School Carnival

I need to catch up, including our trip to Idaho for Spring Break, but thought I'd record a "typical" night, like tonight.

I worked today, the last of my week plus I've been staying up WAAAAAY too late the last few nights.  Like 2am late.  So I was already super tired today and my back was hurting.  (The back pains, that used to plague me in the past but that have subsided the last few years since attempting to take it a little easier at home, are returning now. :-(  Between keeping much too busy at home (which always resulted in my back hurting) lately, combined with sitting all day at work, it's just a bad combination.)  Anyway, I was tired.  I was hurting.  But there's only one school carnival each year so I thought I'd better suck it up and take the kids.  Plus I didn't have the energy to make dinner, lol.

Once in I didn't see Brennan again until it was time to go, saw Asher occasionally, kept just half an eye on Hollyn, who thankfully just wanted to do the bouncehouse repeatedly, and chased Kieran.  He kept me busy enough.  When he was jealous of Asher's balloon sword I got in line to get a balloon for him - I envisioned two or three of the long balloons being shaped into a sphere, since he just wanted to throw it like a ball anyway.  So we stood in line.  And stood there, and stood some more.  We waited for like 45 minutes.  During which time I couldn't put Kieran down or he'd of run off and I didn't want to lose my place since I'd committed so much time to this endeavor already.  He was NOT happy to be held.  In fact he fussed so much he threw up on me.  Fine.  It wasn't much.  I took of my sweater, turned it inside out and tied it around my waste.  And we waited some more.  The kind lady in front of us, after asking what shape I was requesting, said we could go ahead of her since it would be fast.  Boy was it.  When I said I wanted a ball shape, the man got out a tiny little regular-type balloon, filled it with a half second worth of air, and handed the 5-inch-diameter ball to Kieran.  Kieran was delighted enough with it, but I could have spent 10 minutes going home and blowing up my own balloon and saved myself 40 minutes, a thrown up on shirt, a back now absolutely KILLING me, and Kieran's tears.  Sigh.  I'm too nice to have clarified, plus felt bad for everyone still standing in line.  Oh, and by this time I was becoming increasingly worried that my special visiting Aunt was making an appearance.  Through my clothes.  Which is why I was going to wrap my sweater around my waist anyway as soon as I had that dang balloon toy for Kieran so I could put him down for a minute.  Still, having that worry hanging over my head didn't help at all.

So that was fun.  Later I was called to come to Asher who had REALLY thrown up after bouncing in the bouncehouse.  Which bouncing he'd done after eating too much cotton candy and other junk.  It was already being taken care of by another Mom who kept shooing me away as she could see I had Kieran in my arms while I tried to help.

Somehow I managed to corral them ALL out at the end, and in only 2 trips!  Kieran was sticky from head to foot from suckers, Hollyn lost like 2lbs in sweat from that bouncehouse, and apparently Brennan just informed me that he'd been on the monkey bars and wacked his head bad enough that the parents outside who witnessed it advised him to watch out for memory loss. (He said he felt fine, even right after it happened, but shared the story with me since the Moms told him to.)  I wish I could say this was a particularly difficult evening out for us.  But let's be honest.  This is pretty much how it always goes.  Just another day in the life of the Stevensons.  Nothing to see here folks, move along.

And now, an Ibuprophen later, I'm hitting the sack at 9pm.  I'm beat!