Pure Madness

My Hoover broke down this week. I knew that something was wrong a couple weeks ago when the sucking power had diminished. I figured I’d had it for 8 years and so it must be at the end of its life cycle.

While cleaning the guest room for my parents upcoming arrival, it finally bit the dust. I looked on the under carriage and realized that the brushes weren’t even spinning. Shoot.

I called Laura and asked if I could borrow hers for a couple days until I could get mine to Scottsbluff to the vacuum place. No problem. She asked what was wrong with mine and I told her. She asked when I’d last changed the belt.

“The Belt?” I asked, “What belt?”

“The belt that you’re supposed to replace every 3 months.”

“Um, No, but not too bad, it lasted 8 years!”

Since Gambles was out of belts until Thursday, I took Laura up on her offer and brought her vacuum home.

Tuesday, I plugged the thing in and turned it on. Holy Cow! That sucker took off as soon as I pushed it forward and ran into the nearest furniture it could find. I grabbed the cord just as it was about to run over my child, and pulled it back. It came back so fast, I lost control and it slammed into a large potted plant, tipping it over and making a bigger mess. Looking on the bright side, I had the vacuum out and ready to go.

Word to the wise: If you ever use a ‘self propelled’ vacuum cleaner, be sure you’re sober, you’re wearing hard-soled, toe-covering shoes & your young children and pets are placed safely on the couch.

Wednesday was my birthday. I was feeling sorry for myself, because it fell on the busiest day of the week on the busiest week of the month, with Al have bible class in the morning, and confirmation class in the afternoon with a ministerial association picnic over the noon hour and I had two meetings in the evening.

Needless to say, no birthday song, no birthday cake and no presents. I almost went and bought myself flowers, but I was too sulky. My niece, Ari, would say I was being balky. And she would have been correct.

Thursday, I was up early and not in much better a mood. My children both woke up with huge grins and that made everything else in the world melt away. After breakfast, we hit the streets and walked up town for kiddo hair cuts. Eden sat nicely and looked at her shoes when she was told to. Lars, on the other hand, was not so cooperative and I had to give Joy a big tip when we left. Hopefully, we won’t have to endure that any time again soon. We hit the library on the way back and picked some of Eden’s favorite books to share with Papa and Grandma, who will be here soon.

Had some much needed phone calls to attend to when I got home and then daddy was back for lunch already.

Friday was daddy’s day off and he played with the kids on the floor for most of the day. It was really too windy to go out and play, which suits him just fine. During the day, Grandma called several times to tell Eden where her and Papa were on their drive west. We found the spot on the map and marked it with pink sticky notes. It was quite fun.

After a really long day at work, Laura agreed to take my children so we could make a quick run to Scottsbluff for some stuff and go to dinner. We got back around 9p and while her girls were nearly asleep on the couch, Eden was playing pretend in the play room and not at all ready to go home to bed. Lars, unfortunately, had spiked a fever and Laura ended up having to rock him the whole time.

Eden was no more interested in going to bed once we got home and Lars cried every 20 minutes on the clock, then slept in my arms for a few minutes, laid in the crib for 20 minutes, then the cycle started over again. I fell asleep for good on the couch upstairs around 0430 and Eden was pouncing on me for breakfast at 0730.

Saturday was long and tedious, me trying to stay awake and get some ‘last minute’ things done and everybody else playing their normal every day games. The kids & I walked up town in the morning to get some Mother’s Day flowers. Decided to walk thorough the drive thru at the bank and everybody came to the window to see how cute Eden looked clutching a powder blue vase with a single pink rose in it for Grandma. She carried it the entire two mile stretch back home.

For supper, we walked across the street for a graduation picnic at the neighbors. It was nice & relaxing, good food and great company. Eden found a 3-yr-old boy to play with and Lars clung to daddy. Just as I was thinking it was about to time go, Eden began playing with their small, 4x5 decorative fountain. She used the water-blowing fish as a drinking fountain and when I shooed her away to stop kissing the fish, she went to the other end of the pool to watch the water make waves. All of a sudden, SPLASH! Face first, she swooped into the fountain and struggled to get up on the other side. It was really a perfect on-your-knees dive, however unintentional. Daddy was about 5 feet away, and jumped over to get her, as she couldn’t find anything to grip on to. The plastic lining was slippery and not meant for swimming. Al got her out and brought her to me. Dripping wet and screaming irrationally, I peel her clothes off and wrapped her in Lars’ blanket. I scooped her up and carried her across the street to our house, where she threw up yucky water just before we hit the front door. Thank Goodness, because I just cleaned the carpet on the landing yesterday.

Now, we are too excited to go lay down because Grandma and Poppa will be here soon and we don’t want to miss them!