Susan’s Journal

“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.

Tonight after work, I drove to my friend’s house and left my car there. In his truck, we headed to our other friend’s house. So altogether, three adults and two kids from our church went out to dinner together. We picked a place in Plano we had never been to before. It was a little pricey but worth the price. Actually, I ended up splitting a dish with someone, and one of the kidlet’s meals was free–a pizza that they didn’t put pepperoni on. We didn’t really complain, but the manager came out with his sweetest smile on and said the pizza was on the house. I noticed (I wonder if anyone else did) that as soon as he walked away, the smile was gone, like wiping chalk off a chalkboard with an eraser. So some pizza, some chicken, some pasta, and some crab cakes later, we left to be driven to our respective homes. It was a peaceful, wonderful evening among friends.

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!

My son is eight years old, and we are about equally matched at chess.

Pretty sad, huh…

I’m working from home today, and at about 10am I got a txt asking me to go pick them up. No problem at all.

It did kind of become a problem later in the day, though, when I told the kids to play chess. The first game, on this yellow table, got accidentally knocked over. The second game, there was some confusion to how a pawn should be able to move (I was in the other room), and it turned into raised voices, which I don’t like.

So Dylan and I played a quick game, and he beat me. Yeap, beaten at chess by an eight year old. Welcome to my wonderful world.

After the wonderful scrambled breakfast, I directed the kids into the shower, then directed myself into the shower. I had used the nifty “Showtimes” application on my iPhone to see what was up at the local theaters, and I saw that the Hulk movie with Edward Norton was playing at the dollar theater. Hmm… a buck… and I’ve really been wanting to see that one. Hey kids, want to go?

So off to the 12pm movie we went. We showed up probably one minute after the movie started (good timing if you ask me–we missed all the previews). Unfortunately, we had skipped our normally-mandatory-pre-movie-potty-break, so halfway through it in a quiet scene I told the kids I had to go. I can’t just leave them in there, so all three of us hurried towards the bathroom. I hung my purse up on the peg in the stall, peed, washed my hands, come on kids come on let’s go, and we were hurrying back down to the movie.

Our coke cup was still in our row (we were only like five rows from the front), and we slid into the row. I swear Rain went down one extra seat from where we were before, but she swears we didn’t. Oh well, I said, and slunked back into the chair for the rest of the movie.

When the movie was over, I reached between my legs to grab my purse on the floor… and it wasn’t there. I moved my hand around a little bit, and I didn’t find it. It was still really dark in the theater, but instantly I was on my hands and knees, moving my arms around in big circles, feeling with my hands… no purse. I started to go into panic mode when I realized… I had to have left it in the bathroom.

Oh no, oh no, I thought, as the three of us rushed down the hall to the bathroom. The first stall had someone in it… but I wasn’t in the first stall, right? I opened the second stall, looked at the hook… opened the third stall, looked at the hook… oh no, I kept thinking. And this is when your mind starts racing… my iPhone… my wallet… my CAR KEYS… what am I going to do?? I was about in tears at this point. I grabbed the teenager who was tearing tickets, told her what was going on, and she was just about useless. I told her I needed a manager, and she walked up to the snack bar and stood there.

That wasn’t good enough. Rain, I said, go back down to the theater and crawl around on your hands and knees where we were… getting dirty was the furthest thing from my mind at this point. Dylan and I are going back into the bathroom, I told her. Dylan trailed after me, and I went back through the stalls, asking the people who were in the occupied ones, is there an orange purse in there?? But no one would answer me. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

I came back out of the bathroom, Dylan behind me, just about a wreck. Rain came running down the hallway from the end theater we had been in…

…and she held up to me my purse.

I wailed and wrapped my whole body around her, hugging her tight, I’m sure she couldn’t breathe, saying oh my good Rainlin… after about twenty seconds, I let out a sigh and a chuckle and said, “Who wants some ice cream?”

I never said anything to the girl who didn’t help, I didn’t say a word to another person in the place. I just made a beeline for the car. Rain said the purse had been in our row. Maybe it was behind something, like a nachos box, but it didn’t take her a whole long time to find it. Once we got to Braum’s, though, I let her get the coveted two-scoop ice cream.

All was right with the world.

Yesterday afternoon, we packed up the car with pool-type-stuff, stopped at the grocery store for pasta salad and potato salad, and headed out to a pool party.

It was through a Christian singles group I’m a part of, and it was at one of the girl’s apartment complex. The kids love to swim, and they had all of the good time I expected them to have, right up until the very end.

Those of you who know me well know that I’m very cautious of my kids around the water. They can both swim, thuogh; the pool was only 4.5 feet deep at it’s deepest; and there were lots of other parents outside; so when i had to go potty, or when I wanted more soda, I just went inside the pool house and did it, rather than drag the kids out to poolside while I went in. I still felt a terrible pang of guilt each time I did it, though.

The kids were fine.

There were probably about six other kids in the pool, all aged from about seven to fourteen. They were playing catch, jumping in, playing with the noodles, generally being good and just enjoying the pool. It was no problem. But still, I worried.

Right at the end of the evening, as I was at poolside, trying to find the two pair of goggles we had brought, Dylan tripped. "Your son just got hurt," a friend said to me. I could have almost reached out and grabbed him, he was so close to me when it happened. But I heard the little Dylan-shreik that meant he was hurt, and I pulled him from the edge of the pool and into my arms.

He had tripped on a step getting into the pool, and he got a little road-rash on the left side of his back. It’s one of those things that could have happened no matter where I was, and there’s no way I could have prevented it. I still felt like complete dog shit, though, and I finished gathering up our stuff and left with the kids.

On the way home, I cried. Not a lot, just a little. I told the kids how sorry I was and how much I loved them. It was Rain who told me it wasn’t my fault, that it wouldn’t have happened anyways, that I stress too much about them getting hurt. She told me tomorrow, Mommy–we’re going to give you a break. It’s going to be your day off.

We got home, put a little dressing on Dylan’s boo-boo. It wasn’t bleeding, but I wanted to cover it the first night anyways. Dylan looked at it in the mirror, and he informed me it looked like a smiley face–and, sure enough, there was the colon and the right parenthesis. The three of us cuddled into bed and fell right to sleep.

The next morning, unbelieveably, I stayed in bed until almost ten. Sure, I woke up a couple times, but the kids played a game or two and let me sleep. Rain had asked the night before if she could make me breakfast, and she did–a couple scrambled eggs. Even though they were a tiny bit runny, they were absolutely wonderful, and I ate every bite. We lazied around and watched Olympic Women’s Basketball together. It was awesome.