Half Empty or Half Full?

This is a story of my day. I've written it from two points of view. Each story is written about the exact same events on the exact same day involving the exact same people. And each version is totally true.



SCENARIO ONE:


There have been threats written on the bathroom walls at several of the schools around the suburbs. Although I'm 99% sure these threats were written by some punk who thinks he's really funny, I wasn't willing to chance my kids' lives on that 1% chance the threats were serious. Sooo, I kept my oldest kids home from school today. Savannah went shopping with friends and enjoyed her morning. Austin made the little ones breakfast while I took the middle ones to school. Then he put a movie on for the kids to watch while I read mail, did some laundry, and washed dishes. When the movie was done, Austin got out the vacuum and went to town cleaning the family room floor. I didn't even have to ask him to do it!

After that, I took the kids out for lunch to treat them because they'd been so good all morning. We went to Ihop. When the food arrived, Austin cut up Brooklyn's pancake for her and I cut up Clay's. I didn't even have to ask Austin. He just did it. The kids were really awesome there; they ate their lunches; used good manners; and thanked me for taking them.

When we got back home, Austin mowed the yard. What a great kid!

Later when I picked the middle kids up from school, Lexi ran outside to play. She looked up at a bird sitting in a tree and admired his sweet song.

We ended up having McDonald's for dinner tonight. Yesterday I baked cupcakes for Lexi to take to school to celebrate her birthday. I used a boxed cake mix and realized that Jax and Clay wouldn't be able to eat the leftover cupcakes because of the artificial ingredients, so I made a batch of special cupcakes for them. I put chocolate chip cookie dough in the bottom of muffin cups and mixed up cheesecake filling for the top. Mmmm. Then I made hotdog buns for dinner. After that, Jackson reminded me that I needed to make like a thousand Greek cookies for him to take to school today for his cultural project. I think I was baked out yesterday, so it was McD's for dinner tonight.

At Lexi's baseball game, instead of playing at the park, Clay sat by me through the whole game. What a sweet guy.

Bedtime!



SCENARIO TWO:


I overslept and while I rushed around to get my middle kids to school, my oldest two sulked because I kept them home from school, making them miss all the fun activities going on today. I'm just mean that way. Austin made the little ones breakfast. On the menu was popcorn and chocolate milk. Then he transformed the family room into a movie theater by hanging blankets from all the windows to really darken the room. He dragged out every bean bag chair and pillow in the house for the little ones and gave them bowls of their "breakfast" to eat while watching the movie. Sometime during the movie, they spilled popcorn all over the place. It's probably because about 20 minutes into the film, they lost interest and started jumping around the place like baboons. Upon seeing the spilled popcorn, I gave Austin a look that told him he'd better clean it up before I started raving like a psycho.

He started vacuuming up huge amounts of popcorn, but was having trouble getting the vacuum to suck it all up. He removed the hose from the unit and a fountain of popcorn flew out like snow from a snowblower. The room was covered in kernels! Ugh. It turns out the vacuum was full. After dumping its contents, I turned it back on, but it was dead. Well, it's mostly dead anyway. We don't have a good track record with vacuums. Probably from overuse.

In an effort to get out of the house and stop the whining, I took the kids to Ihop for lunch. While waiting for our meals, Clay looked around the restaurant and said, "We're not sitting by the clock. The clock is over there by the pretty flowers." I'm amazed at that kid's memory. The last time we were there, we did indeed sit on the other side of the restaurant near a clock. Brooklyn piped up with, "I go sleep in the clock."

"You sleep in the clock?"

"Uh-huh!" she confirmed beaming from ear to ear.

"I see."

"Mom, it's 14 o'clock."

"It's 14 o'clock, huh? Do you sleep when it's 14 o'clock?"

"Uh-huh!"

"OK then"

When our waiter delivered our lunch, Brooklyn screamed, "I LOVE ca-cakes! YAY!!! CA-CAKES!" (pancakes)

Upon seeing his own pancake decorated with whipped cream and two cherries, Clay shouted out, "Red berries! Mom! Red berries! I LOVE red berries!"

"Yes, Brooklyn. Shhhh, I know you like pancakes. Clay, those are cherries and shhhh, the whole restaurant doesn't need to know how much you love cherries."

Toward the end of our meal, Clay slipped off the booster seat and slid under the table. He popped back up with a stray crayon and a look on his face like he'd just found buried treasure.

Before we left, Brooklyn pointed to a little girl behind us and said (very loudly) Mom! Look! Baby! Mom, there's baby! Mom! MOM! Look there baby! Look Mom! BABY! I see baby Mom? I play with baby? Mommy! Baby! Over there baby! I play with baby!"

The mom of the little girl looked at me, afraid that I'd actually let Brooklyn run over there and bug her daughter. And I could just see her thinking the words, "Does your daughter ever shut up?"

When we got back home, Austin mowed the back yard. After he finished, he took the lawnmower to the front lawn, but couldn't get it started again. I also tried to start it to no avail. I checked the gas tank - full. I checked the oil - notsofull. In fact empty. We probably killed the lawnmower by running it without oil. Let's see - vacuum, lawnmower, what's next?

After I picked the middle kids up from school, Lex ran outside and looked up at a bird sitting in a tree. The bird pooped on her head. She ran inside crying, "A bird pooped on me!"

I looked at her head and said, "It's probably just a raindrop, honey."

"It's not raining! A bird pooped on me!!!!"

Sure enough, a bird pooped on her head. A bird actually pooped on her head! How often does something like that happen?

"Grab the shampoo, hon."

I didn't even think about dinner during the day today. It never crossed my mind to pull anything out to thaw and I need to go to the grocery store anyway, so I sent Joe for a nutritious meal of fast food for dinner tonight.

At Lexi's baseball game, Clay started whipping pinecones around the playground. I told him to stop or he'd have to sit with me on the bleachers. As I turned around, I was hit square in the back with a flying pinecone. Guess who had to sit with me for the rest of the game.

Bedtime!