A Free Day

"Mommy, Aren't all Fridays 'good' Fridays?"

Today, I woke to the alarm at 7:30 and got up and ran 4.5 miles at the track. It was supposed to be a 60-minute run rather than a 45-minute run, but I was a bit lazy because it was a solid gray, rainy morning and who doesn't love to snooze to that? I mean, really. My son slept until 9 a.m. This is unheard of. But I totally took it.

He had a small breakfast and then he went and played the computer while I did dishes and laundry and at 10:45 we headed out to McDonald's to the play place. It was a decent playtime until about 11:30 when masses of parents showed up. We endured until we saw our friend get pushed backwards out of the door of the Playplace and fifteen mothers made a gasping noise while the little guy was scooped up into his mother's arms. At that point, I decided, it was time for us to vacate.

Then we ran some errands picking up some special cheese for MacTroll and home for me to eat lunch. Afterwards we went to the library for new books and then to the movies to see Rio. By the time we got home, X-man was tired. He sat down in front of his new Scooby Doo video from the library and almost fell asleep at my desk. So, we didn't make it to Tae Kwon Do practice. When he felt more lively, he showed me his side kick and his jumping side kick and they were pretty perfect, well as perfect as they're going to get for a five year old. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed.

I tend to like to keep on the move with my kid. But he also likes to just hang out at home and play Legos, which is normally fine with me, but when he finds out that I'm not clued into everything in the make pretend world that he and his father have created, he basically tells me that he'd rather play Legos with Daddy, which is what the boys are doing upstairs while I wait for Freak and J-lady to pick my butt up to head over to see the Brat Pack in Urbana tonight.

====

And I'm back. Basically, I think I partied with 1/2 of the Westview PTA. :-) And it was awesome. And I danced. Well, mostly I danced because I wanted the guy with no teeth to stop talking to me.

Putting the Fun in Funfair

Tonight, the family went to Westview Elementary School for their Fun Festival. Freak, who was one of the organizers of the event, pre-paid for our tickets so our money would stretch a little further. We played 8 games, had 3 pieces of pizza, one lemonade and a cookie for $6 total for the three of us. 

We got there a little early and played on the playground, where we met a couple of The Boy's classmates. They were very patient with X-man on the bouncy bridges and showing him how to do the trolleys. 

But my favorite part was that 4 kids were playing McDonald's underneath the play structure. One cooked the burgers, one made the fries, one ran the drinks and one was a cashier... there was one obvious problem to this game -- no customers.

So I knelt down and ordered some food. And as quickly as possible, a heap of playground mulch was presented to me. I handed them a tree seedling for cash and walked away. X-man watched. When I came back, I ordered McNuggets, apple slices and a diet coke. X-man dove into the structure and came up with the apple. 

Then, after realizing there might be too many cooks in the kitchen. He became the customer. He ordered his fries, apple slices and chocolate milk. And MacTroll and I stood there and stared. He was playing WITH the big kids in his new favorite past time: pretend play.

At 5:25 we went inside and got our tickets and dinner. Then Freak showed up and we chatted with her mom and Lizzie before Carrie disappeared and came back with Quigs' brood. 

I wanted to spend more time with them, but when X-man heard the games were starting he threw away his garbage, wiped his hands and face and grabbed my hands chanting, "Game time! Game time!"

So off we went. The first games we played were the choose a duck game. X-man chose a duck, saw he had a star and picked a star prize. Then he got to go fishing, where he got a rainbow fish and a little yo-yo. He raced from game to game eager to hand people his tickets and take his turn. In 30 minutes, we'd used all 30 of our tickets. We'd thrown sticky spiders. We'd launched ping pong balls off of mini catapults. We played skee ball. We searched in a treasure chest. We played tic tac toe with bean bags, and we RACED pigs.

At first I thought racing small, stuffed mechanical pigs was silly. But X-man thought it was awesome, especially when he got to hold his pig and kiss it for good luck. He got third place, but still got a prize. 

Overall, it was a very bright and cheerful evening. When we were out of tickets, it was time to go, and X-man didn't put up any kind of fight. 

But he had a really good time. A big thank you to everyone in the Westview Elementary family who helped put this on. It was great fun, and we'll be back next year.

Things that are not the same

MacTroll tried to bring home Brother Bear the animated film from Disney from That's Rentertainment.

Instead, the person behind the counter gave us Homicide: Life on the Street Season 3, disc 2.

TGIF

I had a full, full day today. 

At 8:30 a.m. we dropped X-man off at school. He was happy to be with the Turtles, we're always thrilled with how much he has always loved his teachers. I can't tell you how exciting it is for me to see him learning and enjoying and behaving, even though his behaviors have fallen off track at home this week. 

After the drop off, MacTroll dropped me at the Fitness Center. I didn't get there as early as I would have liked, but I did get 15 minutes in on the elliptical and then I did a 30-minute stretch class. And truthfully, after you do the stretch class, with the lights dimmed and your body all happy, you don't want to do more. So I'll have to work on getting there by 8:30 so I can get in some cardio and then do stretch MWF. 

Afterward, Quigs made me laugh so hard, I shot water through my nose. To make up for it, she drove me to the CARE garden, where we met Freak, Libbygirl and MacTroll and disassembled our garden as it has nothing left to harvest. 

I sent a message to the Urbana Park District letting them know that we were done. I got three replies. The first two were "great thanks!" The third was a reminder that I had to keep everything weeded. Fat chance. I'm never going back. They can keep my deposit and try to use it to fund Crystal Lake pool now that they have declared it's going down the tubes.

Afterward, I headed home with MacTroll and ate a little sandwich and then I went out to paint the fence (yes, I'm still doing that project -- hush). We have these huge flocks of blackbirds, I think they're cowbirds that are just going between our houses sitting on the rooftops and hiding in the fields. Well, I heard them all take off from my house in a whoosh, but what I didn't expect to see was two of them over my right shoulder about 5' in the air in a full dive. Two pulled up, but one of the two got it's head smashed to the ground by a Cooper's Hawk -- Four feet from where I was sitting.

The little bird went with the momentum of the slap, and tried to escape on the other side of the fence. The hawk anticipated this, so he was there to scoop the wounded bird up and take it away. In other words, Mother nature got her freak on in my backyard and I had rock star seating. Sweet.

I finished 3.5 panels in 2 hours. And it was hot, so I took a nap. 

Most of the paint is scrubbed off of me after a quick shower. We picked up X-man and took him to "Family Dinner For Pirates Only" at Long John Silvers. I had never eaten there before, but it's "Talk like a Pirate Day," so we thought it would be fun to make the kids dress up and go out to eat, but X-man didn't want to wear a hat. Nor did he want his friends to wear hats. See him here with Bubba. -- 

He also kept telling us he wasn't hungry on our way there. And then when he got in the restaurant and saw the French Fries, he went crazy with tears until he had his own kids meal (not with french fries -- he shared mom's) but with a granola bar and goldfish. 

Afterward, we ran some errands and then took X-man to Jarling's for some frozen custard. Two little boys from Kankakee had come down with their parents to go to the Apple Orchard and were spending the night in town. X-man liked them immediately, when the little boy Nolan said, "Hello!" X-man hugged him. Then we had to sit with them while we ate, and X-man kept passing his Sheriff car between the two of them sharing like a champ.

After that we took him over to a Central football game to see our friend The Boy cheer on the team after attending a cheerleading camp. 

It was really crowded and stuffy. Before the halftime performance. X-man was playing with some other little cheerleaders, who were jumping up and down on some old bleachers and then jumping off. 

They were also standing on the seats with one leg on the seat in front of them, and X-man would run underneath their skirts. MacTroll and I were laughing in hysterics. Then MacTroll went to the bathroom, and I got hit on. Boy, it's been a long time since that's happened. But hey, he seemed like a decent guy in our 30-second discussion. 

And really, after that I just want to collapse. Cause tomorrow, I have tree purchasing, a strength training class, a neighborhood cookout and a Mom's Night Out at the piano bar. On Sunday, the load is a little lighter and more home focused until 3 p.m. when we have a huge CARE carnival at in St. Joseph. 

And then it's Monday, back to the grind. :-P