Waiting for Parts

We had a lovely morning of sprayground and playground fun with a playdate, then had to hightail it on home to see a man about a dryer--and having it fixed. As much as I had wished the squawking and louder-than-norm rumble away, the dryer did not magically fix itself. So the kiddies and I went home to wait for the guy to come. Between 1 and 5. I can't find a better way to say how much I despise the between this time and that time deal. It sucks.

Both sun-and-play-zapped kids conked out at 2. (Heath, for the first time in his entire three and a half years, napped in his own bed.) And I guess I did, too, ever-so-briefly, because next thing I knew, my cell phone was vibrating. It was 3:36. Dryer man had arrived.

It took him two minutes to tell me the following. Yes. That's an obnoxious noise, and it shouldn't be doing that. No. He can't fix it today. A part must be ordered. And no. He didn't know how much it was going to be. His guesstimate was somewhere between a lot and might as well buy a new one. When I furrowed my brow, he reeled his number line back in, and settled on something much more reasonable.

What isn't reasonable is having to wait for the part to come in. Could be three days. Maybe four. Then it starts to get into the 4th of July weekend, and well, they won't be open until Tuesday. I furrowed again. Should be here by Friday. Still. That's a lot of days with no dryer. Guess I'll just have to hang my clothes outside and let the 110 degree heat dry them.

The dryer fella was gone by 3:45. When the kiddies woke up at 4:15, I gathered them quickly and tossed them in the car. Heath needed a hair trim, and the less time he had to think about it, the better. In my haste to waste no time, I left some important items at home. Their shoes. More than halfway to the haircut place, there was no way I was going to turn back around to get them. And there was no way I was going to go another day with Heath peering out from under his hair, and occasionally complaining that it is bothering him (but refusing to get it cut).

So we went on. Shoeless. Worst case scenario: they don't let us get a haircut. I decided there was no way this was going to be happen, and it really wasn't worst case scenario anyway. Worst case scenario: People look at me and my children, and judge me and my children for being the goofball mom who took her kids out without shoes. I vaguely considered running into Target and buying them shoes, then decided that was really a goofball mom thing to do.

So we went on. Heath sat in the Jeep. Got his haircut. Without wearing shoes. Stella sat on a motorcycle (shycle, as she would say). No haircut. No shoes. Then we wandered around outside, threw some pennies into a fountain, made some wishes, and went home for dinner. Heath wished for Spider-Man powers. Stella probably wished she could eat the penny. And I wished to be a little less heavy-headed and hearted about the stuff that doesn't really matter.