Sunday--up early, watched Campbell Brown (who is just not as fun as Jodi Applegate), turned the shower on so I could make my topsy-turvy bedhead hair behave, got the kids up and helped Tiny Girl get dressed, made us all some breakfast, checked the fountain to make sure the storm from the night before had not damaged any of the components, then got us all in the van to hit the road for the church building.

Once more, the nursery teacher was a no-show (actually, just an incredibly-late-show). Grr. Where's that fire and brimstone when you need it?! Imposed on the same young lady I did last week to watch the class, then did some figuring for next quarter's teachers and classes. I make up a whole year's schedule at a time, and yet I still get folks coming up a week before the new quarter starts, wanting to complain. Oh well.

Classes over, then time for worship, then time to go visit Grandmama again to see how she's doing. Same procedure as on Friday--elevator, crosswalk, pee, elevator, etc.--, and despite having now touched every single thing within the hospital, the kids still feel an odd compulsion to repeat that process, too. Piled in on top of Granny, and Grandpop's sister and her husband, lots of fidgeting by various ones, then a plea from me to see if food will calm them down again. Reba agreed and wanted to go to the cafeteria. I wanted real food from some place that didn't look like a bus station. I lost.

On downstairs, first to get money from the ATM, then back to the cafeteria, which was chock full of...



nothing. Oh, they had sandwich fixings, and some weak-looking salad stuff. But no hot food line open. ::sigh:: For some reason, Reba wanted to stay, so we stayed and after trying to herd four kids through a salad bar and sandwich line that didn't have any tray rails, we finally sat down. Thankfully, they all sat at their own table. They seem to do better when they aren't trying to compete with each other for our attention. They sat over there nice and quiet and polite, and I kept wondering why they can't be like that around ME!! (Because, it's all about me, you know.)

We finished up and went back upstairs to bother Grandmom some more. Managed to stay for about thirty minutes before the level of misbehavior reached its previous peak, so in utter disgust I rounded everyone up and we headed home. Stopped by the store to get some groceries I forgot to get Saturday, then on back up to the church building to drop Oldest off for one of her activities, then to WAL-MART!! HOORAY!

Church shoes for Cat and Middle Girl, some pants for Boy, some other stuff and things we don't need, and back to the church building for evening service. Managed to stay almost entirely awake, then cleaned up a bit and went and had supper at the Western-themed place, and didn't get a single drop of beverage spilled upon us, then headed on toward home.

We had just gotten past the last service station when Rebecca said she needed to stop for nature's call. ::sigh:: I am a bad father, so I just told her to wait until we got home. It was only going to be another fifteen minutes or so.

Made the turn onto White's Chapel Parkway, headed down the mountain before the Cahaba Bridge and heard the telltale BRDBRDBRDBRDBRDBRDBRDBRDBRDBRD of a tire going flat. ::sigh again, heavily::

Tried to find a place to pull off in the pitch black and after what seemed like forever found a driveway. Now then. A car full of kids and stuff from Wal-Mart. A van with a space-saver spare tire in the middle of the passenger compartment--the tire that comes off has to go in the space filled with Wal-Mart stuff. And it's dark.

Thankfully, I remembered that I had put a small 12 volt compressor in the back sometime a go, so I figured I would see if I could get things pumped up enough to make it to civilization. Ten minutes later, it was slowly coming up, and then I remembered I also had a can of pressurized tire goo. Undid the compressor, screwed on the tire goo, and managed to get the thing all the way back to a roundish condition once again.

On to home, where the kids all piled out and ran inside to make use of the indoor plumbing while I unloaded all the sacks of stuff. Closed the van, locked it, and was glad we had a backup vehicle to use until I could get the tire fixed.

Walked in, closed the garage door, put away some stuff, and decided to see my little fountain. I walked out the back door and heard a strange buzzing sound. I looked and--AAARRRGGHHHH!! The fountain was nearly dry and the pump motor was buzzing along sucking air. AARRGGGHHHH! I jumped over the stuff and unplugged the cord, and...yep, you guessed it--::sigh::

ON to bed. No use doing anything else for this evening. Got up this morning and I think the problem was that the frog got bumped by one of the neigborhood critters or something and started spitting water outside the confines of the liner, swiftly and efficiently draining it. I filled it back up and let it start running again. I'll be interested to see how much it has in it when I get home.

Which is where I am going right now. Soccer practice for Tiny Terror and Boy tonight, and since Reba was going to swing by the hospital, I was going to leave a bit early and take them on to practice.

SO, I'll see you all tomorrow.
posted by Terry at 4:03:00 PM