every day is a celebration

This is R2's first week out of school, and I've been dreading it, because he doesn't care for the family dynamic so much. In fact, if we would have given him a significant vote, the outcome on siblings might have been entirely different. So I was worried about him being pretty surly and unhappy, especially since both tiny TV/VCR sets recently died from exhaustion and toddler abuse.

To our surprise, he has been pretty happy, even participating in outdoor activities to some extent. That primarily includes sitting on the ground outside the kiddie pool, flinching and getting splashed and finding random things to throw in there and push around, and then getting splashed some more.

Today I took all 3 to Target to buy a smoke detector, so we can be fit parents to a 4th child. I rarely go anywhere with all of them these days, as I have grown weak and they very very strong. We were a pretty jovial bunch, munching on a giant pretzel and commenting enthusiastically on everything as I tried on swimsuits (you gotta do what you gotta do) and requesting pet food and rain boots, whatever.

Since we were there to buy a smoke detector, we also picked up a pair of flip-flops (toby) and a swimsuit (me) and some chips and 3 American flag pinwheels.

They then celebrated through the entire store, a patriotic menace to society with spinning pinwheels held aloft as I pushed the cart at a moderate pace, them cheering every time someone got a good spin going. I personally got patriotically whacked in the head at least 3 times, but I took it. For America.

R2 was pretty stoked about the pinwheels, and I had to keep reconnecting him to the basket since he would just stop mid-aisle and jump wildly. Then we drove home with the windows open, with 2 out of 3 shrieking with total abandon and LOUDLY correcting me for stopping at red lights and yielding, at all. I had a mental picture as I pushed it past 75 a couple times, just out of respect to the volume, of myself explaining to the hypothetical officer, "There's pinwheels, see? Um..."

It's gonna be a good summer.