On the way to the park last Friday for our walk, I stopped at the gas station.. I lectured the kids before the car was even in park.. "You are not getting anything but a drink, do not ask because I am not buying anything else."
Of course this was met by a ton of whining, and begging.. "Please can we get some candy.. Please...!!!!!!!...."
"No... Drinks only..."
"But what if we get hungry??? We'll starve to death. Don't you even care about us?" This was thrown at me by Turtle..
"You had breakfast, you had ice cream, fruit snacks, Doritos, and god knows what else you had when I wasn't looking.. I'm pretty sure you won't die of starvation during our walk." (My children had only been up for 2 hours, and had already managed to consume enough to feed a village.)
Turtle started wailing about the injustice of it all... Miss Gracie was quick to follow his lead, until something occurred to her..
"Don't worry.." She said, grabbing her Tinkerbell purse. "I have some flowers in my purse that we can eat if we get hungry." I watched her face fall as she pulled wilted flowers out of her purse, "Oh NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!... They went bad.. I'm sorry, T.. We
are going to starve.."
A while ago, when Miss Gracie was picking flowers during one of Turtle's ball game, she came up with a bunch of purple clovers... I made the mistake of reminiscing about how in first and second grade, my friends and I would eat them.. My cousin who was at the game that day, also remembered eating them when she was little, and she instructed Miss Gracie on how to eat them... And Miss Gracie has been hooked ever since... She's pretty generous, offering them to everyone near her.. I keep declining.. I just can't get the picture of a dog peeing on them out of my head...
Just so you know, Miss Gracie did not have to search out fresh flowers, I felt sorry for them and her wilted dead flowers, so they each got a bag of gummy bears... But can you imagine how proud I was with her living off the land survival instincts.. If she's this resourceful at 4, can you imagine her at 6?? Other things Miss Gracie carries in her purse, are one tube of Disney Princess lip gloss (there is nothing funnier, than hearing her say "Oh I should have put on more make up" before we get out of the car somewhere.) 3 ponies that she spilled fruit punch on, 1 of which also has a leg she chewed on, so now when she plays with them she has to call the Dr to come take care of them, (The fruit punch really does make them look like they have blood on them.) 25 LARGE rocks.. Which makes the purse extremely heavy (and a potential deadly weapon), which is why I usually end up carrying her Large purple velvet Tinkerbell purse.. And one recently re found bouncy ball, which has probably already bounced away again...
I am the queen of I told you so... Seriously, I love to say it... The only people that hate "I told you so" are the people that have to hear it... Weeks ago (when Turtle was still in school) I told Bob the brakes on the van felt funky... He pretended to listen to me, and said he would take it for a drive... Which he did.. 5 minutes later he (and my cousin who was with him) were back.. "They felt fine to me, I don't know what you were talking about, They stop.." Ummm... really... Ok.. Then.. I shook my head, and said "Whatever... There's something wrong with them.. I'm telling you.." Another week later, I complained that the brake light was on in the van.. "It's always on." Was Bob's reply... "Not like this." Yes I admit that when you hit a good bump in the road, the brake light and the ABS light would come on, but if you hit another good bump in the road they would go back off.. Now as soon as I started the car, ONLY the brake light was on, and it never went off.. No amount of hitting pot holes was jarring that light off... Bob pretended to jiggle the emergency brake... "It's not the freaking emergency brake.. I'm telling you it's THE BRAKES... The ONES that make the car STOP at the times you want them too.."
"It's fine." (Seriously, I'm rolling my eyes, right now, because I can still hear these conversations with him.) So anyways last week, on our way to town, especially on Friday, I'm pretty much convinced that the only thing that made my van come to a stop was the fact that I was creeping along, and praying under my breath... On the way home from town Friday, the brakes were so bad, The radio was off, the kids were warned not to say a word, and I had my plan of action down, I figured if I needed to I could whip the van through a field to make it slow, I'd just have to dodge the telephone poles on entry... I breathed easy when I saw no cars coming from other directions when I was trying to stop... I even told the SIL at the park that day, that if anything happened to the kids and I on the way home, to please tell Bob "I Freaking TOLD you SO!!!" (Hey it might not have been nice, but I do LOVE being right.)
We made it home... And Saturday morning we all got up to go to Turtle's practice.. Bob got in the drivers seat of the van, and we started off... It wasn't even two minutes down the road, when Bob said "Hmmm..."
"What??"
"There's something wrong with the brakes."
"
Really??!!!! what was your first clue?"
"I'll check them out when we get home.. I'll take it over to Mom's... So I can pull it in the garage.. The lines probably need bled. You'll have to help."
"Doing what??!!" Seriously car work is not my thing, it's gross, you smell like mechanic.. I hate that smell, (I also hate the smell of the outdoors.. When my kids come inside after playing all day, if they smell like the out doors, it makes me gag... It's just gross.)
"Or maybe K. can help" K is my cousin.. The one who went on the fake brake test drive...
So after practice, and after K. got to our house, they headed over to his parents... Which is where I ended up a little while later when Aunt M. came over to get the kids and we realized Bob had drove off with their car seats in the van... When we got there, Bob informed me, that by the time he and K. got to his parents (5 minutes away) they had no brakes at all.. According to Bob he barely managed to not hit the garage... Oh.. The brakes didn't need bled... Something went bad under the hood (80 bucks worth of bad, since we bought the part that day, instead of waiting 2 to three days to save 30 bucks) which in turn made brake fluid leak freely... Bob just can't figure out where it all went.. (Gee could it be that dark patch of liquid on the ground under where I park the van, that I pointed out to Bob a while ago, asking what's that???? He said it was nothing.. Are you shocked???)
Being the supportive person that I am, oh who am I kidding.. I was right, he was wrong, and I was pissed that he hadn't listened to me when I said something weeks ago... "So basically, I was right... And You were wrong.. And you didn't listen to me, even though I KNEW what I was talking about.. How many times are you going to ignore me when I tell you something is wrong??? Do you like hearing me say I told you so?? I'm waiting for an apology, and for a promise to actually check something out, when I tell you something is wrong.." (There was more to it than that.. Two days worth of me rubbing in how right I was.)
And I did get an apology... Although I'm pretty sure he didn't mean it.. And he did promise to listen next time I tell him something is funky... (I'm not holding my breath..)
On Sunday, Turtle was throwing a baseball in the air and catching it.. He started throwing it up so high it was getting caught on tree branches.. "Be careful.. Your going to get hit in the face with it, doing that."
Did he listen???? Of course not... He's too much like his father... "NO, I won't. I can see it." He caught it to prove me wrong, and turned to grin at me, that smart aleck "you don't know anything" grin...
Less than 5 minutes later, He caught the ball again... With his mouth... He busted his lip, refused to let me see if his teeth were all still where they should be, and then he proceeded to cry... Well scream
Loudly for the next two hours... That "I told you so" wasn't as satisfactory as the one I got to say to Bob... I'm pretty sure Turtle didn't hear my saying "What did Mommy tell you was going to happen??? Are you going to listen next time??"
I could barely hear me over his screaming... God he's just like his dad...
At least Miss Gracie
usually has the sense to listen to me... The proof is in the wilted flowers her mommy told her she could eat that she carries around in her purse...