Not Our Typical Saturday Night

Our weekends have been so fun and so busy that I never make time to write about them! We have had a date night weekend two weekends ago and then a busy and fun Fourth of July. Complete with days at the park, pool afternoons and a looong parade. I may post retroactively.

This weekend was busy too. The days just blur together.

Saturday we had rain, rain, rain! So we packed the kids up and went to a local fantastic museum. An old favorite: Please Touch Museum. It was a great time!

Then it was home for naps or in Seren's case "rest time".

Then it was time to make a pie, do errands, clean the house and get ready for dinner. I took the kids for a 45 minute sweaty TREK around our neighborhood before we went to our friends' home for dinner.

(Now that it has 'cooled off' to a cool 90 degrees, we are walking a lot more.)

We went to my friends' home for dinner. It was a disaster. My friend, her husband and her darling baby were gracious and welcoming. Our children were terrors! It was embarrassing. And awkward. And I felt horrible about the whole thing.

Seren was excited and didn't have her listening ears on. Wyeth was Wyeth. Part Mountain Goat and all. Climbing on furniture, etc. Ugh!! They were being kids. But still!

Sam and I talked about it after the kids were asleep. Next time we'll prep Seren better. Remind her what it is to be a guest in some one's house. To say please and thank you. To listen to the house rules, etc. We find when we prep her well, she is very good. Very responsive. When we don't? Disaster!

Same thing with stores. If we just go in without much limit setting, disaster. I have taken her out of a store to just regroup. And then she is fine.

Anyway, I left there feeling horrible about my parenting.

And then the car started to smoke.

Three weeks ago, I got the oil changed on Sam's car. He said that ever since then, there has been a slight oil smell when he starts the car.

As we were driving home, we smelled and saw smoke and a THICK oil smell. We stopped at a Wawa and popped the hood. I noticed that the oil cap has blown off. It is sitting right there but oil is all over the place.

In my haste to make the situation right, I touch the oil cap. It is hot and without thinking about it, I drop it.

It tumbles.

In slow motion.

Down.

Bounces in the engine once.

Twice.

Out of sight.

I have just dropped the damn oil cap into the engine.

Visual: 90 degrees. Sam and Megan sweating and cursing at the engine. Two kids around bed time strapped into their car seats. Crying and yelling that they want to get out.

Not good. Crap.

So we start hunting for the damn thing. I pull a long piece of bamboo from a near by woods and start fishing around in the engine. Which isn't smart. It IS kinda Swiss Family Robinson though, right?

I get Wyeth out of his seat and calm him down. I pull Seren out of her seat. I also go and ask the Wawa (gas station/food market) if they have a flashlight. The cashier without giving it a second thought says "no". The customer behind me says to her "You really don't? You aren't going to at least try to help them? Nothing back there?"

Nope.

Sigh. Back to the engine.

I called my friends to see if they could come and help me get the kids home while Sam would wait with the car. I leave a message for her. I call AAA too so that the process could start. Sam continues to look.

I ask another random Wawa staff member about a flashlight who says 'Sure! I have a flashlight'. Score! So now we have light but no oil cap.

A friendly man volunteers to go under our car to look for it. He can't find it. Then the helpful Wawa man helps too. Nothing.

A third guy drives up, sees two kids running around in the grass, two cursing, sweating parents and a guy under our car and offers to help. He has another flashlight and takes one look and yells out, "I see it!"

YES!

By then, my friend had arrived to help me get the kids home. Poor thing!

Sam gets his body under the car and with the help of a coat hanger, we were able to pull the damn cap out of the engine.

We place it back in the car. Cancel Triple A, say Thanks but no thanks to our friend who was there to rescue our children, profusely thank the three men that had helped us, strap our kids back into the car and go on home. They were sound asleep by 9 pm. Wyeth pointed to his crib when he saw it. As in, "Please, Mom. Just put me in there. It has been a long day."

Sam and I looked at each other at the end of the day Saturday and just laughed.

It could have been so much worse!