It's going to get louder....

So I had the kids all day yesterday while Daina worked. I got them up at about 7 a.m. and we were on the road at about 7:30. We have a plan for mom's birthday that the kids are helping me on. This was to be a big secret, but Drew blew my cover five minutes after Daina came home.

There are some things that Daina still doesn't know about this surprise and it won't be posted here until "The Big Reveal" - sorry, I digress, too many home improvement shows. I am going to digress further. The problem with home improvement shows is that I watch them, get a lot of great ideas, but never get motivated enough to do anything with my own house, except for staining the stuff I have, which I did yesterday, for the third time for the deck, but I digress further.

So after our 8-9 a.m. adventure the kids were squawking for breakfast. I wanted to introduce them to the Waveland Cafe. Now they have been to the new Waveland in Boonville, IA, but the one on University in Des Moines, is old school, righteous and ideal for a Sunday morning. Its great greasy spoon fare with terrible service and poor cleaning ethics, but mom wasn't around and Big Red wanted a Lumberman. A lumberman is a plate of hashbrowns, topped with four biscuits, topped with two fried eggs, and then a bunch of sausage gravy. Like I said, mom wasn't around. We parked and walked to the door to find people standing outside. Boo. I knew my crew couldn't wait.

"McDonalds?" I asked, figuring it was a quick and cheap solution right around the corner.

"No McDonald's!" yelled Bella from the back seat.

"What, why?" I asked.

"Because they don't have toys for breakfast!" Bella informed me. (Note to McDonald's - breakfast happy meal people, get with it!) I digress again.

So we hit the HyVee for breakfast. French toast and bacon a plenty. No happy meal toys, but plenty of happy faces.

Straight from HyVee to church. Caroline and Drew made it to their Sunday school classes and Father Vince had a great homily about being generous. I guess that's all well and good but then I looked at my check book register. I guess I'll have to be generous later.

Quick stop after church at home for pasta lunch. No spaghetti sauce, but butter, parmasean cheese and some sort of Italian spice I bought six months ago that is running on empty. There were like six different selections, but we are now on the last two. "I want mine with butter, cheese and spice" Caroline said, "Me too" said Drew, "Just butter and cheese" said Bella. I got it right.

I made those kids scarf their meals down and we made it to Drew's Flag Football practice right on time. Big game against the Panthers next week so we actually started running plays today. The whole idea that three year olds can comprehend the game makes my encouragement from the sideline seem even all that more ridiculous. Drew would see someone bending over to hike the ball and he would get in front of them and get in the same position, all the while his but in some unexpecting kids face. Sometimes Drew would tip over. Each time he laughed. Its great to see him just standing there looking into the clouds thinking about stuff, thinking about anything other than the task at hand. What do I care, he's three.

Home from flag football and its "Happy night night time" - kids down for a nap. I stained the deck for a couple of hours, she's all done for now, or at least I thought it was until Daina pointed out a spot to me when she got home.

So Daina gets home at about 7 and I made dinner. Tacos, from a box, not the meat, but the rest of it was. At this point I told Daina that I need about 15 minutes of quiet. I somehow found a beer in the fridge - and it was a good beer, a micro brew I actually bought at a company auction a year prior. It had aged well. It was like found treasure. I went upstairs and geeked out on football for about 15 minutes and came back downstairs.

"You feeling better?" Daina asked.

"Yeah, just needed a little quiet" I said, "I've had the kids all day and it was getting loud."

"Well," Daina says holding her pregnant belly, "It's going to get louder."