Date Night

Can I just tell you how strange and incredible it is for kids to be old enough to leave home by themselves?  We don't venture far, aren't gone too long, and insist on phones being carried in their pockets at all times, but it's so nice.  :)

Tonight was date night.  Our kids love it because it usually means they can consume as much ice cream and watch as much tv as they want.  They always encourage us to leave and have fun and stay out as long as we want.  Well tonight we gave them a project to work on.  They've been building a loft bed of our oldest and it's ready to be primed.  So after giving them instructions and watching to make sure they're doing it right, we're off.  I feel a little more secure tonight because we're watching our favorite dog while her owners are out of town.  Yay!  (I love dogs.)

After dinner, we decide to walk around and only Target is open for wandering around at the late hour of 7:30 (ha ha, smaller town here).  While walking around the cameras, I remember a conversation with my father in law and wonder what a SLR (?) camera is.  Well there's this kid that works there that is more than happy to tell us all about the cameras.  During his spill, he starts talking about 35 mm cameras.  He stops - pauses - and looks at us, "You do remember those old 35 mm cameras, right?  I mean, I know I had to go to the antique store to find mine ..."

Finally we end up back at home.  Walk into the house and yup, the kids are stuck to the screen watching their favorite show.  But check this out, they're already showered and in their pj's and everything.  I'm impressed!  And then I walk into the next room and the dog comes to greet me.  With little chunks of paint stuck in her fur.  Great.  The dog wasn't suppose to go in the garage near the paint.  Let's go see the damage. 

My husband starts laughing at the paint job.  There are wonderful areas!  Then there are not so wonderful areas.  Literally, there will be a spot that is completely missed but right underneath it is a big dripping section and it makes you wonder where the drips came from.  Ya.

Then, inside the house, are little doggie footprints of paint.  Until the paint wore off anyway.  Sigh.  He goes to work fixing the paint, I go to work scrubbing the paint off of the floor and everywhere else I find it. 

While I'm scrubbing, my son tells me, "Hey mom!  This is for you!"  He pushes play on the computer and I hear a commercial start playing, "While most wrinkle creams fade away but your wrinkles don't ..."  My son is sincere enough that I believe him when he says that isn't what he wanted to show me.  (Or do I just want to?)

When I'm almost finished, I ask the kids if they know what we're doing.  When I start to tell them, they start to laugh.  They think the painted dog prints are funny.  They think the paint on the door is hilarious.  When I tell them about the paint on my new washer & dryer, they both suck in their breaths and a look of terror comes across their faces.  They know this isn't good.  (Which I think is funny that that's what got their attention.)

So it's all clean now.  The floor.  The door.  The washer & dryer.  All the doggie footprints.  I guess the bottom line is that while I'm glad they can watch themselves for a few hours, I'm glad they still need us around.  :)