Whiney Crank

A few things irk me this evening:

1. One downer to the whole "Mommy" thing - stuffing the goody bag. We've not done much in the way of a birthday party in past years for Logan. He's had a friend or two over and we've had some pizza, some cakem some gifts. This year though we're having more than a friend or two over because we invited the kids in playgroup in the vicity of Logan's age with Mom's I can stand to spend time with. ;) This makes 5 kids in the 3 to 4 range, and a few smaller sibs including one 18 month old who will play with the 'big' kids. So we need 6 goody bags...plus one for birthday boy so make that 7.

Goody "bags" develop static cling. They are a pain in the ample butt to slip sheets of stickers into. And the handles stretch out if you hold onto them for too long. It gets hard to remember who already got a whistle and who needs bubbles. Saturday it'll be tough to figure out which of the bags had the pink playdoh in it. And honestly, someone is going to hate the flavor lollipop they got. And why can't I just be the lazy one that orders than pre-made?!

2. Nightmares in children - my son just yelled out. Its 11pm. Everyone but me is already asleep. He cried. He called for me. He's scared. Bad dream. He won't say what it was. He just wanted to be hugged and held. Poor kid. Back to sleep fast. Thankfully. He's a good, cooperative sleeper normally, so that's not a surprise. I just hate that his overactive imagination can haunt him at night sometimes.

3. Spiders - there was a big, giant, ugly, taunting spider playing with the Thomas layout moments ago. I can't ever bring myself to squish a bug I can't step on and leave in my wake. Its not that I care about the poor little bug, its that I hate thinking that I'll feel the squished up thing. Oh it grosses me out. Instead I go find my husband and I say "You're already going to hell for the last 3 dozen bugs you've offed on my behalf so no complaining about this one. There it is. Kill it!"

But he's asleep so its me and giant spider staring each other down. Ok I'm staring, he's playing with Lady the Golden Engine.

Of course to make matters worse, Logan is in a major "I hate bugs" phase. If his new giant multi-legged playmate is still hanging with Thomas and Friends in the morning we're going to have major screaming on our hands. I had to take action. I had no choice.

But squishing is out of the question, remember. So instead I litered.

Grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer. Placed the corner of it down in front of the spider's path and it walked up onto the sheet. Then I freaked out that the humongous thing was about to eat off my entire right arm, so I dropped the sheet of paper.

Picked it up again and decided that instead of letting the ugly monster climb on the paper, I'd just use the sheet to scoot it out the back door. I gently nudged it over and over until we got to the door, opened it quickly as the spider climbed again onto the paper. And I paniced - the whole arm eating thing again. I threw the paper out the back door, spider and all. And now I'm not too keen into walking out there and retrieving it. There is a chance my mortal enemy the Thomas loving big nasty thing is still clinging to the blank sheet. So I leave it there and in the morning as my husband and father venture out to set-up the infamous swing set (another example of the fine hunting and locating skills of men in my world) they will come find me and ask why I'm throwing perfectly good sheets of paper out the back door.

And when I tell them they are going to laugh at me. I'm not sure they're going to buy the whole arm eating premise.

Maybe I can distract them with the extra set of bubbles and mini-playdoh I have from the goody bag adventure.