"Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend."
-Plautus

Saturday 15 September 2012

deep sighs of the happily exhausted

i was up til 2 reading Acheron, and thought i would sleep til 10 or so, do my bills & then pick leyton up.

i awoke at 7:30 & couldn't get back to sleep, so i got up at 8... and read Acheron.  : )  
(i also did my bills before i started in on the story, like a responsible person or something...)

got so involved in the book that i ended up picking leyton up 15 minutes later than expected.
i know my getting involved in a book is a shock to us all.
har.

LOL 

so, picked leyton up, paid for the raffle tix i bought from him (omh, y'all, when kids start school, they start really SELLING stuff all the time.  oye!  much as i love him, and my other nieces & nephews, i have enough of them to break me if i chipped in to every little thing.  so, i have to pick & choose...) & off we went to meet juli & the gang at mcd's in bdorf.

this mcd's is new & amazing!  well, i mean, it's a typical mcdonald's, really, but they have something i hadn't seen before - VIDEO MENU BOARDS!  what the what?!  has it really been that long since i've been to mcdonald's?  i knew about the calories being showcased now (ironically, i did not even really look at them, as ... it's mcdonald's.  i'm not there for a salad, i'm there for a cheeseburger.  i don't care how many calories are in it, i'm not eating it every day, and i want it.  LOL), but didn't realize it would be all digital & pretty & stuff.  
it was sparkly, like a Twilight vampire.  
heh!

so, w/ my phone being in a coma, i tried to charge my camera battery last night in preparation of taking many delicious photos of the kiddos today.  sadly, apparently my camera battery es muertos (i finally looked up the correct tense for the word "dead."), as well, and unlike my phone, i will definitely have to buy a new one. had i not been reading this morning, i could have been to best buy to buy a new battery AND see about my phone before picking leyton up... but maybe i'll do that tomorrow.  or monday after work.  

so, thankfully the phone i switched to temporarily has a camera, but unfortunately, it doesn't have a USB connector so i can't upload them to the computer.  bah!  

there were some good times, tho!  the kids all got along, and were in good moods for the most part.  leyton had a lot of fun making faces & playing clapping games w/ ruthie (she's 8 months), running around w/ andrew (6) and sarah (9).  interestingly, and perhaps because he's a little flirt, he hung out more w/ sarah than andrew.  after lunch, juli & sarah got ice cream cones, and when sarah was done w/ hers, she gave it to her mom to finish off the chocolate coating.  juli had just been talking about something along the lines of making a mess when suddenly ice cream exploded out from the cone at her because she'd pulled at the coating somehow... it was hilarious & would have made a GREAT picture!  LOL  

the pavilion was a lot of fun, the kids really enjoyed it - and i just realized i left leyton's apple art project w/ juli.  d'oh!  i was gonna put that on my wall... ah well.  leyton had a little melt down before we went across to the store, because i told him we couldn't get a toy.  he'd found 3 pennies on the ground at mcd's, tho, and i said we could get a couple of them squashed (i.e., imprinted w/ a JD logo).  he cried about wanting a toy, but also snuggled up to me during it (as opposed to throwing an all out anger fit), which told me he was just overstimulated & tired, and not trying to be a brat.  ya know how you can tell those things sometimes?  it's nice to be able to discern it, nice to not feel like you always have to "punish" kids or make them feel bad when they misbehave.  don't get me wrong, there are times for punishment.  but to me, IMO, there are very few things little kids do that should be actually PUNISHED.  i mean, when they're little - and by little, i would say probably up til they reach double-digits - you're shaping them.  you're going to be the one who garners future reactions w/ things.  if you punish or get angry over every little thing, you're just going to teach them to either be scared of you or to be scared of ever doing anything, or to be scared of ever making a mistake.  
and that doesn't help anyone.

anyway, sorry, idk quite where that tangent came from, other than seeing parents - or adults, really, whatever relation they are to a child - get upset w/ kids to the point of yelling, threatening or whatever (not threatening in an abusive way, i just mean threatening w/ punishment, in a harsh/mean voice), making the kid feel bad, makes me feel bad.  

it's that darn empathy thing!

plus, seriously ppl, reading stories about childhood abuse will make you DARN grateful to have grown up w/ a loving family.  there was abuse in my childhood.  there were things i went through that no one should ever have to go through, but even those things weren't SO bad, compared to what others have to survive.  

and it's true, adversity does make you a stronger person.  and i'm sure the things that happened in my childhood and even in adulthood made me more empathetic and compassionate.

so.

wow, tangents all over the place, ppl, sorry!

it was a good day. 
we had fun.
i loved hanging out w/ my friends & nieces & nephews.
i'm grateful for them!

we parted ways around 2:30/3 & leyton & i stopped at sonic for happy hour & apple slices.  woot!  then we went to gramma's to hang out, watch disney & play w/ cars til gramma got home from aunt jan's birthday extravaganza.  : )  

then i came home & finished Acheron.  : )  
next is One Silent Night, which is the story of the big bad of the book series, so should be interesting.  i haven't read it since the first time in 2008 or 09, so we'll see if i like it the 2nd time around... 

i'm also going to attempt to watch GH, rookie blue, white collar... we'll see.

happy weekend, my friends.  
happy weekend!
:) 

ttfn!

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