Wow, what a weekend. Hubster was gone all last week on a business trip, so I spent the week herding small children and trying not to pull out my hair. He got home so late on Friday night, he didn’t wake up until 10AM yesterday morning, by which time I had already been up 5 hours, recorded a podcast, showered, dressed, fed the kids, and taken them to karate tournament. Pixie got her first shot at getting on the mat, and did a few little kicks for the judges. It was just priceless to see her little dinky butt out there. For participating, she got a medal big enough to qualify her for gangsta rapper status. Meanwhile, Princess didn’t do too badly – she took 3rd place in her weapons kata – but she was distraught that she didn’t do better in other areas. I actually see this as a good sign. Kids who hate to lose work harder to win. Maybe now she’ll be inspired to put in some more practice time, especially if I start practicing with her. Yes, it will be some real mommy-daughter bonding time, where we’ll kick, punch, and karate chop our way to an even closer relationship than we already have 😉
So after karate, we all came home and found the Hubster up, moving and showered, at which point I handed off the kids to him and disappeared into the office for some work. When I emerged two hours later, he handed me a print-out saying we had tickets for an afternoon showing of Cirque du Soliel’s Alegria, and off we went! The show was the most bizarre, beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time, and I am now ruined, completely ruined I tell you, for all other circuses. Seriously, I will jump through flaming hoops like a trained tigress to see this circus again. Princess was captivated by the whole thing, and I told her that if she practiced, her karate could be that amazing too someday (yes, I know, I like to harp on a theme; we’ll see if it works). Pixie enjoyed the show too, and told me she wants to be the ringmaster for next Halloween, so does anybody have a small top hat I can borrow? For our part, Hubster and I loved the two clowns who pretty much stole the whole show. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard, watching the two of them fight over a paper airplane of all things. It was a lot like watching the girls squabble really, only without the knowledge that I didn’t have to get in there and break them up before they started WWIII and destroyed the house.
Speaking of destroying the house… After the circus, we came home. I went straight back to work, wading through the ever rising tide of e-mail I find myself dealing with these days. Hubster got the kids to bed, and when I was done working, we cuddled up for a little TV and then a little romance, and then we fell asleep…
And then we woke up to an ear-shattering blast of noise that I could not identify. Hubster could however. It was our fire alarm. I immediately jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes (remember, we had had an evening of romance) and raced to the kids’ room. I was already in there reassuring Princess and sniffing for smoke before Hubster even had his pajama bottoms on, which leads me to the conclusion that in the event of a disaster it will be ME who saves us all! Just kidding. But seriously, after 11 years in the Army Reserves and 4 years before that as a cadet, I’ve no doubt had way more practice at springing out of bed, throwing on my clothes, and rushing out the door while still asleep than he ever has. Our security company called right away to see if we were all right, and the fire department was dispatched. There was no smoke, no fire, no carbon monoxide or anything else wrong that we could determine, and the big burly firemen who arrived within a minute of being called determined that we had an old fire alarm that was clogged with dust and needed to be replaced. While Hubster and the firemen sorted that out, I took Princess downstairs to see the fire engine. Pixie slept through the whole uproar, in spite of being the one closest to the alarm when it went off. Go figure. When we finally said our good nights to the fire men, it was 4:30AM, 15 minutes before I was supposed to get up and work on the podcast. You just know I turned off the alarm and went back to bed instead.
So I slept in, and dreamed of the circus, and Hubster got up when the kids did, fed them, and drugged them with TV so he could come back to the bedroom, crawl under the covers and indulge in a little more amore. And now that he’s off to church with Princess, I’m sitting on the couch, finishing up my soft-boiled egg on toast, sipping coffee, reading the newspaper, and watching Pixie dance around the living room to the Alegria soundtrack while I blog about all the little mundane details of my life. I am very content to know today that there are still circuses out in the world that are truly amazing to behold, and I’m also very content to know that the fire department responds promptly to all calls for emergencies, but most of all I am content to know that my house didn’t burn down around my ears last night and that I can still sit on my couch and enjoy my coffee this morning while I blog about the whole thing.
And I think that’s enough contentment to last for a while, don’t you?
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, folks.
