What Our Neighbors Heard This Morning

This was my idea of being a good helpmeet this morning. Lucky Ian :) Pat him on the back if you see him. We all have our own races to run. His is all uphill.

S: No really! This will work and it will only take a couple minutes!! (Dragging soggy wet-head just-out-of-the-shower Ian outside) See look! I already scraped your car off!!

I: This will not work. I have to leave soon. Seriously? Are you Serious?

S: Just try. please? Okay.... Ready? PUSH!!!!!

I: IT IS NOT MOVING.

S: oops. Brake is up. hang on. How do you take it out of park?

I: are you kidding me?

S: yeah :) just kidding. I knew that. I already put it in drive. PUSH!!!!

I: DRIVE?! you're supposed to put it in neutral!!

S: (slides in and puts it in neutral.) SORRRY!!! :) PUSH!! YAY IT MOOOOOVED!!!!

You see... Ian's car battery dies in cold weather and we accidentally left it outside.
So, we kept pushing his car, in 1-degree weather, forward, inch by inch, moving only slightly closer to our goal of moving it out of our driveway, angling it around, getting it back into the garage, and aiming a space heater at it's nose so by the time Ian went to work, maybe it would be warm enough to start! BRILLIANT!

...there is a big bump - an uphill bump - right where our driveway hits the road. We hit that.

I abandoned my post pushing next to the wheel and we both started pushing from behind. (believe me. it wasn't going ANYwhere faster than we could get to it and it was all uphill to the middle of our circle. Comforting, right?)

It took us a long time, but "we" basically lifted it over the bump. And as "we" kept moving it past the point where we would maybe hit our neighbor's mailbox, I shouted encouraging things to Ian, like "wooo muscles!" "We're doing it!!!" and "YOU. ARE. MY. TEBOW!!!!"

I jumped in and Ian started pushing me back toward the garage and BOOM. I slammed on the brakes. Surprise!! :)

S: you're gonna have to sit inside and let me push. There's no power steering and I can't get the wheel to budge."

I: really?

S: yah. I tried.

I: so... you're gonna push the car? because you can't turn the steering wheel. really Susie?? REALLY?

S: I gave birth. I've got pushing. (besides... it was downhill now!!)

So I start pushing and it's going well, but like the cotton-headed ninny muggins I am, I thought "too fast too fast!!" and stopped to run around and see if he was going to hit anything in the garage.

Well... you know how it was going to be downhill? yeah? well... it's only downhill until the middle of our driveway. Which is a big dip between the little uphill out to the circle and the bigger uphill and bump into our garage. Oh the things you don't notice when you aren't your car's engine, right?
So... momentum gone. But at least we're lined up right in front of the garage now.
So I started my car and went to push him with that.

s: wait wait... this isn't going to make my airbag go off will it?????

I: I don't know... are you planning to smash into me or drive up slowly?

S: how close am i?

I: about a foot.

S: how close am i?

I: about 11 inches.

S: how close am I?

I: WHOA!!!

S: ee. did I hit you?

I: no. keep comin....

I eventually got there and pushed him up the hill but we weren't lined up exactly and I thought I'd line up better just to be on the safeside and backed up. Without telling Ian who is now rolling down the hill-we-just-discovered going "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!" while I'm shouting "OH MY GOODNESS DON"T HIT ME... the AIRBAG WILL GO OFF!!"

So we line it up again. "How close am I... are we there yet... are we there yet...." all over again. And this time we get it in the garage. And we go in, find the space heater and I unwrap it's nice long cord because I'm just trying to be helpful. So he picks it up and says... "thanks hon. I sure hope I don't tangle this on the way out there where I could have just unwrapped it..." and starts it up. We close the garage door and he starts getting ready for work.

I: that was a LOT of work. My hair was wet. I just caught pnemonia.

S: you'll forgive me when you go to work and your car starts.

I: not if I die of pnemonia.

S: oh dear! you have to leave in about 5 minutes.

I: glad my car will be warm.

S: well... if it's not by the time you go, it will be by the time I take clark to school. Take the van and leave me the carseat.

I: I still haven't packed a lunch... or had breakfast!!

S: I'll bring you some on my way back from dropping Clark off.


How on earth he made it to work on time, I'll never know. His car still won't start. I did get food ready for him. I just can't get it there. I tell you what, I sure wouldn't want to single handedly push a car up a hill first thing in the morning with wet hair on an empty stomach with no hope of food in sight. I hope he orders a Philly or something.

My Hero!

Yeah so... spiders. I don't like them crawling directly on me or my babies, but I am not afraid of or grossed out by them. If I see one I don't recognize, I capture it, look it up online so in the future I'll know if it's friendly or not and then flush it. If I see one I already know is friendly, it has a pretty decent chance of life depending on my mood.

Well... I was having a friendly sort of afternoon and saw a great big fluffy happy happy spider taking a little walk across our wall. I went over, took a good look, told him to be on his way and told the kids "Okay... let him be, but he can live," thinking they would enjoy watching him crawl around the wall for awhile. I mean... It's not like they can watch Thomas the Train *all* day.
But that does not capture the imagination of a BOY. Nope. His response was "or... we can SQUASH IT!" So I consented and he ran, cut me off and tumbled into the dining room ahead of me shouting "I will! I will!! Can I kill it Mom! I get to squash it! Please can *I* kill it!? I know how! I know how!!!" grabbed a napkin and stood there quivering in anticipation of me allowing him to assert himself as a man and kill the spider.

Upon receiving my "yes, yo...(u may)" he was off. I've never seen a kid run SO fast!... until he tripped over the leg of a chair. I've never seen a kid fly so far. Or land so hard. On tile. He screamed, and being Clark, he screamed at me "I DIDN'T WANT THAT CHAIR THERE!" But the splat he made was enough that even with the scathing references to my horrible chair to running toward spider space planning, I went rushing to his side and scooped him up to comfort him. I sat there rocking him for a minute and while he was screaming "oh! It's still hurting! It's STILL HURTING!" I got a huge scary scenario in my mind of his leg being broken and having to throw everybody into the car and go to the ER.

Apparently, he had plenty going through his head too. He bolted up mid-scream-sentence, stood and wobbled for a second on the hurty leg and said "I gotta get the spider before he goes away! Wanna see how I squash him!?"

He squashed him. He showed me how one of spidy's legs even came off! He flushed him. And then he took me over and showed me how he "even didn't get any spider guts on the wall! So can I kill *all* the spiders, mom?!!!" Who needs Tylenol when you have a spider in need of death, eh? :)

And, I have to say, his spider killing skills are impressive! I didn't know shining armour came in his size... but there you have it! My cute little knight is ready to gallop off and rescue any spider-frightened damsels in distress. Just move your chairs before he gets there, please.