Hang on folks, this is going to be a long one. It is story time:
Today was just one of those days. At least the pre-nap part of the day was.
It started out okay. I woke up just a little bit before the boys. Therefore, I had a bit of time to tinker around on the computer and relax a little before getting into the frenzy of the day. It is always nice to have that, although I could have used the extra sleep as well. I typically do not get much sleep during what I am increasingly calling, “The Transition”.
The Transition is a period of time that occurs once every two weeks in our family. Perhaps I have mentioned before, Chris works a ten hour overnight shift for seven days in a row, then has a whole seven days off in a row. More specifically, The Transition is the first couple of days when she is back at work. For me, it is the hardest part.
The reason that this transitional time period is so hard for me is as follows: I have my best friend next to me going to sleep and waking up with me for seven days in a row. Furthermore, I spend most of my daytime with that friend doing a lot of fun things with her (lets not forget to mention her two fun loving sons) and enjoying each other’s company. Then, all of a sudden, the only best friend I have to sleep with (who also happens to be ‘Man’s Best Friend’) has claws, fur, and some pretty horrid breath. I am now restricted to a few measly hours to spend with my human best friend for the next seven days in a row. It is quite a shock to the system, so I get very little sleep. I think, given time, I will get used to it, but I am not there quite yet.
Back to the initial point, I was on very little sleep, yet the day started out pretty well. I started to get the boys ready for the day. At the same time, I saw Chris for a brief period while she was coming home from work and getting ready for her slumber. I played with the kids inside, then we migrated out to the backyard for awhile where I decided that brats on the grill sounded like a good idea for lunch. Jupiter agreed, and Tsunami has not leveled up to the proper social skills to get a vote yet, so it is decided that I will grill brats.
At any rate, the day was not off to a bad start.
I went to the grill to preheat it for the brats, and, to my surprise, I was out of propane. I had been grilling out a lot since the oven coupled with the dryer being in our kitchen is a recipe for unbearable heat in the house, so I really should not have been too surprised. Nevertheless, I was, and now had an additional task of going out to get propane before lunch could be made.
It did not seem like much of a task from the start. I figured I would just have to take a five minute trip to Walgreens to use the Blue Rhino exchange program. I always saw the Blue Rhino sitting outside every Walgreens and had assumed that every store participated. My assumption was far off, because I ended up going to two Walgreens which did not have Blue Rhino. The second one tried to get me to go to a third store, but at this point was tired of going to Walgreens’s only to be disappointed.
Now, it is typical of me to consult the internet before venturing out to acquire a good or service that I had not before in any particular geographic location. However, today it took the trouble of me manually being disappointed by two Walgreens and a BP gas station before I thought to use the web browser in my pocket to its fullest capacity. I blame, without certainty, the lack of sleep. Although, it could have been any variety of factors that put me out of character today.
After consulting the closest thing to an all powerful and knowing force that this atheist has access to, I found that an Ace Hardware near my house filled propane bottles. As I was already at least an hour into looking for propane, I was starting to regret skipping Pickles Wednesday (a deli in Central West End that we frequent on Wednesdays) so that the boys could get a better chance at catching up on sleep. So off to Ace we went.
I cannot really find anything bad to say about Ace Hardware. They usually have anything I can expect from a hardware store and more. In the event they do not, they can always accurately direct me to a place that I can get what I need, but even that is rarely necessary. I think that perhaps Ace is still run like a small family business instead of a large faceless corporation, and that is why, as they say, “Ace is the Place”. I really have no knowledge of Ace’s history, but you can always tell the difference between a business driven by human interest as opposed to the primary interest of profit. Walgreens used to be a store like that.
We went in to pay for the propane fill before going over to the propane station on the outside of the store. In line with the kind of day it was turning into, Jupiter, who is always excited to go to Ace because of the free popcorn that is always at the front door, spilled his popcorn all over the parking lot. This, understandably, upset him greatly. I know, if I were three years old and had just gotten all excited about my favorite free helping of popcorn and spilled it all out, I would be upset as well.
It was at this point that I asked Jupiter if his story pick for today’s nap would be Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. He agreed that some days were like that, but would later forget our intention to read it in exchange for one of his many Curious George books.
Seeing as time was getting short and the boys were getting tired, instead of doing what a father-of-the-year would do, and go get more popcorn, I told him that we would replace the popcorn sized hole in his stomach with some of the popcorn that his mother had bought from a co-worker and brought home earlier in the morning.
I had thought that I had heard the person, who sold the propane to me, say that I had to drive down a lot to get to the propane station. Well today, they were stacking some mulch and had the driving lot I was supposed to take blocked off by some lifting equipment. To make a longish story shorter, I ended up circling the block and then driving down a couple of blocks (where we discovered a, previously unknown about, playground) all to end up parking back where we started.
The propane guy happily apologized for my unnecessary joyride, which was none of his fault, mostly circumstantial, and my fault if anything. Then carried my propane tank from my car, to the station, filled it, and put it back in my hatchback without me having to get out of the driver’s seat at all.
Finally we were at home with a full tank of propane and a grill with brats on it. Things were starting to look up. I ventured out in the backyard with Jupiter to see if any mulberries were ripe for a side. Unfortunately, there were no ripe mulberries. Luckily we still had popcorn for a side.
In the meantime I had left the brats on the grill for quite a while. It was high time I took them off.
By the time I got to the grill, a couple of the brats were on fire, one had exploded, and the rest were definitely done. As it turned out, I did not do too bad of a job on the brats as all three of us agreed they were delicious.
Finally, we did get to nap time and, by then, everyone was exhausted. This was good because after two days of fighting naps and thus eliminating any chance to get to the pool before it closed, Jupiter would finally get the opportunity to check out the Kirkwood Aquatic Center.
The Kirkwood Aquatic Center is a very nice pool located in Kirkwood park not far from us. Chris was even awake to help us discover it. But the details of the pool shall have to wait for a later post because this one has already gotten long winded, today has turned into yesterday, and I should get some of that aforementioned sleep that I sparingly get. I can assure that it was a refreshing experience and not the worst way to spend the few moments of time we have with Chris before she is off to the job.
In conclusion, I think today was a day for the books. Not because it was way too frustrating, which it was. But, despite its ups and downs, it was another day that I got to spend time with the most important people in my life and watch the little ones develop. It all makes me feel lucky to be me.
At home it is a good idea to make sure children feel involved too. I know that when I do this correctly, everyone tends to be much happier. Most days I ask Jupiter where he wants to go. And if I am making plans independently because a festival, playgroup, or some other event opportunity comes up, I try to make sure to ask him if it sounds like something he would like to do before making the plan.
It turned out to be a great idea. We took turns with watching kids and going on rides that Tsunami and their littlest were too young to ride. Chris and I even took the chance to get one rollercoaster’s worth of alone time while we rode the 
It was a Sunday so the park was not too busy. Most lines were less than fifteen minutes to get on. By mid afternoon, however, a storm was starting to roll in so those of us in line for the 
