Bouncy!

Last night went mostly according to plan.  After throwing together a super basic meal of chicken, rice and corn (that neither of my children would eat), we all headed out to The Ultimate Playzone to celebrate Melinda's birthday.  They're only open for family times on Monday nights, so it's not something we could do on her birthday.  But honestly, like she cares!!  Melinda and Jacob were beyond thrilled to spend about an hour and 15 minutes bouncing and climbing their hearts out.  And since myself, Jesse and Alex were all free, it only cost $14 for all of us to get in.  And there were only about 3 or 4 other families there, so not crowded at all!  It was a lot of fun.  For all of us.  Even Alex got to crawl around on some big ol' bouncy toys! 

Jesse asked, a couple minutes after we got in, if I brought the camera.  Sorry hon - I just don't feel like crawling and bouncing around with an expensive piece of technology strung about my neck.  So, there aren't any pictures.  But if you can imagine Melinda doing incredibly dangerous-looking half-flips off of inflatable plastic bouncy equipment, that's what you would have seen.  And Jacob's hair drenched in sweat.  And Alex laughing his head off at the bright colors and tricky crawling surface. 

Oh, and of course - the perfectly peaceful way that Melinda and Jacob both promptly fell asleep at 8pm.  Ahh, bliss.  Sure, that is worth $14 in and of itself.  Not that Alex would let the evening be completely perfect - he decided that he wanted to scream his head off every time I tried to set him down to sleep.  I gave up and let him play until Jesse and I went to bed much later.  He made up for it by sleeping from about 11:30am - 2:45pm today.  ;)

Melinda said to me this morning that the day after tomorrow is her birthday!  And she just can't wait for her birthday so her friends can come over to play!!  (*slaps head*)  I had to explain to her again that we're not having a friend birthday party this year.  But that we will have a holiday party.  Remember, Melinda?  The deal we made?  Part of which was going to the bouncy place last night?  I felt like I disappointed her all over again.  Oh, well.  Life goes on.

And P.S. - after about 2 full months of living in a 2nd floor apartment and dragging groceries up the stairs and through two different heavy doors, repeatedly, getting completely winded and struggling with the weight of bags, I've decided that the "American Dream" is simply to have a home with minimal obstacles from the car to the kitchen.  At least, I think that's my dream.