Flanagan Clan

Today was not one of the better days of motherhood. Actually, today things were sort of frustrating. To start with, Patrick, Sammy and I have colds. I believe Patrick caught it at Bible Study on Tuesday… a loud, raspy cough and nasty accompanying cold. The boys are almost better, but I finally caught the bug yesterday, and I’ve been in a bit of a daze ever since. Which is why the next two things happened.

Dents in the side of the minivan… the 1 1/2 year old 2006 Toyota Sienna has several new battle scars from this morning’s run in with, guess who, PATRICK and the swing set!!!! Let me explain. Our next door neighbors have two kids, ages 11 and 6. They had a metal swing-set that they’ve had stored in their shed for a couple of years, and they asked us a couple weeks ago if we would like it for our boys. On Saturday we picked it up, and since it was rainy, stuck it in the garage. It has two swings, a monkey bar, a bench swing, and a slide. Well, this morning I was hurrying to get the boys ready for a trip to Walmart. I had Patrick’s shoes and coat on, and I was in the process of putting on Sammy’s jacket and finding my purse when I heard a loud cry from the garage. Patrick had managed to get into the garage, get onto the bench swing (this thing is huge with metal arms), and knock it onto the car. He was scared and/or hurt and I was furious… we had specifically told him yesterday to stay away from that stuff. The car ended up with three small dents and several scratches. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to cover up a lot of the scratch damage with the touchup paint we have. It’s annoying because we like to have nice things, but at the end of the day we realize that it’s just stuff… and it’s not like we’ll be taking it with us when we die. I also bet that before we get rid of that car in 10+ years from now, it’s going to see a lot more damage than what happened today.

Another not so pleasant experience… burning bacon until it becomes a big black mass of yuckiness. I’ve never actually done it… until today. Here’s the next story. I was sauteing bacon in a pot to make split pea soup for tonight’s dinner. I realized that I needed to do something in my bedroom and ran upstairs after turning down the heat a little bit… I told myself I would be right back. Patrick followed. What started out as a quick trip to check on something turned into me playing with Patrick’s hair and showing him how to spray his hair with the spray bottle and make it stick up in little spikes. Suddenly I heard Sammy hacking downstairs and I ran down the stairs to find the entire downstairs covered in smoke and my bacon a black, gooey mess. It was gross. I quickly opened the back door, turned on the ventilation fan, and disposed of the icky bacon. While I was busy defrosting new bacon so I could make my soup, Patrick was still upstairs with the water bottle…. and let’s just say that by the time I had finally finished sauteing my new bacon and got the soup simmering in the pot, I found Patrick with the water bottle downstairs squirting everything, including himself and Sammy. His little long sleeved tee-shirt was soaked with water… so now he’s running around the house in nothing but his diaper and hiding under blankets and coughing away. I hope this cold clears up sooooooon… and there’s always hope that tomorrow will be better. I’m not quite sure I’m up for taking the boys to Bible Study because we’re all sick again, but maybe if the weather is nice we’ll get out of the house. Mondays are hard because I always do laundry and grocery shopping. Which reminds me… I am no where near finished with the 5 loads of laundry I had to do today. I better run!!!