You know your day is going to suck when you have to go drop off your car at the body shop, and your silly toddler falls asleep on the way, even though it's only 9am. You get there and take her out and go into the office to hand them the keys and sign the papers, then you realize that you're going to have to take the carseats out of your car and put them in the rental car WHILE holding your sleeping toddler. The rental-car-guy is not allowed to help you put the carseats in for liability reasons, and even if he was, he doesn't know how.
God smiled on me, though, and Lily let me lay her down in the front seat of the car while I installed her seat and Jack's booster. She even stayed asleep when I picked her up from the seat and put her in her carseat and buckled her in. Dude drove us to the rental place, and except for lying to me he was super nice :P He said I wasn't covered by my insurance when I was in the rental car, so I needed to purchase the loss damage waiver for "only" $12/day. When I got home (with a very crabby awake Lily) I called the insurance to ask them, and they said I was lied to and I needed to call them back and see what they could do. I did (with screaming Lily clinging to my ankles), and they said I'd need to come back in to sign papers again! So I got a picnic ready to go, and printed out a map to the place, and got in the car.
The address they gave me was right in the middle of the Stanford campus. There is no rental car office in the middle of the Stanford campus, yo. I didn't have their phone number to call them, and I was getting pretty hungry, so I went ahead and drove to our picnic spot. (Both kids were now asleep in the car.)
Got lost, of course. Oh well, gave the kids a longer nap. Got to the spot: The Stanford Dish. Got out, wrapped on the sleeping Lily, discovered that since it's a coyote-infested area, they don't allow picnicing. Oh well, we passed a good picnic spot a couple of blocks uphill, so there we trekked. Sat down and enjoyed a nice lunch: salad of Swiss Chard (locally grown, organic, purchased at a little farmstand on the way home from the beach!), strawberries and pluots (also from the farmstand), and peanut butter and honey sandwich. Lily woke up and ate strawberry and bread. I felt much better as I felt my blood sugar rise :D
Packed up our picnic things and went back to The Dish. It was quite sunny, and had a lovely smell just like every wild place around here. I got out our sunscreen and sprayed it on myself and Lily; Jack didn't want any part of it, so I told him he ran the risk of getting a sunburn if he didn't wear it. He said he wanted to go home, and I told him that wasn't an option and started hiking away. He followed me, whining and fussing, and eventually said he would put on the sunscreen so he wouldn't burn. I put it on him as lovingly and sweetly as I could, and he liked it, and that was that!
We hiked up the hills slowly but surely, and had a lovely view of the bay. I took lots of pics! Jack was tired and wanted to turn back, and I almost let him, but then he started running to go investigate something and I knew he had enough energy go to uphill some more. So I encouraged him to keep going up with me, and he did. Lily alternated between wanting to investigate the grass and wanting me to carry her; I could tell she was still tired, but I didn't think she'd get too cranky since we were outside and she LOVES the outdoors. Had a really sweet moment when Lily asked Jack to pick her up; I got a pic, but pictures just don't capture moments like that :D
Plopped Lily down in the grass at the very top of the hill so I could take some pictures; she had SO MUCH FUN playing with that particular patch of grass that she threw a screaming fit when I picked her back up to start back down the hill. I kept thinking she would stop screaming, but she didn't. She threw herself around in my arms, so I put her down, but the damage was done; the tantrum continued on the ground, so I picked her back up and continued down the hill. Poor kid, she was screaming so much I was starting to worry someone would think I was abducting her (there were plenty of joggers out there); I was running through ways to prove she was my daughter in my mind (doesn't she look just like me? Here, my 4-year-old can vouch for me! in fact, doesn't she look just like him, too, and doesn't he look like me? I can tell you the locations of all her weird freckles!). Finally we happened upon a patch of shade so I plopped down and nursed her. I thought that would fix her, but then she started throwing a fit b/c I wouldn't let her pull my shirt up to expose me to the passing joggers. So up we got and continued back down the hill, with her still screaming. I was amazed how much work it was to go downhill; I would have thought it would be easier than going up, but it was definitely harder. I turned around and went backwards for a while for a break! (If I got that much exercise going up and down those hills as slowly as I did today, imagine the beating I would take if I got a double stroller and carted my kids up and down those hills. Am I a masochist for wanting to do that every week?)
Lily stopped screaming right before we got to the car, and giggled and babbled in the car the whole way home. Go figure.
Had a decent evening. I asked Tim if he could come home early so we could get family home evening out of the way and get Lily to bed; he came home pretty quickly, but we didn't actually get started on our evening until after 7. Then Jack had a really hard time settling down and being reverent for family home evening. I was ready to just call it off and send him to bed, but Tim persevered and we had a good time eventually.
So, I never did get to the stupid rental car office to sign for them to take the ldw off my account. Yay for throwing $12 down the drain.
Trying to pick a couple of photos to share, I want to share them all, so yall get a Picasa Web Album.
Actually sounds like a pretty good day with just a few annoying things thrown in. Keep exploring. :)
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