Wind and rain...

It is very hard for me to get out of bed on a dreary day (that is why I actually hesitated to leave sunny SoCal for a split second). But the good news is Benny is just like me! It was rainy and dark out this morning and Ben slept until 7:30!! I just may be looking forward to a dreary winter. Maybe?

On a dreary CA day, we would head to the Topanga mall and play in the indoor play area and ride the carousel. Not here. The malls don't have play areas, BUT a McDonald's about 10 minutes away does! We had already eaten lunch, so I got myself a $1.00 caramel sundae and the kids played away. SWEET! And it was much cheaper (i.e. FREE) and more kid manageable than the giant indoor "Fun for All" facility that I took Benny to last week. The only problem was when we were done (i.e. BEN was exhausted), Emma refused to come down out of the top tubes. I had to threaten her to within inches of her life and denials of never watching Thomas the Tank Engine again to get her to come down. When she finally did come out, she had had a mini accident, so I was double furious with her. I steered her towards the bathroom angrily, then spooned the last bite of the sundae into my mouth. The sweet caramel and fake ice cream soon soothed my soul and we just may go back there again on a rainy day to play.

We stopped at Target on our ride home and started an instore wishlist - kind of like a bridal registry, but for the kids for Christmas. It was fun walking around with my fancy red wand scanning things for "other people" to buy my children, now I just need to figure out how to send the list to Santa Claus. Speaking of which, I need to start threatening "you'd better watch out, you'd better not cry, you'd better not shout I'm telling you why..." so I can have a less whiny Autumn around here...

Living in the desert for 12 years I learned water conservation pretty quick. I am a fan of the "if it's yellow let it mellow" slogan, unless you are in a public bathroom, then flush flush flush, please. Emma has been fine with that until recently (basically since she started school). She is now flush obsessed. Actual conversation today, "Mama, that's your pee pee in there." Yes, I know. Please go potty and then we will flush it. "NO! We gotta flush first!" She flushes and the water swirls around. I try to lift her onto the seat and she screams, "NOT YET! YOU GOTTA WAIT FOR THE SMOKE TO GO DOWN." (huh? meaning you have to wait for the tank to refill and the water to stop running.) Sheesh!