A Jump Start On The Week

Dear Laney,

Yesterday was bathroom demo day. We started the morning with a full sink and vanity, and by the afternoon, all that remained was a suspicious looking pipe in the middle of the floor, and a piece of drywall you had pre-finger painted. It's always darkest before the dawn blah blah blah.

For parts of the day, you were completely patient with the renovation process, like here, when you didn't let your dad's spackling or your newly-opened Fudgesicle interfere with your potty break.

At other times - say, any time a power tool was turned on - you became a screeching banshee who needed to be removed from the house, post haste. Our need to be outside for most of the day is how we came to invent Mom's Dolly Rides.

We also spent a lot of time in the Subaru, where you love to sit in the driver's seat and pretend to drive. While the driving part is imaginary, you're actually able to put the keys in the ignition and put your Barney CD into the player. We sat out there and sang the ABC song til I started to wonder if Barney's voice + repetitive children's song was more or less evil than the sound you make when you hear a power tool. I put my hands out to weigh the options: Singing dinosaur. Screeching baby. Singing dinosaur. Screeching baby.

This morning, we went out to the car so I could drive you to school, and discovered that the keys were still in the ignition and the battery was dead. I had to call your dad at work and have him talk me through the battery-jumping process. It's a wonder I didn't get electrocuted, because this is an excerpt from our telephone tutorial:

Dad: Okay, now you're going to want to put the yellow cable on the positive terminal.

Mom: Uh huh (I say, meaning "mission accomplished.")

Dad: But before you do that...

Mom: Wait - WHAT? WHY ARE YOU NOT GIVING ME THE DIRECTIONS IN ORDER??

The biggest crisis of our morning wasn't the dead battery, though. It was accidentally leaving the Barney CD that started all this trouble at home. I was forced to sing We're On The Way To Grandpa's Farm all the way to Frenchtown.

Down on Grandpa's farm, there is one tired mama.

Love,

Mom