In Which Things Don't Go Exactly As Planned, But We Still Have A Great Day

We had a very busy day today!

I had a rather crazy morning, though I thought I'd given myself plenty of time to get everything accomplished that I needed to before it was time to leave for our morning play date.  My plan was to get up, set the bread dough I had in the fridge out to return to room temperature, reassemble Connor's wheelchair (I took all the padding off yesterday and washed it), put the bread in the oven, shower, get the little guy up and ready to go, retrieve my bread from the oven and then be out of the house no later than a quarter after nine.

It didn't quite work out that way.

It started out okay; I put the bread dough on the counter to warm and turned the oven on to preheat.  So far so good.  Then when I went to put together Connor's wheelchair I realized that it had been long enough since I'd washed the padding (the wheelchair doubles as Connor's car seat, so I can only wash it if we aren't planning on going anywhere for an entire day) that I wasn't sure how to put it and all of the straps and harnesses back on.  Of course all of the instructions in the manuals I have are in German, and the online instruction manuals only dealt with later models.  The quick twenty minutes I thought it would take me to stick the thing back together quickly stretched into forty-five.  I got everything but the shoulder harness back on and took a quick break to put the bread in the oven as I was getting out of the muttering-under-my-breath stage and rapidly moving into the throw-things-around-the-room-and-yell stage of frustration with the darn thing.

Apparently no one told the weather I was planning on making bread, because it was wet and nasty outside.  My house, which is normally warm and pleasant in the mornings, was instead downright chilly.  So my bread dough wasn't particularly interested in coming to room temperature, and I couldn't wait any longer because I had a schedule and I needed the bread for a lunch get-together.  Into the oven went my heavy, not-really-risen baguette.  I went back to Connor's chair.

After finally realizing I was trying to put the shoulder harness on upside down, I managed to get the wheelchair completely reassembled.  It was a quarter after nine, and I still had yet to shower or get Connor (who did sleep in until nine or so but by now was more than ready to get up) ready to go.  I took the bread-- which was so dense and hard it could probably be used as a weapon--out of the oven, wrapped it in a towel and shoved it in the bottom basket of Connor's wheelchair.  After the fastest shower of my life, I threw Connor into some clothes, crammed some breakfast in him, plopped him down into his chair and then spent another precious ten minutes readjusting all of his straps.  We were out the door at 9:40 and pulled into the Children's Museum of Tacoma (where we were meeting some friends for a play date) just in time.

After the morning's excitement, the rest of the day was fantastic!

Connor absolutely had a blast at the children's museum.  It's been free for military families to go all summer, but somehow with one thing or another we never got around to it, and I'm so sorry we didn't!  We stayed about an hour and a half, which was the perfect amount of time for him as he was just starting to get overwhelmed when we left.  Connor had a great time watching and interacting with all the other kids, and I had a great time interacting with their moms!  Though to be honest with you I'm not sure how it would be possible to not have a great time at that place-- even looking at the picture makes me want to go back and play again!  I took this right as we were leaving, and you can tell that he's kind of sad about going.  He's signing "More!"

After that it was off to our lunch date, where that dense, heavy bread was much improved both by the company and by toasting and topping it with homemade bruschetta and some sort of smelly cheese.  I went to Connor's GI appointment with a mean case of garlic breath (we were heavy on the garlic in the bruschetta) but it was totally worth it. 

Connor received a clean bill of health at the GI clinic; they said his g-tube site looked fantastic and we didn't have to come in for another six months!  We also took the opportunity to get the last piece of paperwork we needed for school signed, which means we should be all set for it to start up Thursday. 

I can't believe he's headed back to school already!

~Jess