other day. It's in a private Christian school K-12. Hunter is so excited, he asks me every day if it's time to go to his new school, yet. I'm not sure how I feel. On one hand, I'm ready to see Hunter blossom and grow. On the other hand (and, by the way, there could be six or seven hands), I WANT MY BABIES BACK. I haven't reached the point where I want to run down the street, chasing the bus, but I'm getting there. We'll see how I feel in the fall...