Keeping 'em busy

Today is officially the last day of summer vacation for all the public school kids in area and so it was also the last official day for lots of *stuff* to be open during the day. Things like Carowinds and my friend's community pool will henceforth be evenings or weekends only. So we finished up school quickly this morning, packed a lunch, and had one last hurrah with my friend and her 3 girls at their pool. Where we were the only ones there. Seriously. Geez, was everyone else out shopping for last minute school supplies? Don't they know it was their *last chance* to swim before 4pm on a weekday? What is wrong with these people?!?

I do love hanging out with these particular friends. Her girls range in age from just older than K to just older than L and they all get along fabulously. Strangely enough, the hit of the day was L's barbie dolls. Unfortunately, 3 dolls + 5 girls = trouble. K *never* plays with barbies, but she and the other oldest decided to steal the dolls from the younger ones and taunt them with keep-away. After an impressive lecture on why we never act like a bully or we will never be allowed out of the house again, K played nice and even brute-forced the others into playing nice, too. Sigh...

After that little incident, the girls had a blast with the big slide and the huge kiddie area (this is one nice neighborhood pool) and Mommy had a nice time hanging out and chatting with another adult. We ended up staying over 4 hours, then finally headed home to clean up and get dinner. On the way, W called and said he would be late, so a change in plans was called for. Hummmmn... I took the girls to Sonic and as we were sitting at the little order screen, it started to get a bit warm in the car. I figured it'd cool down after we got on our way again. Nope. Uh-oh. It was just after 5 on a Friday evening during the hottest part of the year. And my A/C was out.

Thankfully, it's under warranty and the dealership has Saturday morning hours. Stinkfully, my car was a mess and needed a good cleaning before I let anyone else see it. Then the thought hit me. We're still in our swimsuits and the apartment complex has a car wash bay complete with trash can, vaccuum, water, and a cover, and I know the girls would *love* to help me clean the car. So after 4 hours in the sun and water, they thought I was the most fun mom in the world because I "let" them help while I unloaded all the seats and stacked them under our little porch, emptied the car of everything that wasn't trash, and headed over to the car wash bay with the cleaning supplies. We opened all the doors, vaccuumed, and wiped down every surface with Lysol. (Yes, I know Armor All would have been the most obvious choice, but I didn't *have* any Armor All and I *do* have 2 kids and an open-eating policy.) The girls really did enjoy this, but maybe because it was a prelude to getting to wash the outside. We finally got to the outside and we would scrub a bit, then I would rinse both the car and the girls who were screaming, "Spray me!" and laughing hysterically. By the time we were done, we were so wet, W (who had walked over to see what we were up to) had to drive the van back to our apartment while we walked.

Between school, swimming, and car washing, we didn't stop all day and I'm hoping I wore the girls out so they'll sleep until noon tomorrow. Of course, I still have to get up and have the car into the shop around 8, so it really won't help.

PS - Marybeth, if you read this, I'm blaming you for my A/C quitting. I think my van was taking lessons from yours!