Of Trips To The Airport, Moving Mattresses, Drywall Dust, And Swimming Craisins

I have been busy. And as is usual with life, it hasn't been with the big and momentous, but with the small and mundane. This past weekend, Maggie went with her classmates for a whirlwind 60 hour trip to Washington D.C. I like to think of it as less of a trip and more of an expensive appetizer; Something that will whet her appetite for a trip some time in the future where she can spend more time enjoying the sights and the museums and the history and less time on a bus taking wacky pictures with her friends to post on Facebook. Ahem.

Anyway! This trip required her to be at the airport at an ungodly hour on Saturday morning. She was to be there at 5 a.m. for a 7 a.m. flight. This meant that she had to leave the house by 4 a.m., which in turn meant that she needed to be up by 3 a.m. because "OMG I can't go to the airport looking like I would if I was just gonna be with my family!" [Insert eye roll and sigh of exasperation at parental stupidity.] Well, that was what was supposed to happen. In reality what happened was my husband awoke at 3:30 a.m. and discovered that at 3:40 a.m. our rackmonster teenager daughter wasn't yet awake. When he went in to wake her, she had no idea where she was or why he was in her room. And then a glance at her clock and a quick explanation from my beloved led to a near vertical leap from bed and frantic rushing about by the girl child.

She came in to kiss me goodbye and lamented her lateness. I reassured her that it would be fine and gave her a hug and a kiss, reminding her to have fun, be safe, get sleep, learn something, and call her mother. Then I fell back into bed hoping to become comatose again, but not really succeeding.

I spent the time that she was gone bombing and fumigating the disaster area that she calls a bedroom. Her room has been on the redo list since we moved in two and a half years ago. She has waited patiently for us to finish other projects. (Okay. You caught me. You can laugh heartily at that last statement. Patience is not her strongest trait.) The bright green room with the big purple flower, the enormous creepy sun and the doves painted on her wall have overstayed their welcome. So after my husband fixed the nail pops and various chips and holes in the drywall, he sanded the drywall.

Have you ever been around when someone is sanding drywall? It's a bit like being in a sandstorm of very fine white sand. It gets everywhere. And if your beloved doesn't move things out of the way, then you find the dust in places you really didn't want it. So that was, um, awful.

Maggie wanted her furniture placed a specific way and I really needed to clean everything because of the combination of dust and general teenager slovenliness, so I had to move her furniture all around. After moving her desk and her vanity out of the way, I wrestled the queen-sized bed into the spot she wanted only to discover that it wasn't going to work. So I had to wrestle everything back again. I discovered two things in this process: 1) Beds are much easier to move when they are on wheels. Hers is not on wheels. And it is hella heavy. 2) I am stoopid. Why didn't I just measure the bed and the area she wanted it placed? Why did I kill myself trying to wrangle that bed into place? Again, I say, because I AM STOOPID!

So after cleaning up her stuff, I got to do it all over again in Sean's room which will change from some really cute, but much-too-juvenile-for-a-nine-year-old paintings of planes and emergency vehicles, to NY Giants colors complete with an Eli Manning fathead. In addition, I plowed through his closet and got rid of so many clothes that no longer fit, that his closet is now nearly bare. Poor kid.

After that I just dug into James and Mary's rooms and gave them a good old-fashioned scrub down. We also finally put James' fathead up (Steelers player #92, James Harrison, natch) which caused much rejoicing in the little island of Steeler Nation that is my son.

Just when I thought I could take a small break from all the action, Sean reminded me that his science fair project is due. So my curly haired boy and I spent some quality time with water, vinegar, baking soda and Craisins, making them "swim," and documenting the experience on a display board. Good times. [Alert: If you are thinking of doing such and experiment in your own lab, caution should be used when selecting a container and how much water should go into said container. If you are letting your child select both and said child thinks that more and bigger is always better, well, you could wind up with someone shouting "CLEAN UP ON AISLE THREE!! CLEAN UP ON AISLE THREE!" Don't ask me how I know this. Lets just say that I have a crusty white substance in the grooves of my wood floor and leave it at that, shall we?]

Then last night Patrick and I drove the 45 minutes to the airport to wait for another thirty for Maggie's flight. Then on the way home we listened as she regaled us with stories of who sat with who, who got in trouble, who had to do push ups in front of everyone for losing her buddy (that would be our daughter) and oh yeah, there were these cool places we saw but were too tired to really see, so we just kind of stood there. Money well spent.

So that was the rest of my weekend.

Meanwhile, my beloved left this morning for the airport for a week for a business meeting/ski trip. He has spent a lot of energy telling me that he has to do the ski part of the trip because his boss expects it and since he finally gave in and went last year, well, he really has to be there again this year. He walked around the house last night with his ski helmet on and all I could do was shake my head. I told him he reminded me of The Great Gazoo. (You know, the little green martian guy in the later episodes of The Flintstones? Yeah. Him.) He laughed and then had to go show each of the children who proceeded to either laugh or call him "Heed." (Ever see "So I Married An Axe Murderer?")
So my poor husband has to go to meetings and eat dinner out with his coworkers and then he has to ski Tahoe.

And me? I have to stay home with a sick child and I have to do laundry. If you need me, I'll just be over here, whittling this short stick that I'm left holding.