Getting a taste.

Just recently I was commenting that I didn't really know how to be home with my son by myself all day, even though I've always wanted to be a stay- (or work-) at-home-mom. For years I've been saying that web pages (what I've done professionally for the past 11 years) just aren't my thing anymore. A year ago I bought the domain name for my would-be coaching business, and promptly created a placeholder that has remained there ever since. Ever since the windows were installed in our house just after we bought it five and a half years ago, I've been thinking to myself that I really ought to finish painting the trim.

What do all these things have in common?

I found out almost two weeks ago that in three months, my position will be eliminated.

It wasn't that great of a shock; we've been warned of budget cuts for the past two years. In this round of cuts we knew our department would be losing two positions. Since my position was merged into this department, it had never really been the most important service being provided in the eyes of those deciding things like what services will be provided, so I sort of figured that my position would be one of the cuts. Finding out for sure, though, makes it real. That's different than probably.

So now, glance back at the first paragraph and guess how many of those things have either moved up on the priority list, or have become sudden real possibilities?

The house has been on the market for nearly three years and still I'd always put off all the little things like painting the window trim, little things that I felt like we needed to hide when we'd leave the house for someone to view it, which would end with the curtains being drawn and the house feeling dark. Along the same lines as the bathroom shelf I mentioned recently, it didn't take that long to paint the window trim; I open the curtains constantly now and it feels so much brighter in here, not to mention the good feeling that comes with being able to show off more of the house rather than feeling like I have to hide it.

I have a gazillion sick days saved up that I'll lose at the end of my job, so instead of cramming doctor's appointments into lunch hours, I'm taking half-days (we can't take sick leave hourly) and using the remaining time to clean up the house or just take some me time. (I played a video game the other day. By myself. For as long as I wanted.)

My father-in-law has been sick, and since my in-laws watch the little one during the day, that left me without childcare today... which, by the way, also counts as a sick day. I spent today with my son in a totally different mindset than the last time -- what could this be like if it were an everyday thing? Would I make breakfast every day, or cook up extra sausage and muffins early in the week to reheat later? Oh look, I can look through a cook book and toss something in the crock pot to be ready for dinner with absolutely no rushing around after work! I can do laundry! I can wash dishes as I go, because I'm not hurried! Oh, and since my father-in-law is still sick, I get to learn even more about what it's like to stay home with my kid and take care of my house all over again tomorrow! And I can already see the bottom of the laundry hamper! Well, one of them.

I've been crocheting more, as I realized I'd stopped making fingerless gloves that I was making so many of for a while, simply because people stopped asking. And then I felt stressed out and trapped and like I needed to do something but didn't know what, until I figured out that, oh yeah, that whole crochet thing was totally my creative outlet. Now I'm figuring I can build up a stock and sell them at the hippie store around the corner, and/or craft shows, and/or on etsy, and bring in an extra few dollars occasionally (in case that few dollars makes a difference).

I realized that after saying so many times "I am so done with websites!" that this time, I am so done with websites! I don't ever have to do them again if I don't want to when this job ends. I love me some barter so I'll keep up the ones I love doing, or love what I'm getting in exchange, but I am done being a webmaster. I actually started giggling when I realized that. I'm free! Now it's all on my own terms.

Like my own. That domain name I bought a year ago for my would-be coaching business? The one I kept telling myself I really ought to build a website for? The coaching I kept telling myself I really ought to start building a clientele for? Now that I finally got my kick-in-the-butt from the Universe telling me, "Okay! I'm giving you all these things now! You figure out what to do with them!" it took me a week to build the website from the ground up. And I love it.

And here it is: Life Spiraling Forward

Please, take a peek, and you know anyone who you feel that would resonate with (including yourself!) please feel free to shamelessly promote me as much as you want! I even have a sweet "hey, my new website is up!" price special going on for the first five folks to sign up. And if I find out they came from you, you might get a present. Just sayin'.

I've been having conversations with the Universe about this house attracting its new owner this month, and after a long dry spell we've seen a huge increase in traffic, which is pretty rewarding and says to me that the Universe listens. So I'ma keep talkin'!

You know, I didn't used to be this way. I used to be a worrymonger (which I would occasionally worry about). This "new" way of being, the way of seeing opportunities, feels so much brighter. (And hey, if you'd like to learn to do the same thing, there's a link up there for a life coach...)

Thoughts as a medicine cabinet.

Our house has been up for sale for quite some time now, and though we really haven't had any activity recently, we've become restless with the state of limbo we've been in. Our new house, which belonged to my husband's late grandparents, is just sitting there waiting on us. We've put some work into it here and there -- refinished the hardwood floor we discovered under the living room carpet, started painting what will be Raiden's bedroom -- and have moved some of our extra stuff over in various spurts, but we have finally grown restless with the restlessness. We're moving there. For real.

Though at times it feels like this process is really dragging out (and, let's face it, after almost-three years, it really is) we're lucky, in a way, that we get to take our time with it. There's no mad flurry of WE HAVE TO PACK RIGHT NOW OR ELSE and that allows us a little space to really go through what we have while we're packing it. Keep; yard sale or donate; trash. We've had several moments of "I forgot that even existed" and "So that's where that went! How did it get in there?!"

The most significant for me, so far, came yesterday afternoon. Raiden had become a holy terror and it was very obvious that it was because he was tired (though he refused to admit this, of course), so after getting him down for a nap, which pretty much never happens anymore, Rich and I were able to get some packing done without having to 1) stop a million times to entertain a three year old, or 2) feel guilty ignoring our three year old. Rich took to the bedroom; I stationed myself in the bathroom.

My first stop: the medicine cabinet above the washer. Storage tub in front of me and trash can to my side, I started going through all the stuff we had piled in our bulging-at-the-seams cabinet, deciding what to keep at the house we're still living in, what to go ahead and take over to the other house, and what to get rid of entirely. My being a pseudo-hippie came in two-fold in this scenario: 1) I had at least a couple dozen bottles of Standard Process supplements in the cabinet that have been there for who knows how long and for who knows what purpose, and 2) this made me think. It occurred to me, especially after a recent conversation with my fabulous coach (her website, her blog), that it was an analogy for thoughts.

I had all this stuff stored in my cabinet and though I knew vaguely that it was there and that I wasn't using it, I hadn't taken the time before then to really look at what the stuff was, how it was serving me by staying in my cabinet, when I picked it up in the first place, when it outlived its usefulness, or if I would ever use it again.

What about thoughts? What thoughts do I have sitting in the back of my mind that I know are there but don't really pay any attention to? How can these thoughts be serving me (or even "serving" me by allowing me the freedom to stay stagnant when moving forward is scary)? Where did they come from? Do I still need them? Will I ever need them again? Could someone else I care about benefit from me keeping them around?

I recently discovered the power in letting a thought go and replacing it with another, and even the power in realizing I could let it go.

What was funny to realize while cleaning out my cabinet was that if something was full, I had a hard time throwing it away. It was taking up a lot of space and I knew I would never use it again, but the thought of getting rid of something that hadn't really been utilized still bothered me. It made me wonder what big, full, useless thoughts may be occupying my mind, keeping me from replacing them with something I felt better about.

---

Later in the adventures of bathroom tidying, we removed a shelf we had never liked. There had been a built-in cabinet when we first bought the house, and I don't remember when we removed it or why, but the section of wall behind where it had been was painted a different color than the rest of the wall. We even color-matched the paint and picked up a quart a while back, but never painted it. Instead, we got an ugly shelf and decided that hopefully the clutter on it would cover up the ugly wall. It was functional, but it's always bugged me.

After the shelf was out, the wall was painted and the new shelf was in, I wondered aloud, "Why didn't do do this when it was for us??"

One of my favorite questions on my new-coaching-client questionnaire is, "What are you tolerating?" I was reminded again that I ought to ask it of myself occasionally, too. And then move on it. It didn't take that long to move the shelf or paint the section of wall. There was no reason to let it sit there bothering me for however many months or years it has been that way, when an afternoon took care of fixing it.

What else am I tolerating? How much energy am I giving the annoyance it's causing me, compared to how much energy it would take to do something about it and then be happier with it?

---

So what about you? What's hanging out in your brain's medicine cabinet? What is your unpainted bathroom wall that you're hiding with clutter on an ugly shelf? And when will you do something to change it?

Routines.

I never meant to be a working mom. Still, I have dreams of being a stay/work at home mom if/when there's ever a child number two. But something occured to me this morning.

My mother-in-law, who watches my son during the day, is sick today. So am I - in fact, I'd already had serious thoughts of calling in sick today, even before she called in sick herself and solidified that decision for me. I laid in bed with the little one to help him sleep longer while I read a bit until he woke up, later than usual. And he immediately hurt my feelings, saying that he didn't want to spend the day with me, he wanted to spend the day with Mamo.

It had upset his routine. He's three. I get that.

We played a bit in bed before I was absolutely starving and got up to make breakfast. While I was cooking, after we ate, and in the rest of the day since, I realized that my routine has been upset as well.

That was a pretty startling realization, actually, because what it showed me was that, since taking care of my son, by myself, all day long, during a weekday, is not my routine, I'm really not sure how to do it. What do you do with a three year old all day long? I know how to parent in the two hours or so between getting home from work and getting him ready for bed, and I know how to parent on the weekends in the rush of getting chores caught up from the busy week preceding, but apparently, I realized, I have no idea how to be a stay at home mom for just a single day.

This is where the justifications kicked in, all the reasons that couldn't really be it and that today was an exception, not an indication of a lack of parenting skills.

I'm sick today, and it's harder to be an involved parent when your head aches, your chest tickles when you breathe, and your nose is stuffy and raw. Anyone's patience is thinner when they're not feeling well, so of course the constant sound that accompanies a verbose three year old is getting on my nerves; I wouldn't always want him to be quieter, it's just that I'm sick. I'm only extra busy with chores today because it's so rare to have time during the week to do any of them; I wouldn't be ignoring my kid(s) for chores every day if I were home with them every day.

This just isn't our routine.

And perhaps staying home with Mommy during the day wouldn't be such a novelty to him, either, if it were an everyday thing. Maybe he would want some space instead of taking advantage of the ability to have constant Mommy attention.

It just makes me wonder what kind of a relationship I would have with my son if things had worked out differently. It bothers me, as a mommy, to realize that taking care of my son is out of my routine.

Dont' get me on my soapbox about how America is the only civilized country whose mothers are ripped away from their babies at 6 weeks or 3 months after birth, because the productivity and the status quo and the almighty dollar are given more importance than family. Or the tangent soapbox about how 6-12 weeks of maternity leave don't really give American babies the chance to breastfeed for as long as the WHO recommends. Or the other tangent soapbox about my disappointment that it is normal in our society for someone else to be raising our children for us, save for the few hours after work and busy weekends. Or the seemingly-opposite soapbox about how parents aren't given realistic expectations as to what it will be like to take care of a new baby or raise a child, that they are told it should be happy all the time and they should be able to do it themselves when really, parenting can be very frustrating and the more help you can find, the better!

Because I have a lot of those soapboxes.

And a lot of them would just lead me back to being very sad at realizing that I really wasn't sure what to do with my son, for one whole day at home together, because it's outside of both our routines.

Medical impossibility.

I was digging through the cabinet last night, scrounging for something to eat, as I was feeling unusually picky last night when normally I couldn't care less, but that's really irrelevant. Raiden came in the kitchen with me and started looking through the cabinet as well. He saw the bear-shaped honey container and asked, "Is this for Weston?" (Mel's baby.) I told him no, that's for us.

"Daddy and me and you and me?"

I chuckled and said, yes, Daddy and me and you and me.

He thought it was silly that I repeated it that way and expanded it, something like, "Daddy and me and you and me and Daddy and you and Daddy and me and you and Daddy and me?"

I laughed and replied with something fairly similar.

He asked, "What about the rest of us."

I said, "That's all of us. You and me and Daddy."

He asked, "Can you get a baby in your tummy sometimes?" (He almost always says "sometimes" rather than "sometime.")

I asked something like, "You want me to, huh?" and he said that yes, he does, and that when he's older, he'll have a baby in his tummy. I told him that only girls can have babies in their tummies, so he'd have to help a girl get a baby in her tummy. AND THEN QUICKLY MODIFIED that only grown-up bodies can do that. Then I chuckled a little and told him to go tell Daddy what he'd asked me.

(As an aside: my son knows probably more than most 12 year olds are comfortable with about the whole Where Babies Come From process. He doesn't know the specifics, but he asks questions and I give him real, age-appropriate answers. Over several talks about this he knows that it takes a mommy and a daddy to make a baby, that the daddy helps put the baby in the mommy's tummy, that it's a different part of the tummy than where your food goes [which was clarified when he informed me that "When I was a little baby, I was in your tummy, and you ate me!"], and that then the baby has to grow until it's healthy enough to live outside of the mommy's tummy, and it comes out a special kind of baby door that only women have, and that babies are supposed to come through the door head-first, and when he was in my tummy, he turned around and had his feet at the door, so the doctors had to cut open my tummy to get him out instead. To this he said, "NO!!!" and I said, "Yeah, I wasn't thrilled about that either, kid.")

He ran in the living room excitedly and asked, "Daddy! Can you help Mommy get a baby in her tummy sometimes?" He smiled and asked him a few questions about if he'd like having a baby around, and if he wanted a boy baby or a girl baby. He said he wanted a boy, and Rich asked, "What if it's a girl?" Raiden said NO, he wants a boy. I yelled in and told him to explain that we don't get to choose, which I then heard him do, and he re-asked if it would be okay if it was a girl baby, and Raiden said yes, it was.

Several minutes later when I was back in the living room, having finished eaten the bowl of cereal I settled for as dinner, Raiden came to sit on my lap, and I asked him again if he'd like a little brother or sister, if he'd prefer a girl or a boy.

He replied *drumroll*:

"Can it be a robot?"

...

*laugh*

I told him that no, it couldn't be a robot, that humans grow human babies. He said, "NO!! Please please PLEEEEAAAASE can it be a robot?"

I said, "You want the baby to be a robot." It wasn't a question. It was an eyebrow-raised statement.

"Yes! Like THIS BIG!!" he said with his hands held high above his head.

I yelled into the kitchen, where the husband was foraging for grapes, that Raiden has now requested that the baby be a robot. "A BIG robot!" Raiden clarified.

We finally settled on: Okay, we'll try to grow you a robot brother, but, you know, no promises.

My life defined in internet comics.

I find myself thinking of this comic often: This is Why I'll Never be an Adult

I can especially relate to that with my job. I did eight things yesterday! Eight! My goal is only five! That means I don't have to do anything today and then maybe I'll do something tomorrow. And not wanting to email people back for fear of reminding them that they emailed me in the first place definitely sounds familiar.

I've caught myself applying this same methodology to a recent health goal I've set for myself, as well. I've had urinary/reproductive pain/infection/who-knows-what issues for the past 11-or-so years, and occasionally I'll hit a point with it where I decide I'm done living with it and I'm going to do all this research and try all these diet modifications and go find all these supplements and change all these lifestyle habits and ask my doctors all these questions to try and figure out what the cause is, and at least try to minimize symptoms. I'm in one of those phases right now. Since I'm at least aware enough to know that I tend to go through these phases and then take about four pills out of all the supplements I've bought and "cheat" on the new diet plan after about three days, I'm giving myself a couple of weeks to think everything over before impulse-spending too much on things that might possibly have a chance of maybe doing some good.

The only thing I know for sure I am going to purchase is a stock of GladRags cotton pads. May as well wait for the next paycheck before grabbing those, though. Plenty of time before the next time I'll need them. But in addition to (hopefully) being less irritating than disposable (bleached, chemical, plastic) pads, I like that I won't be throwing stuff away several times a day for a week out of every month. I've tried the Moon Cup before, but we just didn't get along.

The latest habit I'm trying to acquire is tracking my food/beverage intake and pain symptoms. It started out awesome for several days with me tracking, by exact minute, every single thing I would ingest, every little twinge of pain and every moment without it, and would even total up my water intake at the end of the day. I was tracking it on Google Docs since the internets are everywhere and I'd never remember to carry around a little note-pad all the time.

Then the weekend came, and the internets weren't everywhere. (See: More Reasons I Really Really Really Want a Droid.) The habit turned into making mental notes and jotting down what I could remember at the end of the day. My mental notebook isn't terribly accurate and it doesn't auto-save. There was a lot of guesswork. When the weekdays started up again, I was defeated by my lack of tracking over the weekend and pictured myself with the cartoony sadface thinking, "Oh. I should write this down. Sigh :(."

I haven't fully recovered.

I have a follow-up appointment with my primary care doctor this Monday and I was really hoping to show him something tangible. More cartoony sadface.

I'll keep trying. All I have to do is remember to jot stuff down. It's easy at work - the internets are right in front of me, all day. I just have to do it.

On a related note, I had been using the pain scale on nutraconsults.com to track the amount of pain I would have from one moment to the next, but I think I like this one better. I had been questioning the "8" I gave them at Urgent Care a couple of Saturdays ago, but no, I think that's about right. And what's awesome is it makes an 4-on-a-scale-of-10 kind of hilarious while it sucks (and while you're simultaneously happy it's down from an 8).

More better.

We've been very busy this week -- the husband and I both took an extra couple of days off over the holiday, and spent some family time together, doing extra fun things with the little guy. (We really like our kid.) There was a theme park involved, and a discovery that we really need to take two loaves of bread to the park when we go feed the geese instead of one.

Point being, all the extra quality family time didn't lend much "work on the last project I need to finish to get my life coach certification" time. And I'm actually okay with that rather than feeling guilty. I needed the extra little guy time, and every second of every nap I took with him. Family naps are awesome.

And though I wasn't thrilled about coming back to work, even for just two days this week, I had a realization yesterday at work, too. You know those moments where you realize something completely perception-altering that is so simple you can't believe you never realized it before? It was one of those. I know I haven't written much about my job, but what I typically mention is an obvious inequality and Us vs. Them dynamic. What I realized yesterday was, I am better than this. I've been articulating things lately around that idea -- that I don't feel they're using me to my full potential, that I have a lot more to offer than they're taking advantage of, etc. -- but it's always been more of a negative phrasing of it; like, the feeling of resentment surrounding that I'm wasting away here. It dawned on me yesterday that a lot of what bothers me about it is that I know I'm better than this. Which is actually pretty huge. Instead of feeling like I'm not worth valuing, I know I am valuable and that they just don't see it. That's their loss. "What they think of me is none of my business." Along with this realization came another: keeping my productivity low due to being disgruntled is just proving them right. If I don't like my job because I'm better than it, rather than not good enough for it, it means I can kick my to-do list's butt instead of pretending it's not there until 4:15 every day and skirting by with as little as possible. It's not that I'm out to prove them wrong; it's more, I just feel dirty being a slacker, because I'm better than that. This whole concept has shifted me from being angry that I'm not getting praise for hard work, to feeling self-motivated to be my best just because I can.

I kind of kick butt, and I forget that sometimes in situations where I'm not reminded occasionally.

So on that note, in an effort to continue being "better than this" and (grammar aside) even more better in general, I restarted my Mindbloom life tree with more appropriate goals in mind. Okay, so part of my want to restart my tree had to do with a glitch in my account that gave me an extra 18,000 seeds (points) that I didn't have to earn, which took the fun out of completing tasks or reaching goals, so starting over gave me motivation to earn seeds correctly again, too. With better goals. On this tree, I added a "Spirituality" branch, and started small with the two actions, 1) Take a few minutes for a relaxing meditation, and 2) Reflect on your spiritual health by journaling on paper. I scheduled the items for every day. I'm hoping my love of check marks (I do love me some check marks) and earning points correctly again will kick my butt into actually taking those few minutes for myself, which I've always seemed to have a hard time doing. Check marks are highly motivating. (You should see my work to-do list. It has boxes for check marks. And is color coded by day. And then I count the check marks and log them into daytum.com so I can keep track of my check marks and work toward a higher average.)

(Side story about spirituality, really more about my kid: Since my grandpa died last November, I've been working with Raiden on understanding death. I explained that Grandpa died because he got very sick, and instead of his body getting better the way Raiden's does when he gets sick, it couldn't get better and it stopped working. That took several explanations before he got it, and then I realized I'd left out the spiritual component and explained to him that when you die and your body stops working, your spirit -- the part inside you that thinks and learns -- goes back to the spirit world for a while, and when it's ready, it goes into a new little baby's body in their mommy's tummy, and comes back for another life in that body. We're still working on this one, understanding that it doesn't go back into the same body again and that the person doesn't really come back as the same person. But he's getting there. So the real part I was getting at is this -- when he was playing with a little boy (about 10 I guess) at Kung Fu last night, he would pretend-hit the other kid with a "sword" (a foam bat), the kid would fall over and play dead, and after checking his pulse the way Obi Wan does Luke when the Sand People knock him out, he asked him, "Is your spirit still in there? Are you dead? Does your spirit need a new body?" I chuckled to myself and just hoped that no one in class was anti-reincarnation... )

Anyway, where was I? Right; using check marks to encourage myself to remember that it's okay to take time for myself. Because I'd sure hate to have to mark those a red X instead of a green check mark. My real goal on that? Is to prove to myself that the world will not, in fact, crash into rubble around me if I take 10 whole minutes for myself once a day, rather than feeling like I have to keep its weight on my shoulders. That will be an excellent thing for me to learn.

Accidental adventure.

(Long but entertaining.)

Last night our Kung Fu school was closed, for as many who wanted to (including our instructor and his family) to go to Branson, to see The Legend of Kung Fu. It was area appreciation night, so the tickets were only $10 each if you live in the surrounding area, dropping an additional $5 for each canned good you brought to donate (one per person). We never eat canned corn anymore so I dug three cans out of the back of the pantry, and then remembered that I didn't have gas in the car and, wow, how much worse timed could this night be because payday isn't until Tuesday and due to Drama That Is Not Ours But Which We Helped To Solve we're kind of tight this month. So okay, I just got a little gas, enough to make it down there, and with the tickets only being $15 total, that's still not terrible and we should've been fine without touching savings that way.

We left with juuuust enough time to swing by and grab cheap drive thru on the way there (one McD's extra value meal fed the 3 of us -- mostly fed Raiden, actually, but kept us from starving), and to make it to the theater right on time if not just a few minutes early.

I sped like crazy on the way there, actually, even through all the Ozark hills my 4-cylinder SUV consistently hates, and I'm kind of surprised I didn't get pulled over as I passed by two cops while I was going appx. 80 in a 65. Made me wonder how fast traffic normally drives on that highway if I didn't get pulled over for going 80.

We got to Branson, and as we'd both remembered seeing the theater it was at (and trust me, there are bajillions of theaters in Branson, omfg) we hadn't bothered looking it up before we left, as we were in a hurry. Since pretty much everything is on 76 in Branson, we continued along 76 all the way through Branson's everything, with the sun shining directly in our eyes the entire time making it particularly difficult to, like, see. As time was approaching for the show to start and we were getting really far through town, I started wondering if we'd somehow missed it.

Me: Did we pass it?
Rich: There's no way.
Raiden: DID WE PASS IT?
Me: I don't think so.
Rich: Keep going, maybe it's just further than we remember.
Raiden: DID WE PASS IT?
Me: Raiden. I don't think so. We're looking. I don't remember it being this far...
Rich: Maybe it was, there's still more out this way I think.
Raiden: DID WE PASS IT?
Me: I don't know! We're looking!
Raiden: Okay. Did we PASS IT?
Me: Raiden! You're not helping! Shush, I'm trying to look!

Once we got out past pretty much everything, we figured out that, yep, I guess we passed it, and turned back around. It was three minutes until the show was going to start. We couldn't even call Si Fu at that point since they'd be in the theater with phones silenced. At a close-by red light I sent a text to Google to find their address and phone number, so we could at least call them and get directions. Google texted back.

Me: Gretna. It's on Gretna. Which is right here!

I jerked over into the left turn lane, and said, "Left I guess?" We looked right while the light was red and figured left was as good a guess as any. We passed several run-down motels and restaurants that did not look like anything that would be on the way to a theater and also didn't look like anything we'd ever passed before on previous trips where we know we have seen the theater before.

I almost turned around again to try the other direction on Gretna, but Rich said to try this way a little longer because it was turning soon. We finally found the theater, only 15 minutes late. Rich grabbed the 3 cans of corn, I grabbed the Kung Fu shirts (just in case we were supposed to be wearing them) and crammed them into my gigantic mom-purse, and we ran (as much as one can run in 4" heeled boots while carrying a 35lb human) to the theater. We bought the tickets without incident and slipped in to find our seats (usher with a flashlight ftw). Raiden was given a fortune cookie at the ticket counter which Rich rattled the paper to open for him and which Raiden quickly announced loudly during a quiet moment, "I'm all done!" Yeah, we were that family.

About 20 minutes after we got there, I glanced around and noticed that our Kung Fu school was only a row or so behind us, the next section over, with plenty of room around them if we wanted to move closer.

We settled in and watched. Raiden was on the edge of his seat and behaving. It was nice :).

There was an intermission around the time Raiden started getting antsy, so that was perfect. Our instructor had brought his 3 year old daughter as well, so Raiden and she got to play and do Kung Fu together during intermission in the lobby, which was adorable.

I'd noticed that most everyone else in our group was not wearing their Kung Fu shirts, so I figured I'd save the room in my purse and quickly run the shirts back out to the car. I laid them on the counter to dig through my gigantic mom-purse to find the car keys and um. Uh. You're kidding, right? Rich's keys were in there. My keys were not. Rich does not have my spare car key on his key chain anymore.

Fuck.

Most aggravatingly, I knew it was going to just piss Rich off even more. He was already annoyed that we were late and that I didn't run fast enough from the car to the door, and was already grumpy that we were spending any money on being there that night, so add to that the inconvenience of having locked my keys in my car (which means wasting time) and the need to call a locksmith (which means wasting money) and I knew it wasn't going to be pleasant.

It wasn't. Luckily he doesn't have a temper and hates in-public displays of anything but total happiness, but he does have The Look, and that's enough.

I fake-optimistically said that maybe they were by our seats? They weren't. He went out to check and see if they were in the car. They were. He checked his keys to see if there were any chance they would work. They didn't.

He was outside doing this on his own while Raiden and I were in the gift shop. I saw him come back in and walk through the lobby looking around, but he didn't see me. I noticed the lobby had cleared back out and told Raiden we needed to hurry and get back to our seats. Upon entering, I saw that the show had already resumed. I'd lost Rich, and the fact that it was dark meant I couldn't see and the fact that they were performing meant that when my child ran away from me on the way back to our seats, I couldn't yell for him. He ran all the way to the front of the theater, then across the first section of seats, right in front of the stage, then he stopped and I thought he was going to run back up the aisle to the back of the seating but no, he turned and continued to run across the front of the middle section of seating and then turned to run back up the aisle to the back. By then he'd realized I wasn't running behind him and was yelling "MOMMY!" I saw one usher notice him and I caught another and said, "That would be my three year old running wild." The other usher saw me pointing to him and pointed Raiden my way. He was all, "Hi Mommy!" and I was all you're embarrassing me! in my head but had the get-on-his-level Do Not Run Away From Mommy In Public Ever talk for a moment and then went to sit down next to our Kung Fu group. Yep, I have that kid.

It wasn't until after we sat down that I noticed Rich sitting alone in our actual seats. I wasn't getting up and moving again and I knew he was pissed at me anyway so I kind of didn't want to, but when he looked over and caught my eye I motioned him to us. It was fine. Raiden was sitting next to our instructor's 3 year old and they were having so much 3 year old fun that eventually her mommy had to pull her onto her lap and I had to pull my kid onto mine. He wasn't happy about it but I told him, "We can play when it's over, right now, we watch," and he settled back down.

The show was pretty good, though believe it or not, I was distracted.

As soon as the show was over I texted Google again to get a number for a locksmith, and called the first one they texted back. I asked if Rich wanted to call them instead of me since he almost always thinks I asked something wrong or didn't ask something important, but he gave me The Look and said that no, I would be calling. Rich was guessing it would be $50-100. It was $45, and they could be there in 20 minutes.

Rich: Did you ask if they take check or card?
Me: No, but surely a company whose prime responsibility is to get people out of emergency situations will take one of the two.
Rich: *The Look*
Me: This is why I told YOU to call!

I called. Yes, they take cards.

Rich: Do they take checks?
Me: I don't know! I asked if they take checks or cards and he said cards would be fine! I just left it there!
Rich: *The Look*
Me: This is why I told YOU to call!

I'd wondered briefly about knowing that we had just transferred enough for gas and tickets that evening on our debit card, but figured Rich knew what he was talking about. It turned out he'd brought the credit card we only use for travel and emergencies, just in case of an emergency. Good thing. (Also amazing, given that he's prone to take everything out of his wallet to keep himself from spending money.)

Our instructor and his family stood around talking a while, and Raiden and their daughter played, until his dad decided it was time to go and they left. A couple of other classmates hung out talking until the locksmith got there. We said goodbye, but they pulled up next to our car and said they weren't leaving until we were officially in the car. I appreciated that, and told them so.

The locksmith got to work while Raiden told me that he was Darth Vader but he lost his helmet, so we had to look around the parking lot to find it. Eventually our car was unlocked. Darth Vader got in Raiden's car seat, but Raiden was still inside the theater, he said, so I yelled for him and said "Here he comes!" and Darth Vader told me that Raiden wanted to help me drive. I said it was fine for Raiden to help me drive as long as you, Darth Vader, stay safely in Raiden's car seat. It was a deal.

Rich paid the man, and we left the theater.

Since we'd come from such a weird direction to get there, it made sense to us to turn left to get back out and to the main strip.

*Sigh*

A half hour later, still having no clue where we were or how to get where we wanted to be...

Raiden: Are we lost?
Me: We are, yes. I could've sworn this road intersected with 65. I remember seeing signs for it from the highway. Where does that come out?
Raiden: Are we lost?
Me: Yes, we're lost, but we're working on it.
Rich: We're just getting even further away from town. This doesn't look right.
Me: Turn around again?
Rich: Yeah.
Raiden: Are we lost?
Me: Yes! Yes, we're lost. But we're working on it.
Raiden: Do you know where our house is?
Me: Well, yes, I know where our house is, I just don't know how to get there, from here.
Raiden: Do you know where our house is?

Fifteen minutes after that, we came to the place at the far end of town where we'd originally turned left onto Gretna to get to the theater. The good news is, the insanity went on for so damn long that we stopped being angry about it and started laughing about it. Because it was truly ridiculous. I asked Rich if we'd accidentally taken the pretzel route and wondered how many times we'd been thisclose to the highway before we'd turned around. (At one point I said, "Well, this has (I was going to say sucked)... been an adventure." His mind went to Flapjack and K'nuckles; mine went to Charlie the Unicorn.)

Today, I pulled up a map. B is the theater. C is a Kmart I happened to remember passing before we turned around. Which was apparently about three inches from the highway. Follow it down 65, west on 76, up to 376 where we turned around, then east on 76, north and around on Gretna to B. Then follow the route with the white dot closest to the B up to C, past C, turn around at the loop, onto Expressway Lane, back onto Shepard of the Hills and to 376 again, then east on 76 until we got back to 65. I don't think we could've been less efficient if we tried. Note: I had to stop for more gas on the way out of town, and it took us about as long to figure out how to get out of Branson as it did to get home from there.

*Cleansing sigh*

I didn't feel like putting sheets back on Raiden's bed by the time we got home at 11:30 or so (he'd had an accident the night before), he'd already fallen asleep in the car, I couldn't wake him up enough to potty, so we luckily had one more pull-up hanging around that he woke up just enough to help me get onto him before I put him in bed on the futon in my office. Good enough. I moved the baby monitor into there and went downstairs and to bed in my own bed. I ended up on the futon with him by morning, anyway.

Rich and I are tired today. Raiden seemed in good spirits when he woke up. And we now know to never ever go to Branson again without having a good Branson map in hand.

Happy Friday :).