Susan’s Journal

tap tap tap
“Hot, hot, hot… hot chocolate…” I whispered as I tapped on her arm with the hook of a candy cane. She was tucked into bed, the big fluffy comforter up around her ears even though it wasn’t that cold outside. She made a sleep-coming-to-wake murmuring sound. “It’s Polar Express Day,” I whispered to her; and she sucked in some sleepy air, opened her eyes to me, and smiled. I heard Dylan pass by, thump-thump-thumping his way down the stairs.

Polar Express Day is a tradition at the kids’ school. They dress up in their pajamas, some with slippers and bathrobes, and enjoy their class winter party. My favorite part about this party, about the town we live in? Papers say Christmas, songs they sing say Christmas, and even the teachers occasionally say Merry Christmas. And yes, this is a public school. They still do exist.

I had wanted to wake the kids with a special surprise, with a special morning–so I pulled out an old, only-once-used tea kettle, filled it with water, and set it on the hot stove. Nowadays kids just shove a coffee cup of water into the microwave; but this was the real way. Rain asked when the water would be hot enough, and I told her “when the tea kettle whistles.” She waited… and listened… and Dylan joined her… listening as the dull moan turned into a high-pitch whine. Then she chuckled when the tea kettle WHEW made its sighing sound as it was taken off the heat.

There was a bag of mini marshmallows; and I’m a terrible parent, but I’ll tell you they were pretty old–and pretty hard. But hey… they were in a closed bag… and if they’re going in hot chocolate, they’ll get soft… right? Right! They tasted fine. I showed Rain how I put a touch of milk in mine to make it a tiny bit more creamy (and to cool off the water a bit), and both kids asked for a dribble of milk in turn.

So, with the kitchen radio playing Christmas music softly in the background, the three of us huddled around the kitchen table, drinking hot chocolate together. We talked about nothing, we snuck extra marshmallows into our coffee cups, and we giggled and smiled. It was a wonderful, perfect morning.

Then to school… and the kids piled into the car, in their pajamas, but with their backpacks too–somehow mis-matched that way for the day. As I pulled up to the school and dropped them off, I saw the conductor from the Polar Express–a man who works for the school–and I swear, that man, when he dresses up for Polar Express Day, he looks exactly like the conductor in that movie. He’s so wonderful that people take pictures of him all day long. It’s magical.

My morning was magical. My evening was magical too, but for different reasons. They’re stories that maybe I’ll tell another day. Shoot, I haven’t even told you a single tiny smudge about the cruise yet. Like I always say, “Everything’s a story.”

And on this day,
December 19, 2000… sleeping in a toddler bed shaped like a car is extremely uncomfortable. I’ve had this blog for eight years now.

“Come on, Rain, just one picture. We’re not leaving until you let me take one picture.” That’s why they look so happy in this picture.

I love those white puffy things behind them, and I was so wrapped up in the whole get-it-over-with thing that I chopped them off. Nice, huh?

A few days ago, a friend from my church had given me three tickets to Hawaiian Falls. They were left over from a church group trip–exactly three–and they expired in a week. I’d love to take the kids, I told her. Thank you so much for thinking of me.

So we packed a picnic lunch, put on our swim suits, stopped at a gas station for drinks, and headed to the local water park. We got there about half an hour after it opened. We got good parking. We got three chairs in the shade and put our cooler, towels, and flip-flops there.

I have to tell you that this has got to be my favorite water park I have been to. The biggest reason? I went on just about every ride that was open. That’s not normal for me. The kids were excited to have me going on all the water rides with them, and honestly I got sick of climbing all the stairs before I got sick of going on all the rides.

We probably spent about half the day in the lazy river, in about four different stints. That’s how I got this sunburn I’m sporting. It’ll be gone in a day, though, and it was worth every minute of it.

Halfway through the day, we had a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jellies, chips, our new coolered drinks, and chocolate pudding. It was enough to quiet our tummies and send us back on our way again… to one more ride, and then Mommy can’t we go on the lazy river again?

I am so thankful to my friend for giving me those tickets. It was a real blessing. And I promise, the kids were much happer about the whole day than they look in this picture.

There were a few random leaves lying in the parking lot where I went to lunch. I remember in Korea (this one time, in Korea…) when it was fall, the leaves would flutter down, and the maple (I guess they were maple) leaves were HUGE… I wish I had kept a few of them… but I suppose eighteen year olds don’t think of things like that.

Man, that was fourteen years ago.

Some people would look at those leaves on the ground and say, oh gosh darn, the summer is over… but for me, that’s a huge blessing, a tremendous burden lifted. With the coming of the fall, that means the summer is over. With the summer over, that means the kids are back in school.

With the kids back in school, that means they’re back at my house again.

Even though I’ve gotten to see them here and there over the past month or two, I have missed them so, so much. I am dying for school to start–and I am dying for more leaves on the ground.

The sun came out just long enough for me to snap this picture.

I took the dogs–and kids–for a walk. Dylan took off on his shiny red bike, Rainlin had one doggie, and I had the other.

Halfway through the walk, Dylan stopped riding. We caught up to him a few seconds later, and we learned the problem: one of the pedals had come off his bike.

Rainlin got down on her hands and knees and tried to screw it back in but couldn’t. I got down on my hands and knees and tried to screw it back in but couldn’t. We needed pliers.

Then it began to rain.

I gave Rainlin the other leash, and for the first time ever she started walking both dogs back towards the house. Dylan pushed his bike. It didn’t downpour (thankfully), and it tapered off to a sprinkle.

That was a wonderful stroke of luck!

“Let me tell you something about TPS reports.” Remember that line? Well, keep that in mind when I say the following:

Let me tell you something about Dirt Rockets.

It all started about a month ago. The kids had come over for a few days, and Rain asked if she could ride the dirt rocket. She got all suited up, and I followed her outside, because I figured the tires might need some air. I hooked up to the back tire… gained some air… no problem. I hooked up to the front tire… and waited… and waited… then I turned off the compressor, pressed on the front tire, and heard that heartbreaking hiss that means you have a flat. Sorry Rain, I told her, no Dirt Rocket today.

I had been smart, though, and paid twenty dollars at Toys R Us for the service plan. Smart, right? Well, I called up the service plan support, and got a lady who had a hard time explaining anything to me, and basically she transferred me to a recording that said I had to damage the bike so it wouldn’t be rideable, by like cutting off the valve stem or cutting the electrical harness or something, and mailing that in, to prove the bike wasn’t rideable. At that point, I figured, I’d get a check in the mail–but probably for $199, the sale price I paid, not the $249 it would be today for me to run down to Toys R Us and buy a new one. Pass. I was kind of pissed. It was just a friggin flat tire.

So first I called Firestone. The guy was decent to me (I’m always happy with Firestone places), but he said he couldn’t help, because the tire was too small, they didn’t have pumps small enough for it… or something. So then I called a place here in town called Conoly Power Equipment (never go to this place), and after a patronizing “no no no,” he basically said “look son,” to me, and I said “I am not a son!” and hung up the phone. Next I called Wylie Tire, another place that had been suggested to me. Remember that whole I-block-out-bad-experiences thing? well I can’t even remember most of what the guy said to me; but I hung up the phone and was in tears. How friggin hard could this be? We couldn’t be the only place on earth with a Dirt Rocket! I did remember him saying something along the lines of, “Well if you could get the front tire off the bike…” so I went out to the garage, in tears, and Rain came out and sat with me while I fought them off and disassembled the front half of the bike. I threw the front tire, rim and everything, in the back of the car, and went into the house.

Then I came to my senses, or so it seemed, and the next day used my iPhone maps to find the closest bicycle shop to us. It was in Plano; and during lunch today, the kids and I headed in that direction. The bicycle shop was huge… and nice… and was one of those places that has two hundred dollar bikes up to two thousand dollar bikes. While Rain and Dylan wandered down the aisles in awe, I approached the service counter with tire in hand.

The man there took the tire from my hand and began to look at it, and at once began to shake his head… “Please don’t shake your head,” I pleaded with him. Then I stood by (I think he could sense my defeat) and watched as he pried the tire off (keep in mind I know nothing about wheels) and worked out the tube from the inside. This is your problem, he showed me–the little rubber ring keeping the tube from rubbing against the metal was shifted in the wrong place, and the tube had gotten caught down in the metal, causing a rip. I can’t patch this, he said, and I don’t carry this size tubes, but there’s a scooter shop down the road that can probably replace this tube for you. Thank you so much, I said to him (another man in that store talked to me too, they were all very nice), and I went to round up the kids.

“Mommy, come look at this one I like,” Rain said, and she pulled me by the hand down an aisle. The bike she liked was cool–had really pretty designs on it–but when I showed her the $799 price tag, her shoulders sagged. Sorry, I told her. I wouldn’t even spend that much on a bike for myself.

On the road again… this time to a scooter store. The place was loaded with electric scooters, gas scooters, little kids’ ATVs, dune buggies, and all kinds of toys like that for the kids to drool over. I walked up to the counter with the tire and tube, handed them to the man there (who had taken quite a while to walk up from the back room), and started to tell him what was wrong with it… he basically turned away from me in the middle of my talking, took a box off a shelf, went into the back room, and five minutes later came back out with a nice, perfect tire.

I about shit myself.

Twenty dollars later, I was walking out with a perfect tire. A few hours later, I was putting it on the bike, and Rain was going to go for a spin; but it had been left in the on position (like the dumb riding lawnmower, a story for another day), and it wouldn’t ride. So we let the Dirt Rocket charge for a few hours, then around eight we took it out to the park. It rode fine for about six times around before it started to peter out–in fact, it was the first time the battery had gotten tired before the kids did. So since Dylan’s lighter, he rode it back to the house, and Rainlin and I walked the dogs back home.

It’s plugged in now, in the garage, getting a full charge overnight. It will live to vroom another day, this time full of air, and this time with a full charge.

Remember this great little video I made when we first got the dirt rocket? What a blast we had.

Today’s list:
- feed the dogs
- play connect 4
- eat breakfast
- do the dishes
- play build-a-bear
- roller skate
- take out the trash
- move dog cages
- magic noodles
- dinosaur bones
- draw in garage
- do laundry
- draw w/ chalk
- play in sprinklers
- water the plants
- hang rain’s shelves
- water palm trees

I’ve been blessed in that I’m not spending the summer completely alone–I have been watching the kids half the time when I work from home. It’s been so awesome to see them again, to get to hug them again, to spend more time with them. As I was leaving work yesterday, I got a text message on my phone, telling me to pick up the kids, keep them overnight, and that he would pick them up the next day (today) after work. Whopee! I thought.

After picking up the kids, we stopped at the grocery store for a few things, then headed home. Rain asked if we could have a sleepover, and I said sure! We ended up with three extra girls at our house–five kids total. “Dan in Real Life” entertained us until ten or so, and everyone fell asleep in random places throughout the house.

This morning, the girls up and left before 8 as planned. Their mom is taking them back-to-school shopping. (I did the smart thing myself this year and took the kids a week ago for their supplies.) We picked up the house, took showers, and then I sat down to make this list. When I work from home, I’ve found that it keeps the kids entertained to have a list of things to do. I weasle chores in there too, and they don’t mind in the least.

Just to satisfy curiosity, “move dog cages” entailed trading out Luke’s kennel for Leia’s kennel, now that she’s bigger than him. The kids vacuumed where the cages were and everything. The doggie blankets have been washed, and Dylan hung them up to dry. He’s also taken out the trash, and Rainlin did the dishes.

This little movie on flickr is from my new camera–an HD1010 by Sanyo. I sold my old movie camera on ebay–it just couldn’t do what I wanted it to. This new thing is incredible–it’s HD (obviously) and I can hook it up directly to my TV to watch its awesome movies. Very cool. I love my kids, and I always love having them around.