Natalie & Ryan: That Escalated Quickly

So, I woke up yesterday in a bad mood. I was about to embark on another Saturday of doing nothing. Sometimes I just REALLY hate the weekends because, where they're a break from reality for others, they're just two more days that I STILL have to clean, cook, not go out and do anything fun, and be at the beck and call of everyone in the house. The mundane, never-changing routine makes me feel in a rut, and really depresses me.

So I got up, did my normal routine of running around the house, cleaning up messes that had somehow already been made, then went and sat on the couch, fully intending that to be the annoying highlight of my day.

Then Ryan tells me that my mom wants me to go hang out with her. By that point, I was so bummed out, putting on pants and makeup was definitely asking way too much. I flat out said no. He insisted, but I insisted right on back. So, he ran upstairs and got some clothes and makeup, and proceeded to try and dress me while I intentionally refused to move from my spot on the couch, and attempted to make his attempt at getting me dressed super hard. I went limp like a dead body, but apparently Ryan was a great mortician in another life. He somehow wrangled on my pants, modeled my bra for me before putting it on me, and then forced a shirt over my head. I imagine the difficulty ranked up there with dressing two wiggly twins...which is probably why he succeeded. Next came makeup. I told him I still didn't want to go, so he got Lilly in on the fun. He gave her my makeup bag, and her face lit up with joy as she realized she had full reign on mommy's face. I already looked terrible, so she couldn't do much harm. She kept telling me I was "so pretty", so that made me feel better. Once I realized I wasn't getting out of this forced bonding with my mother, I cleaned off my face, despite how gorgeous Lilly made me, redid my makeup, and huffed my way out the door with the kids. Doesn't it seem like Ryan got the good part of this deal?? An empty, quiet house?

Mom and I ended up settling on the mall as our destination for whatever adventures were going to happen. On the drive out, I had an epiphany! I would get the girls' ears pierced, just to tick Ryan off. There's no way he'd force me out of the house like this again! But then he agreed and sucked the fun out of my plan.

We got to the mall and mom entertained my very patient kids while I had a bunch of custom vinyls made. I'll show those off tomorrow (rather, later today, since I'm writing this at 2 AM, since I can't sleep). If I was going to be at the mall, I was going to at least get ONE errand off my to-do list. And then it was time...

Even after explaining to Lilly that she was going to get poked, she was fully on board and totally excited. We decided to make her go first, because we thought seeing Ellie go first might chicken her out. After swallowing the enormous, unexpected price of this whole experience (MINIMUM $30 per girl), we got 'er done! Lilly handled the first poke well, but hated the second. Two suckers and some mommy cuddles made her world right again. My mom volunteered to be the one to hold Ellie while she got tortured, err, pierced. Poor thing had no idea what was coming, and was so adorable up until the pokes. Pediatric nurses and baby piercers really do have the worst jobs. Stabbing happy babies for a living!

Part of the piercing deal was a $5 stuffed animal with each piercing, so grandma got each of the girls a little something to remember this horrible experience by. Good grandma! Lilly got a colorful unicorn, who she named "Sparkles," which was fitting considering the occasion. And Lilly picked a pink kitty for Ellie, and even named her "Cubby" for her. All the while, Link sat in the stroller praying he wasn't next! I'm pretty sure we pierced the right twin!! After all the stress, all around, caused by this ordeal, we stopped at Mrs. Field's Cookies on our way out to calm everyone's nerves. Oh, and by the way, once everyone calmed down, the piercings looked really cute! Sorry to Ryan's family; I know you guys weren't the biggest fans of this happening.

On our way home, Ryan asked me to grab dinner and the biggest Dr. Pepper I could find. I stopped at his favorite gas station and grabbed him a 62 ouncer and kept one hand on it the whole drive home, since it was sitting precariously in the cup holder and was making me nervous. As it was raining by this point, I made the seemingly harmless move to turn on my wipers, and that's when Ryan's soda jumped to its death. 62 freaking ounces of Dr. Pepper ALL OVER MY CAR!! Looking on the bright side, it narrowly missed the bag of vinyls that I just had made at the mall. I didn't know what upset me more, the mess, or the prospect of a really let-down Ryan if I went home with nothing. So I turned around and went to a different, closer gas station and got the biggest size they had...a measly 54 ounces. Ha! I successfully made it home, we got everyone out of the car, I whipped out the carpet cleaner and cleaned the floor of my car, and then we all headed upstairs for what should have been a relaxing night of eating dinner in bed, sans babies, while watching the ND football game. But, as if cursed from the Dr. Pepper gods, the second we got upstairs, Ryan's new, enormous cup of carbonated prune juice spilled ALL OVER the carpet. It's like this drink was not meant to be. Poor Ryan had like three sips left. I lugged the carpet cleaner upstairs and began to suck up all 54 ounces. Thank goodness Dr. Pepper comes out of carpet easily. And, again, trying to stay on the bright side, at least it wasn't bright red Koolaid!

What should have been a relaxing night just wasn't. Lilly was cranky and whiny, we had to keep pausing the game to meet the demands of the kids, the game itself wasn't going so great, Carter and his dad came over to use our printer, and the toy room was very loudly destroyed, but thankfully didn't wake any babies. We couldn't put Lilly to bed fast enough, in hopes of salvaging our evening. But by then, we were both so stressed out and frazzled, we couldn't even watch the game (even though we won), or any TV for that matter, and instead sat in companionable silence while I unwound on Pinterest and Ryan played video games on his laptop. But here I am, up at 2, so apparently I didn't de-stress well enough. Here's to a better tomorrow!!