Monkey Joe and other tales

We are getting ready to leave for Knoxville in a little while to visit Gran and Grandaddy, Kerry, and Kate, but before we go, there are a couple of stories worth telling.

Thursday, I took the kids to the new Monkey Joe's at Northlake. It is a great facility. It has at least 7 of the big inflatable jumpers, arcade games, a parents' area with comfy chairs and a big TV (I don't know when you get to sit there, but it looked nice), etc. I was a little frustrated at first because, of course, once the kids found the arcade games, they didn't want to jump, they wanted money for the arcade games. I was not about to feed money into arcade games after I paid $14 to get us into the place, so I said no. This did not deter them, though. They "played" those dern games anyway. Oh, well. They were having fun, so I had to tell myself to just chill. They did go through periods when they would jump, and they had a ball doing that too. The only problem was that one of the big jumpy things had a giant inflatable Monkey Joe on the front of it. It was probably 15 feet high. Pressley was terrified of it and refused to go into the section that allowed her to see it. Every time I would carry her over there to watch Evan climb or jump, her eyes got huge and then she started screaming, "NO that! NO that, mommy!" So, I resolved not to take her over there. Then, much to Evan's delight, one of the employees got into the Monkey Joe costume and came out to slide down the slide and visit with the kids. Pressley was more terrified of costumed Monkey Joe than inflatable Monkey Joe. We had to go to the snack area and sit at a picnic table where we could not see him so I could try to talk her off the ledge. She kept looking over her shoulder toward where Joe had last been seen to make sure he was staying put, all the while desperately clutching at my shirt. Poor thing. I tried to explain to her that it was just a boy or girl in a costume and nothing to be scared of, but she would not be consoled. Cut to later that night when I was putting her to bed: Pressley has been difficult to put to bed ever since she learned to climb out of the crib and Thursday night was no different. One of the times I went upstairs to put her back in bed, I got her all tucked in under her blankets and she looked at me with those big bright eyes and said in a loud whisper, "Where's costume, mommy?" I assured her that it was in a closet in a locked room and that the person who had worn it was at his or her house watching TV and that Monkey Joe would certainly not be making any more appearances today. The conversation had to be repeated one more time a few minutes later, but finally she fell asleep, no doubt to dream about giant purple monkeys coming to get her. Bless her heart....

Evan has been super sweet this week. For one thing, during the whole Monkey Joe's outing, the two of them were playing together in one of the jumpers and I was sitting nearby when I heard Pressley's signature shriek. I jumped up to see what on earth was the matter and I found Evan leaning over her talking to her and then he planted a big kiss on the boo-boo on her arm she was pointing at and then took her hand and off they went to play together again. It was priceless! Then, yesterday morning, I woke to hear Evan rustling around in his room. I could tell he was getting himself dressed, so I stayed put and let him do it. In a few minutes, he appeared beside the bed to insist that I get up. I looked down at him and noticed that he had on his soccer uniform. So cute. He had been asking all week about when it would be time to play soccer again. Apparently, he knew when he woke up that it was Friday and Friday was soccer day, so he got all ready. I had to talk him out of wearing his uniform to school by convincing him it might get dirty. He eventually agreed to wear his Buzz Lightyear shirt to school instead, but it took some doin'.

As for me, I've started working again this week, which may explain why it has taken me so long to post an update. I am doing a project for Counsel on Call for 20 hours a week from home. It is a pretty good gig. My mom has graciously agreed to pick the kids up from school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and keep them until 5:30 so I can have two full days to get in most of my hours in on those days, and I'll try to get the rest in during naps or after bed-time. This week worked pretty well even though mom and dad were out of town Tuesday through Thursday so we had to re-work the schedule a bit this week.