Sunday, April 02, 2006

The Simple Life

This weekend I cleaned out my car. Or I guess, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should say, my minivan.

Not only do I drive a minivan, I drive a minivan so full of carseats that I can barely transport any adult persons and furthermore, if said adult companion were to be so intrepid as to attempt to ride in my terror of a Mom-mobile, they would likely emerge with a small feast of old snacks and moldy fruit bits attached to their posterior. Really. It's not pretty.

As the weather is heating up quickly, I decided that I must maintain some sense of cleanliness and avoid the inevitable smell that would soon emanate from my minivan. So I took the afternoon to vacuum it out.

While I crawled around cursing and vacuuming, the children crowded around asking questions about my activities and trying to "help me" until I screamed like a fishwife and threatened death to the next child of mine who wasn't playing nicely in the street, where they belonged. They complied and I followed my vacuuming with the liberal application of Armour-All and a damp cloth.

When I emerged, sweaty but victorious from my van, this is what awaited me.

Ribh had decided to go swimming in the dog dish. And her siblings had apparently obliged her need to cool off with a hosing off of her head. With the garden hose. Why she wasn't crying is beyond me.

Then she tried to ride Gabe's bike. (Notice the awesome "Plumber's Butt" she is sporting.)

Then she crawled over to me (as if I was going to pick her up in that state.) And yes, she is still crawling. Apparently, she will be brilliant rather than athletic, this one.

See how brilliant she appears. Cute though, right?

Simple minds are easily amused.

And the big kids got put in Time Out when they climbed into my clean van in their muddy states after I had clearly told them not to touch the van and not to turn the hose on their little sister, AGAIN!


This post was totally worth waiting for, was it not? Sigh. Well, at least I managed to upload some of the pictures y'all are always clamouring for! The final photo is worth clicking on to blow up and view the studied expression of innocence Quin is working.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know I was similarly inspried and the next day Josh spilled a full bottle of non other than chocolate milk in the back. G-d help me get through this summer.

Anna Banana said...

Yes! yes! yes! It was worth waiting for! I love seeing all your little rugrats in their skinned kneed glory! Glad to hear you got the van cleaned up, need to do that myself with our car, it's a mess! Now that my sense of smell is start to approach normalacy i think I could attempt the job. But the ever burgeoning tummy will soon be getting in the way, better make hay while the sun shines!

Anonymous said...

OMG! She looks just like Mr. Gabers.
Seriously.