Until I lost my wallet. Then we had a bit of a falling out.
Auntie K and Uncle L got married this past June. I had my wallet during the weekend but when I went to use it a few days later, it had vanished. I tore the house upside down. I called everywhere we had been throughout the course of the weekend. I prayed to St. Anthony multiple times. I had dreams of finding my wallet. I did everything I could to find my wallet because in addition to having all my identification, credit cards, reward cards and gift certificates, it also had the LP's health cards and over $100 in cash. And also? I REALLY REALLY liked the wallet itself. One night back in February or March, I was up with LP2 and I happened to put the tv on to help keep me awake. Because it was late and I was up and I knew I'd be up for awhile, I decided to indulge myself and turn the channel to the Shopping Network. Normally I cannot watch this channel because I end up wanting whatever they are showcasing and I have to convince myself that I'm just being persuaded by aggressive marketing. But on that particular night, I didn't care. And of course they were showing this wallet that I ended up loving immediately. Zippered with a fun leopard print on the inside, made to last, lots of slots for cards and a change compartment...oooh la lah, I HAD to have it. I thought about it incessantly. I'm generally not much of a "I must have this item" kind of person (unless it comes to food), but this was the exception. When my birthday rolled around in April, it turns out that Daddy had been listening to my endless babbling about the Wallet to End All Wallets (he really does give the best gifts). I was thrilled. Until I lost it. And then I was gutted. Just recently, I had given up hope of ever finding it and looked on the website to reorder...and found that it is temporarily out of stock. Probably because it is so amazing. Sad, sad, sad was I.
I was also really mad at St. Anthony. I kept getting this feeling I should look in our crawlspace, particularly in the pieces from the bassinet that attach to the playpen. Every time I would look there, I was certain I would find it. And I wouldn't. I finally got mad at St. Anthony and stopped asking for help. But deep down...I really wanted to find my wallet. Fast forward to today...I was cleaning out things in the crawlspace this afternoon. I flipped open the bassinet and...
MY WALLET WAS IN THERE!!!! I must have checked in there at least 5 times and somehow I missed it. Moral of the story: always stop and thoroughly search.
St. Anthony, I am sorry I ever doubted you. You were right and I was wrong. Can we be friends again?
Okay, so this blog isn't about Patron Saints (which is a good thing, because I can maybe name like three of them in total, I never claimed to be a good or even a pay-attention kind of Catholic), so let me refocus and get on with it.
I had to run a few errands today and LP1 made it clear that she did not want to go anywhere. I had a choice to make: do I force her to come along and teach her now that life is full of things we don't want to do or do I give her an incentive so that she will be happy? Easy decision. I told her that if she was very good today, we would go get ice cream on the way home. I feel compelled to note that normally LP1 is very well-behaved and we rarely have any problems when we go out but today she was a little off and there was the potential for meltdown, so the ice cream incentive was just insurance on my part. And of course, she was perfectly well-behaved the entire time we were out. I had visions of cruising through the drive-through at McDonalds for some ice cream but LP1 had fixed her sights on pink ice cream. Life is short. Every now and then you should be able to eat pink ice cream. The best pink ice cream is at Stoney Creek Dairy. We had nowhere to be and no real agenda. Time for a trip to the Dairy.
LP1 got her pink ice cream (cotton candy flavour, in case you were wondering) and I had some birthday cake ice cream (tastes exactly like birthday cake & icing, complete with chunks of cake). LP2 tends to believe that if I am eating something, he should be eating it, too, and was quite vocal about it today. As he has had a few tiny spoonfuls of ice cream in the past, I shared some of mine with him. He was thoroughly enjoying it...until he suddenly leaned forward and threw up all of the ice cream I had just given him. If you were hanging out with some friends, eating some ice cream, and one of your friends just leaned forward, projectile vomited and then continued to go about his business, totally unaffected, I think you would find that odd. When the LP do this, I never know what to do at first. I think I can count on one hand the number of times LP2 has been sick, so we tend to find it more alarming than when LP1 would do the same thing (Daddy learned quickly to put on a dress shirt AFTER picking her up to say goodbye each morning). As he was his usual happy self, with no fever or other signs of distress, I decided it just didn't agree with him for some reason and we carried on.
The LP went down for naps after we got home and I began to attack the crawlspace (and find my wallet). When LP1 arose from her sleep, she found a package of balloons. She lost no time in asking me to blow up some "banoons" for her. Once LP2 was up, I obliged and it wasn't long before the three of us were batting them around. I did the old "blow-the-balloon-up-and-release-it-in-your-face" trick. LP1 liked having the air rush out and ruffle her hair. LP2 thought this was blatantly ridiculous and was not a fan. We threw the balloons around, rubbed them on our hair, hit each other in the face with them and just sat and examined them in detail. I think all three of us were having fun with them.
One of the balloons rolled over to the vent in the floor. As the air conditioning was on, the rush of air coming out of the vent lifted the balloon up. Both LP were enchanted by this. "Magic!", LP1 declared breathlessly. They sat and just watched the balloon hovering in the air for some time. And when another balloon rolled over and was blasted up? Double magic.
The magic banoon. LP1 continued to check it throughout the rest of the day and was still watching it at bedtime. I love seeing the world through their eyes.
When we got bored of playing with the balloons, I started throwing them up into the ceiling fan. This was also a great source of entertainment. How far would the ceiling fan throw the balloon? If only we could have taken bets...maybe in a few years. I'll roll them for all the change in the their piggy banks. Eventually LP1 broke a balloon while sitting on it and they got tired of playing with balloons and turned their attention to other things, like destroying LP1's room. It was at this point that we went outside to play.
Balloons aren't the most elaborate thing to play with, I know. But they make the LP happy and while we were playing with them, everything around us stopped. I didn't care about what I had to do next. I wasn't worried about making a mess. I just sat on the floor and did silly things so I could hear them laugh. Sometimes that's enough.
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