Mother Of The Year!

Mr. C and I just returned from our trip to my parents' house.  It's a 6 hour drive, which sucks, though it could be a lot worse: I actually quite enjoy the drive in the fall.  Look at all these pretty colors!

oooh!

ahhh!

We even saw rainbows on our drive.

While at my parents', we enjoyed such activities as

1) mushroom hunting

Mr. C found a mushroom!! (Yours Truly did not)

 2) attending a pumpkin farm, complete with many activities

(Yours Truly making an Idiot Of Herself on the barrel rides as her son risks his neck in the background)

and

3) picking up the dog poop in the yard

 

 

Mr. C was THRILLED about this!

We drove home a week later.  I must say, despite the lovely scenery,

lovely!

that I never enjoy the drive home as much.  We cross time zones, putting us an hour ahead on the way home; so I always feel like I get home really late, even though I left really early. 

Also, the town that we consider the 'halfway point' between my parents' house and my house is about 20 miles closer to their house; this means that, after three hours of driving, I still have three hours and twenty minutes left between the halfway point and my home.  I'm not even halfway home, and I reaallly am getting antsy by that point.

I always stop for a consolation-prize-milkshake at the 'halfway point' to make me feel better about the three hours (and twenty minutes) left in the car.  Usually Mr. C and I patronize Dairy Queen, since Bee isn't around to be horrified.  This time, however, I chose McDonald's, having some vague idea that I'd Be Good and just get a few french fries instead of several hundred calories of melted ice cream.  But somehow I ended up with two orders of french fries and two ice cream cones . . . most of which I ate on my own while Mr. C played on the play gym.

Oddly-enough, as I waddled back to the car, my 'consolation prize' didn't feel very consoling.

Thirty minutes outside our home, Mr. C announced he was hungry and wanted pizza.  Bee is gone this week, so I'm in charge (gulp) of cooking.  I wanted to provide my child with something a little healthier than a carb-filled dinner of pizza. 

So we stopped at Wendy's.

sooo much healthier!

For lunch today, we had popcorn and sodas at the second-run theater as we watched (most of, before Mr. C got bored) ParaNorman.  Then we picked up dinner:

hey, at least I got mushrooms as one of the toppings

Sadly-enough, Mr. C claimed he didn't even want pizza.  I just kind of forced us to get it because this is our only chance this week to do so.

You've got to give me credit, though, for the way I re-warmed our nutritious dinner:

OK, so I may be failing as a good mother.  I did, at least try to redeem myself in other ways.  For instance, I swept our kitchen.  Apparently, this had not been done the entire time I was gone:

Bee, I know you were busy last week . . . but . . . really?

Also, I picked up paint for the Paint 'N Swirl we just inherited from my sister's childhood and that had been stored, since the early 90's, at my parents' house.  Mr. C has been having fun with it allll evening.

I am proud to report that he only ruined one shirt and dropped a picture on the floor (face-down, of course) one time.

And do you see how environmentally-friendly I am?  All that artwork is done on old recipe cards from my grandma: recycled AND preserving history!

Yes, Mom was hoping I'd find some of Grandma's recipes useful . . . she just wasn't counting on them being useful in that way.  (But, really, how many Jello salad recipes does a modern housewife need?)

Alright, so I'm still kind of failing as a mother.  But tomorrow will be better!  We are going to a Halloween party in the morning, which ought to be very enriching.  And, in the evening, the Four Families are getting together for the ex-father-in-law-by-marriage's birthday.  Dee is making homemade manicotti.  You know that's going to be good.

I promised to try to bake some French bread.  Never done that before.  Hopefully I won't ruin the party with it.

I'll post pictures after dinner tomorrow . . .