My Kids Rock

Thursday morning, I woke up with a pending migraine but did not let this distant and dim view of the world keep me from packing up (x4) and heading out of town.

After a brief visit with Daddy at Granny's, the kids went to Oma's for the weekend and I hit the Metroplex with seven of my favorite imaginary friends. (I have a lot of favorite imaginary friends from which to choose, you understand.)

We arrived home this weekend, 1254.8 miles later. All but 91 of them were driven by me, most of them on unfamiliar, heavily-trafficked and construction-plagued roads. The kids were only dragged along for 179.2 of those.

To complicate an already long and complicated trip, I had a funeral to hurry home to. A coworker of mine, a woman I only worked with one school year but already tremendously respected, was laid to rest at 10:00 this morning.

After several days of eating Chuy's and In-and-Out, shopping, playing board games til the wee hours, and throwing in a late-staying visit to my 40-week-pregnant cousin last night, I went to sleep a little after midnight. At 3:30 I awoke and deposited an imaginary friend at Love Field at 4:30 before driving directly to the funeral. Despite leaving my cell phone (and therefore my directions) at the hostessing imaginary friend's house, I arrived only ten minutes late.

I paid my respects, ate lunch with coworkers at one of her favorite spots and dragged a friend back to mom's to pick up the kids. Spent an hour with daddy, got their little gifts of hair clips and Hot Wheels and headed home.

I am so tired. Also, my back did not love this trip.

As we arrived home, the girls sprang to action. While I cleaned out the litter box and made Charlie a sandwich, they brought in every single piece of luggage, bag, pillow and toy from PennyVann, neatly deposited them in the dining room, got jammies on, poured themselves milk, curled up on the couch and turned on Charlie's favorite show for him.

Charlie did come over long enough for this exchange:

Charlie: Why did you buy me da Hot Wheels?
Me: I know you love them. Do you love them?
Charlie: Yes. I do love dem. If you want to, you can buy me Hot Wheels all da time. Anytime you want to buy me a Hot Wheels, I will take a Hot Wheels for you. I can do dat.

Sure thing, kid. Right after this nap.