At Least I Didn't Lock The Keys In The Car

The morning flew by in a blur of fits of one-up-man-ship and selfishness from the Munchkin Brigade. I finally gathered them all to the table for utter silence while I tossed fruits and yogurts and milk and spinach in the blender to create their nutritional lunch of smoothies. As I sat their glasses on the table, I swear to you, a little person whispered 'My smoovee has more stwawbewwies than yours does.'

How is it that the sing-song nonnie-nonnie-boo-boo lilt is ingrained at birth?

As soon as the kids finished up their lunch, they helped me clean up in the kitchen. I tolerated their crankiness for nearly ten more minutes as I nursed Anna, then shoo-ed all the girls off for nap. Within minutes, there were three very soundly sleeping girls.

Thomas and I took advantage of the quietness, checked with Granny, then jumped in the truck to run a couple of errands. We rolled the windows down, turned the music up, and had a great time letting the wind whip around us.

Our first stop was at the Farmer's Market where we picked up some yummy blackberries for a cobbler that I have been dreaming of. Then we dropped in at the school supply store to grab up a couple of writing tablets for Thomas and Sarah Grace. We actually walked around for quite some time perusing the store. After we had our fill, we went out to the truck, got ourselves all situated, and the truck didn't start. I tried again. And again, and again. Still nothing.

This apparently happens when a vehicle gets as little use as our truck tends to get. Sigh.

I called Joshua. He advised me to check the truck box for jumper cables. I climbed up in the bed of the truck and rooted around in the box until I managed to unearth the cables. Then came the part where I asked the only two people in sight if they would be willing to give me a jump.

Um, Daddy, if by chance you are reading this, look away now. I am about to admit something that I might prefer you not to be aware of.
It wasn't that these people were unwilling, but, as it turns out, none of us knew how to use a set of jumper cables.

I called Granny and let her in on what was going on, checked with her again, and the decision was made that she should stay put with the girls until they got up from nap. Then they could all load up and come to fetch the boy and me.

Throughout all of this, Thomas was yammering about calling a tow truck. We could call the tow truck to get us and take us home. The tow truck was red. It made lots of noise. Tow truck.

Tow truck.

Tow truck.

It was all the kid could think of. He could have been offered a hot fudge sundae and never heard it over all the noise the tow truck thoughts were making in his head.

I finally convinced him that we would continue on and finish out our errands. The big thing on our to do list was to get by the civic center and sign up Thomas to play soccer. I proposed an adventure to Thomas, who by now had visions of Tow Mater coming to get us, and told him we could walk to the civic center. By my guesstimations, it wasn't quite two miles away.

Thomas got all excited and his thoughts quickly turned to my friend Laura, who is in Asia. We read her blog regularly and pray for her and her family and the work they are doing there. We also talk about how much walking they do. Suddenly, Thomas decided that we just needed to move to China, where they walk all the time.

I talked him off the ledge of international travel and we set out on our much smaller adventure. Two blocks into it, we came upon a gentleman who, at the moment, seemed friendly enough, and just as I was about to talk to him about possibly borrowing a bit of battery juice, he started barking at some poor soul on the other end of his cell phone.

Not wanting to add to his stress (or mine!!), Thomas and I kept on trucking. We passed a store where we went in and got water bottles. It was 3 in the afternoon. My water disappeared pretty quickly! Of all the days to wear jeans...

We stopped at one point to sit in the shade and enjoy the breeze. We called Joshua to let him know we were fine and a plan was in place. Then we marched on towards the civic center.

Thomas could not be steered toward any topic of conversation other than our predicament. He had idea after idea after idea on how to best handle ourselves. He never complained about the walk or the heat at all, but he managed some pretty hilarious scenarios.

"Well, Momma, if only we had a sign on a stick and a pen we could make a sign that said 'Aubrey Freeman is broken down.'"

'Well, Thomas, that's an idea.', I replied

'Yeah, I have a lot to say on things like brokening down and towing trucking and things like that. A lot to say.'

There were others, but that is the one that I made the voice memo of, so that I would be sure not to lose it in the near empty chasm of my brain.

To wrap things up, we made it to the civic center, got Thomas all signed up to play soccer, and were picked up by Granny and the girls shortly there after. And after the kids went to bed tonight, Joshua and I went to get the truck.

And Daddy, if by chance you are reading this, and you did not look away, I now posses the knowledge of how to use a set of jumper cables.