yesterday was a tremendously eventful day. busy busy busy. i can't have too many days like that or i'd be even more of a wreck than i am now.
in the morning, we went to the farmer's market with my mom to buy flowers to take to the cemetery. nola and i went with my mother to the flower stall while cam and paul bought fruit. it was hot and crowded and cam and i both got very stressed. i was glad to leave. (amusingly enough, we ran into our next-door neighbors. the husband commented on cam's rather hirsute appearance, saying he looked a bit like keanu reeves. i smirked internally. personally i think cam looks more like bo brady (at least in the 80s-90s... dunno if he still looks like that), but i see where my neighbor was going with the comparison.)
then we went to the cemetery. it's important to note that my mom doesn't like to drive if she can avoid it -- and as a non-driver, i understand -- so she was squished in the backseat between paul's high-backed booster and nola's rearfacing infant seat. (we had to take her pt cruiser because our a3 isn't big enough for three in the backseat AT ALL.) she never wants to sit up front if cam's driving, so she insists on sitting in the back even though it would be less of a squeeze for me back there. nola fell asleep on the way and continued to snooze upon arrival, so cam stayed in the car with her. paul had picked out a bouquet of flowers "to plant," he declared (note that we had already bought the flowers and they were waiting in the car by this time, so it was just one more thing to be stressed out about -- hurry up and let's go!), so he came with us to the gravesite. cam let him run across the street unattended -- it was a cemetery, after all -- and i questioned cam, but ultimately it didn't matter because no one was coming. part way through the flower arranging, paul got bored, so i escorted him back to the car. he then decided he wanted to come back to us, so he "helped" us out by rearranging flowers and cutting some very short. i then refused to play because 1) i was still dealing with flowers and 2) we were in a cemetery for chrissakes, so i brought my sulky little boy back to the car. my mother got very stressed.
on the way to the cemetery, cam and i had joked about test-driving a bigger car (this topic had actually come up about a week prior) afterwards. well, after we left the cemetery, that's exactly what we did. paul was reluctant, so cam convinced him of the fun of it. then cam got cold feet, but paul really wanted to go. har. so cam test-drove his big car of choice at the moment, a ford flex (which he partially likes because it looks like a giant mini cooper). we were initially going to all go on the drive, but then i thought maybe nola, my mom and i would stay behind. but then paul wanted cam to sit with him, so i decided to tag along to give paul a traveling companion (and to let cam focus on the car). oh, how nola wailed when i handed her to my mother...
the drive was nice. cam seemed impressed and paul LOVED it. we sat in the third row and paul was the happiest little test-driver in the world. he wouldn't stop talking -- we were, he said, in a big airplane with cupholders and storage for toys. if we pushed certain spots on the car, things would happen. i asked him, "can we do anything to help the people up front?" he told me to push a spot on the window while he did the same on his side.
me: what was that for?
him: it made cupholders pop out in the front.
me: oh, how nice.
after the test-drive, we drove to a local mall for lunch. i was thinking food court, but cam convinced paul to let us go to cpk because i had been wanting to go there (grilled vegetable salad, yum). turned out cam needed to bribe paul with a ride in a $7 (!) rental double stroller shaped like a fire truck. lunch was beyond stressful. nola nibbled crayons, paul pouted. nola screamed, paul climbed around on the bench seat. nola rubbed food on my shorts. a table of pretty young girls in their 20s looked over at us while i shoveled food in my mouth while trying to keep nola from crawling on the table.
i've had finer moments.
after lunch, we walked about the mall with our expensive rental stroller. the kids were happy (even nola, the hater of strollers), but i was embarrassed to be walking a mall with that monstrosity. i can struggle with a car cart in a grocery store, but a mall? ugh. i then took my mom into nordstrom, abandoning cam with the kids, and we hit the shoes, then the petite section. i ended up buying two dresses, a wrap and a sheath with elbow-length sleeves. now that i'm not pumping anymore, i love my dresses. i wasn't sold on one of them (the sheath), but i wanted to show cam before just saying no to it completely. besides, my mom would have been disgruntled if i didn't get that one because that was the one she liked better. (cam ended up liking that one better, too, but he liked the wrap as well.) my mom didn't like anything she tried on, so she left with the same amount of money she brought in.
after the mall we finally went home. i fed nola and we took a brief nap while cam filled up an inflatable pool in the backyard. when nola awoke, we got in the pool. it was freezing, so we didn't stay in too long. then we took quick showers and went to whole foods for groceries and dinner.
the kids got to bed really late. cam and i intended to stay up and have some wine, but we were completely bushed and fell asleep. sleep of the just, i say.
