More Frustrations

You know, my summer is just not frustrating enough.  I made the mistake of mentioning on my blog  that Bip is sleeping better.  Well, don’t you know that set the Great Cosmic Gears a-turning and for the last couple of nights he has been downright difficult.  He is probably our worse sleeper EVER.  (there, maybe the Gears will start turning the other direction)  I’m so tired it hurts.  Mostly in my head.

Yesterday I found that the ant colony that tried to hide their eggs under my baby kimchee pot outside twice, and that I killed twice, then moved on to hide their eggs in my geranium pot, and that I killed again, had established residence in my gerbera daisy pot.  I attempted to kill them again.  I probably just killed the plant instead.  I saw them marching happily all over our porch again this morning.  How many times do I have to kill these ants?!?

Also yesterday, we spent the whole hot afternoon driving up and down the state of Virginia looking for school supplies.  OK, maybe not the whole state, but a good portion of Highway 1.  First stop, Target.  Any shopping trip to Target is bound to be a good one.  I picked up some funky socks for an exchange I’m in (Hi, Aunt Peggy!), found cute stickers in the dollar spot, bought a lampshade for the guest room…but no school supplies.  Well, they had school supplies, but no more than they normally have.  And not the Uber Organizing Binder I was looking for.

So off to WalMart.  WalMart always makes Philip and I a little silly.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s all the possibilities for some good consuming.  Plus, we haven’t been in a WalMart in over 3 years.  So we entered the store in high spirits.  That didn’t last long as  Boo spotted the McDonald’s inside and started up about how hungry he was and that fries would hit the spot.  And wouldn’t stop talking about the fries. Then as we made our way down the aisles, I was totally overwhelmed by how overcrowded it was.  Merchandise crammed in everywhere, including shopping baskets filled with stuff waiting to be reshelved. And I don’t mean one basket of a few things.  I mean 2 or 3 baskets, overflowing, in every aisle.  I took one quick pass down what I thought was the school supplies aisle, met up with Philip who had failed to find our favorite WalMart brand raspberry soda, and we left.  Boo expressed in great detail, his desire to return to this wonderful store for a snack of french fries.

On to Fort Belvoir and their PX.  After two tries, we found a gate that was open and made our way through the beautiful tree-filled Army base.  I can’t describe it, but to this Army family living on a tiny Air Force Base, being back on an Army base just feels good!  While we appreciate Philip’s 5 minute commute to work and all the other ammenities that living on our Air Force base offers, we do still miss the Army-ness of things.  Anyway, we found our school supplies, plus those ugly-in-a-cute-way Crocs that everyone’s wearing.  Pumpkin Girl has been asking for some, but they are out at the PX where we live.  They were $18 less than what I paid for them online.  I’ll be able to return the other pair, and even with the shipping, we saved money.  We also found a Thomas Kincade print I’ve been wanting.

Ok, so that wasn’t all bad.  And we didn’t get lost on the way home! 

And then there was today.  Do you know how much work it is to get 2 children suited up, slathered in sunscreen, plus one chubby baby all into the car and to the pool before 9 am?  Well, it’s not that easy.  But it’s ok, because we’re having Swimming Lessons!  Or not, as the case may be.  You may remember my rant about signing up for swimming lessons a while back.  I’ve had a bad feeling about these swimming lessons every since.  My fears were founded as I pulled up to the pool and found it closed.  More families arrived, about 25 in total, and still no pool staff.  Finally, Someone In Charge showed up and informed us that they couldn’t find the pool staff, but he’d be back with more information.  We wait and wait and wait.  The other moms and I exchange stories about how poorly run the swimming lesson sign up was.  The Man In Charge returned to let us know that there were going to be no lifeguards on duty until noon, so no lessons today,but come back tomorrow just in case.  The brave man did not return with an escort of military police, but since he gave us all his cell phone number, we let him live.  He told us to call anytime to determine the status of the swimming lessons.  I’m not holding my breath on this one.

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