An Adventure Requiring Chocolate

This morning has been... well... um... an adventure, we'll say... an adventure requiring chocolate, yeah, that sounds better. It hasn't been all-out bad, but I wouldn't say it's been good.

I guess this morning really started last night when I couldn't stop reading this Reddit topic. (I really must warn you that if you click the link, you will probably get sucked in, too. This comment was particularly engrossing.) So I went to bed later than I intended. Then about 30 minutes after going to bed, Charzie fell out of hers and I had to help her back into bed. She fell out again just after 5:00 this morning, only she wouldn't get back into her own bed after that...

So Charzie was in our bed not sleeping at 5:15 or so this morning. Then by the time she started settling down like she was going back to sleep, the boys come bouncing into the room. We were able to get them to snuggle for a bit, but Charzie got jealous and angry. And then we needed to get up and get all ready for the day so Chase could go to work and I could take Simon to school.

Despite Jonas wanting to pick up every nut he saw along the way walking Simon to school, we were on time. Jonas and Charzie rode in the double stroller on the way home. I let them watch a show and have a snack while I finished getting ready to run my work errands.

As we were heading out the door we saw two of our neighbors chatting. One of those neighbors had a baby almost two weeks ago and was showing him off. Of course we had to go check him out! (He was all squirmy and perfect and looking snuggly in his car seat.) As I was chatting, Jonas & Charzie started playing in dirt. This wouldn't have been a big deal had they not just had baths last night (we generally do two bath nights per week). And I didn't have time to clean them up before running errands. So they were just dirty kids. I'm not talking just dirty hands or a smudge or two of dirt here, they had been throwing the dirt and watching the wind blow it on each other. Yeah, they were kind of covered.

On the way to the Post Office, Charzie, who had been up since 5:00AM, fell asleep. I was lugging her, wrangling Jonas and trying to get the mail out of the little box (it was crammed in there). Charzie fell asleep again on the way to the building where our church holds services and keeps a sort of office space (if you can call it an office, it's really more of a tech booth/library/office space). We share a building with a Goodwill regional headquarters. So, again, I lugged Charzie, wrangled Jonas, carried mail and the diaper bag (which was heavier than usual because I packed the iPad to occupy Jonas).

Charzie woke up by the time we got to the "office." I did my work while she drew & Jonas iPadded. Then I locked up and left. Jonas had gotten defiant and lost iPad privileges and then we headed out to the van. I got to the van and noticed that the key was gone off of my keychain. The van was locked. We have one key.

I did as much peeking as I could to see if I had dropped the key inside the van before locking it. Couldn't see it. I was having visions of being stuck with fussy small children who were ready for lunch while awaiting roadside assistance. Tears hadn't welled up in my eyes yet, but I could tell they were close. So we headed back into the building. Thank God it was where I thought it might be! It had fallen off my key clip when I unlocked or relocked the "office."

Jonas seemed to pick up every tiny object up off the ground in his path. Some of those objects made it into the car with him. One was a rock. When we got home, he not-so-lovingly threw that rock at me. He was in trouble. He was also angry that he was in trouble so he got sassy, which got him into more trouble and sent to his room all by himself. At least this time he only dumped one box of toys rather than making a giant mess of every toy and book he could reach in his room like he did last night.

We had a heart-to-heart after he cleaned up his mess. Then we had lunch. I'm pretty sure lunch saved the day. Getting to eat lunch in the living room while watching Pee-Wee's Playhouse is quite a treat. (And that treat was all Charzie's idea!) Lunch and sneaking myself some chocolate.