It's 1:05 pm, and a new potential babysitter is coming over at 1:30 to meet the kids and see the house, so they can get acquainted and I can show her where everything is and discuss our routines/rules. I wanted to have the house in order so we could actually find what we were supposed to talk about, so after lunch today, my thought went something like this... "Hey, I need to get the house picked up in 25 minutes or less. I'll send my 3-year-old outside to play while I clean. Piece of cake! He wants to blow bubbles, easy enough!"
So out he goes, the baby is tossed in her swing (not really, geesh) and I'm about to get down to cleaning business when I hear "MOMMY! The bubbles are all gone!" So I stop what I've barely started, take the kid and his little bottle of bubbles into the garage, and refill it from the big jug of bubble solution. And we're off-he's back outside, and I'm running around the kitchen like a mad fiend, putting away, wiping, spraying, when I hear it again. "MOMMY! I dropped da wand!" to which I answer "Where did you drop it, buddy?" and I already know the answer is "Under da duck. Can you get it, please?" Well, at least he asked nicely. (He means deck. But I think it's so cute that he calls it a duck.) Unfortunately, our deck is one of those that is about 12 inches off the ground, so that anything that falls through the slats is forever lost. I stop cleaning, and go outside, and at least humor the little guy and look-and of course, the wand is lost. Back to the garage to get the last one out of the big bubble jug. Only I can't get it out of the jug. I'm chasing it around with my fingers, and it's slippery, and soapy, and spilling. It's about 125 degrees in the afternoon with the garage door closed, so I decide to bring it in the air conditioned house to try and get it out. Still can't get it-so I try a fork, a metal barbeque tongs, and finally the small Pampered Chef Bamboo tongs do the trick. New bubble wand has been acquired! Success! (And I knew those tongs I just had to have would come in handy for SOMETHING!)
After a couple gentle reminders to be careful not to drop this wand, Happy Kiddo is back outside and blowing bubbles, but now the baby is fussing. Of course. So it's time for a diaper change, and while I'm doing that, I need to switch the loads of laundry around. I get her dry and happy, gazing at her crib mobile, and open the washing machine when I hear, "MOMMY! MOMMMMMYYYY! I lost my waaaaaand! My waaaaand! Mommy, get iiiiiit!" And you know exactly where it is-between the slats of the deck, in bubble wand limbo, where it will forever be. I bet there's some sort of bubble-wand-only-gravitational-pull-forcefield under my deck. I should call National Geographic or something, who knows how many they'd find? Anyway, a trip back outside confirms what I already knew, and we're out of wands now, which cues a typical 3-year-old meltdown. I convince him to play golf instead, because at least the balls can't fit down the deck slats.
Then I'm back inside, and finally the last of the lunch dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, when I see a car pull into the driveway. It can't be 1:30 already? It was. So the new babysitter saw our house the way she'll probably find it when she comes over the next time-with laundry in the hallway, and random bubbly filmy kitchen utensils strewn about. Sounds about normal to me!
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