Can we have a more insane, crazed night than tonight?

I walked in the door at 5:45 pm after a nutty day at work full of little fires and big personalities.  As soon as I step in the hall, Maria gets in my face crying that she needs a grass skirt and coconut boobs for tomorrow’s Hawaiian day at horse camp.  Seriously, can’t the horse camp owners just make it a colorful t-shirt day?  Everyone has a colorful t-shirt in their drawer – no-one has a grass skirt and coconut boobs.  I text a few friends who are no help.  I know that I am going to give in to her and run her to the store eventually.  But first, I want to mow the lawn before Jon leaves for the airport.  I change, slip on my grassy shoes, and head out.  Our mower sounds like death.  I have hit one too many rocks with it (in no part due to my inability to take my time) and it is ready to call it a day.  I finish the back yard and when I go to start it in the front, it refuses.  I knew not to mess with it any longer – its little mower life was up – but not before it gave me one last cut in the backyard.  I will miss it.  Luckily, we had Jon’s brother’s mower in the garage.  I used it in the front only to find three-fourths of the way through that I had lost a screw on the left side of the mower so the handle would not stay up.  I had to finish the lawn holding the left side up while I tried to push the mower with my right arm and hip.  Ain’t it great?

I cleaned up, threw on a new shirt, and we headed out to the Dollar Store for Hawaiian goodies.  We lucked out and scored a skirt, leis, and flower clips.  Hopefully, Mario’s daycare has some left over boobs from their party that Ri can get tomorrow. Mario scored a set of handcuffs and knife – perfect for a wild four-year old.  We ran out of the store and into the car to head home for a hot pocket and sandwich.  After we heated the hot pocket, Maria jumped on her bike and Mario hopped in the stroller and we were off to Music on the Lawn for some music by Conspiracy.  People packed the lawn taking in the funk.  Mario engaged in a robot dance that had the entire left side of the lawn cracking up and Maria get treated to a bag of popcorn by her friend Zach.  When he offered it to her, she blushed the loudest red I have seen.  God help us.

Mario had a bathroom attack while dancing so we ran into the library.  Of course, since we were in there, he needed to get a handful of movies.  We met Maria outside for a few more songs and then called it a night at 8:45 pm.  When we arrived home, I grabbed the scissors and began pruning the roses.  They have been driving me nuts for weeks, and I promised myself I’d get them done last night or tonight.  After working on those for twenty minutes while Maria and Mario played with the handcuffs and knife, I came inside to read a book to them.  We read a couple, headed upstairs to get changed into pj’s and brush teeth, and headed back down for one episode of Scooby Doo.  

My god.  My eyelids kept falling over my eyes like broken shades.  But I persevered through finishing up emails and memos for tomorrow and chanting all the while “life is good; life is good.”  And alas, as crazy as it is, life is good.