Luke: "Jenny....what have you been drinking?"
Me: "Pepsi Max! My dad always has it at his house and I like it!"
Luke: "No....your dad has Pepsi One at his house."
Me: "Same thing!"
Luke: "Ummm....it's not the same at all actually. The "max" in Pepsi Max stands for "Maximum Caffeine"
A quick confirmation by Google assured me that my new beverage selection has more caffeine than Mt. Dew and I realized it was going to be a long afternoon! A long afternoon for Luke that it is. Can you imagine having to deal with me shaking high on caffeine for 5 hours with the only thing to look forward to is a mega energy crash where my attitude might just give him an early taste of my menopause years? Poor guy. It just occurred to me in the last few seconds that that is probably why he offered to mow the lawn on a 35 degree day with rain blowing sideways in his face. Now I'm wishing I hadn't revisited that moment. Luke says a lot more with his actions than his words. Wise fellow.
In any case, I don't normally drink 3 cans of soda a day so please save your lectures about how you once got an email saying Diet Coke can make a rusty nail shiny and that Snopes.com actually confirmed it. But I've never been a coffee drinker and my to-do list is a mile long until I'm ready for the main event this Saturday. And I really need some sort of legal drug to get me through the movie "Polar Express" for the 892nd time while I re-wrap all of the presents whose bows somehow made it into LuLu's mouth while I was busy begging Emery to give the movie "Rudolph" a try instead. So if this is the worst of my vices than I'm going to consider that a victory. And in the meantime I'll save my bottle deposits to pay for Emery's therapy when his world someday comes crashing down as he realizes that there is not, in fact, a real Polar Express train that might at any minute show up outside his window. The last part isn't even a joke.....he looks for it a lot. It's sad and sweet all at the same time.
I did have one day off last week where I didn't have anything on the calendar so instead of being smart and laying low, I called my mom (who works downtown) and told her I was bored! "Come meet me for lunch!" she said, an offer which I hesitantly accepted. Now this may not seem like much of a story yet, but imagine if you will, me downtown at Pioneer Place with a stroller-confined infant and a 3 year old (insisting he can walk himself) who has never seen anything more flashy than the Christmas decorations that hang from Target's ceiling over the $1 section. Can you even begin to wrap your mind around how big of a field trip this was for him? I'll spare you all of the details and just tell you that at one point I had to physically pull him out of the Pioneer Place fountain after I turned my back for a split second to check on Lu. It was a proud moment and one of those in which I completely disregard the 700 people shopping around me and screamed with full force, "EMERY GET OUT OF THE FOUNTAIN!" only to realize that shoppers were literally peering over the 2nd and 3rd floor balconies to see who had just lost their nomination for Mother-of-the-Year. It's me people....and don't worry! I lost my chance at that title on January 2nd when I took Emery grocery shopping in his Buzz Lightyear pajamas in the middle of the day because I was too tired to get him dressed and instead took advantage of the fact that he doesn't have any concept of personal pride just yet.
The fountain incident should have been a clue that I was in over my head, but ignoring this obvious red flag I dredged on towards Santa whose gigantic chair was perched in a Winter Wonderland conveniently located right next to the new H&M. Of course instead of Santa we were greeted with a gigantic sign letting us know that the big guy was unavailable because he was visiting sick children at the Hospital. I know it's wrong to be angry about that, but a 3 year who doesn't understand "pride" most definitely won't accept "charity" as a reason for a broken Santa promise on a moment's notice. I needed to think quick and come up with some sort of lesson that both delivered a new Santa while simultaneously reinforcing the concept of selflessness! Interrupting my train of thought, though, was a gigantic elf who told us Santa would be back in 4 hours as he handed us the prices for the portrait packages as some sort of sad attempt to offer a consolation to a clearly upset toddler. Ummmm....2 things wrong with this:
1. If you're and "elf" and you're taller than me....you're not an elf.
2. What am I supposed to do with a price sheet for 4 hours expect mull over how I had student loans for 10 years that I could have paid off by buying a laser printer and hiring some guy with a white beard to pose with kids for $34.95 a pop. ($49.95 if you want a CD)
Fast forward to the good news: It turns out Santa wasn't at the hospital at all! We found him at Macy's across the street a mere 5 minutes later! Just what are the odds of that?!?!?!
Here is my precious little guy posing with a Santa
who doesn't care about sick children:
who doesn't care about sick children:
I am sitting on the bus reading your post trying not to laugh out loud so I am not one of those annoying people who laugh out loud on the bus. Too funny!
ReplyDeletewhat a cute pic! love it!
ReplyDelete