Busy times

Today was a crazy busy day for us. Normally, I only plan to be out of the house for half of a day, and we come home exhausted, feeling always like we were out just a little too long. Today, however, was kind of out of my hands. Every Tuesday morning we go to Women's Bible Study on post, and today also just happened to be the time that I could get an afternoon appointment with the passport office to apply for Billy's passport and Record of Birth Abroad (which will serve as his American birth certificate for the rest of his life. You know. Just slightly important stuff.)

Last night, as I always do before a Going Out day, I packed breakfast for the children and I (cereal in little containers, granola bars, apples) and water for all of us, restocked the diaper bag, packed my knitting, and gathered the garbage. I also wrapped up these cookies on a disposable plate, which Sparky and I had made in the afternoon, since it was my small group's turn to bring "breakfast".


This is, of course, from Baking: From my home to yours, and with a great raspberry jam in the middle (organic, apple juice sweetened with no added sugar), it was The Perfect Cookie. Looks like a healthy breakfast, yes? :) Haha.

This morning, after getting the children dressed, I started my 18 trips down the stairs to bring out garbage, bags, etc. out to the van. As I attempted to open the back of the vehicle, I realized that my van was dead. There was no power, and unfortunately, almost everything is automatic, including the latch for the back door. Suck.

I attempted to turn on the ignition, but there wasn't even a sound. At all. I went back up, and knocked on first one of my neighbor's doors, then the other. It was almost 9am by now on a weekday -- surely someone would be awake! No answer. My children, hearing me knocking on neighbor doors, decided it would be wildly fun to start knocking like mad on the inside of our door, making Super Fun Echos! that rattled the inside of my head.

At this point, the second neighbor finally came to the door, and when I explained what the trouble was, she helpfully woke up the third neighbor (who is a mechanic, and who parks next to me), who dragged himself out of bed, and then very sweetly jumped my car. I felt like a schmuck, but what was there to do?

Once we finally got to Bible Study, we were about 10 minutes late -- not bad for such a rocky start.

After Bible Study was over, I asked around to see who wanted to meet me for lunch, and two of the ladies agreed to meet the children and I at the food court. Of course my kids ate about three chips each at Taco Bell, then ran off to "play" the video games.

At 1:30 I put them in childcare, then Billy and I ran to the bank to pick up a money order for his passport, and at 2:30 arrived at the passport place to apply.

Once we got finished there, we did our usual rounds of post office and commissary, with a visit to the PX and Power Zone as well to get a few little things (the batteries in our remote died, etc.)

Why am I telling you all of this? Because it amazes me that I can spend 4 solid hours away from the children (except for Billy), and still have not a moment of down time. I did not knit one stitch, and in all of the running around, stopped to nurse Billy at least twice. It's amazing how busy children make everything. I'm certainly not bored.

A fun little afterword: I've just received an email that says I need to go back in to the passport office before Friday morning (when they'll be mailing out the application), because they're missing one signature. WTF, man?