Thank y’all so much for yesterday. It was so interesting to read everyone’s questions and thoughts. Although it will take me a good two weeks for my mind to process all that information.
I promise that Sophie, Shannon and I will figure out a way to share some of the information from the She Speaks Conference on our blogs. In the meantime, you may want to check out Blogging Basics 101.
Anyway, Gulley usually volunteers at her son Jackson’s school every Wednesday. But last Wednesday she skipped out on the opportunity to watch kindergardeners eat paste in favor of getting her hair cut and highlighted. Clearly she is a woman with her priorities in order.
No woman can be expected to cut out shapes, teach future generations to read, and eat cafeteria food when she’s worried about her roots. I mean this is America.
So, Gulley asked Jackson’s teacher if she could volunteer on Thursday instead and asked me if I would mind keeping Will. And I told her I wouldn’t mind at all because she watched Caroline for me most of the day on Tuesday and because Will seriously cracks me up.
He just turned three in February and hanging out with him is kind of what I imagine it would be like to spend time with Simon Cowell. You know he’s a little belligerent and out of control but yet manages to be charming and endearing all at the same time.
Plus they both have hair that defies the laws of follicular science.
Gulley dropped Will off on Thursday morning and, since I am really a modern day Mary Poppins, I had our morning all planned out. These plans involved cleaning our back porch with scrub brushes and soap.
The kids can’t get enough of it.
Tell Toys R’ Us to figure out a way to package that kind of fun.
Finally, after a morning of hard labor I decided to reward them with a trip to McDonalds for lunch. And, because it was such a gorgeous, sunny day, I purposely drove further away to the dying breed known as a McDonalds with an outdoor playground.
We went in, ordered our food and then started to head outside, when we saw this.
Oh cruel hand of fate. Why do you torture me so?
I told the kids to eat their lunch and promised that after they were done I would go ask the manager if they would consider opening the playground since the weather was no longer inclement.
So they pretended to eat half a nugget for the next ten minutes and then started asking about the playground. I felt like I was being interrogated. My palms got all sweaty as I tried to prepare them for the very real possibility that the outdoor playground wasn’t going to happen.
“Okay, I’ll go ask but y’all need to know that they may not open it. They may say no. Okay?”
Will quit eating his ketchup out of the paper cup long enough to look me dead in the eye and say, “If they say no, I’m gonna bust their tails.”
And don’t think he wouldn’t.
Unfortunately the answer was no. It appears that two prior days of inclement weather rendered the playground in need of a good scrubbing.
They should totally use child labor like I did with my porch. The kids can reach cracks and crevices that an adult will never see.
There was great disappointment but we left with some cool Happy Meal toys so all was not lost. And I knew Will had a good time with me because when Gulley came to pick him up he hugged me and said, “See you later, Babe.”
Which is exactly what the Banks children called Mary Poppins.